EFEVBERHA GETS HELP FROM TEAMMATES IN CSUN WIN CAL STATE NORTHRIDGE 77, TULSA 71.Byline: Ramona Shelburne Ramona Shelburne is an American sports journalist currently writing for the Los Angeles Daily News. Shelburne was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She attended El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, California where she was a class valedictorian. Staff Writer Mike Efevberha is going score. A lot. That much is becoming abundantly clear in the early part of the Cal State Northridge men's basketball season. But it wasn't until some of his teammates started chipping in that the Matadors could pull away from Tulsa in a 77-71 victory Tuesday night in front of 1,423 at the Northridge gym. Efevberha scored 21 of his game-high 36 points in the first half, but it was only good for a 33-33 tie at halftime. In the second half, junior forward Keith Everage and sophomore guard Jonathan Heard asserted themselves, combining to score 22 of the Matadors' 44 second-half points, and forcing Tulsa out of its box-and-one defense The Box-and-one defense is a particular type of defense used in basketball. The box-and-one is a hybrid between a man-to-man defense (in which each defensive player is responsible for marking a player on the other team) and a zone defense (in which each defensive player is on Efevberha. ``Everybody tried to be more aggressive because Mike was getting double-teamed all night,'' said Everage, who scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half. ``We knew we had to come out and pick it up to help him out.'' Of course, Efevberha had to rescue the Matadors at the end, scoring five of Northridge's final seven points after Tulsa caught them at 70 with 1:35 remaining. Afterward, he admitted the thought of losing to Tulsa, just two days after a momentous 81-76 overtime victory over USC An abbreviation for U.S. Code. , crossed his mind. ``We had that thought in our heads even before the game. I remember a couple years ago when Northridge beat UCLA UCLA University of California at Los Angeles UCLA University Center for Learning Assistance (Illinois State University) UCLA University of Carrollton, TX and Lower Addison, TX and then lost the next game (to UNLV UNLV University of Nevada, Las Vegas ). We were harping on that yesterday in practice,'' said Efevberha, who scored 20 points in the victory over USC. Although Northridge controlled the tempo of the game, Tulsa's defensive pressure - and guard Deion James's 18 points - kept it close. CSUN CSUN California State University Northridge never led by more than seven points in the second half. Tulsa, once one of the models of mid-major conference success, went 9-20 last year, but looked improved Tuesday night under first-year head coach Doug Wojcik Doug Wojcik (born April 12, 1964) is the men's basketball coach at the University of Tulsa. He is a graduate of Wheeling Central Catholic High School in Wheeling, WV. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1987 and served in the Navy until 1992. , an assistant under Tom Izzo at Michigan State last season. Ramona Shelburne, (818) 713-3617 ramona.shelburne(at)dailynews.com |
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