NORTHRIDGE ROMPS CSUN 101, IDAHO ST. 86.

Byline: Chris Branam Staff Writer

POCATELLO, Idaho - It's a multi-use arena in every sense, with basketball, football and track and field going on every year for the past 30 years.

But cavernous Holt Arena was built on an idea from Dubby Holt, Idaho State's legendary athletic director who built a collegiate boxing power in the 1950s. Fighters Ed Sanders and Spider Webb both trained under Holt and are in the school's Hall of Fame.

Holt, Sanders, Webb. They all would have been proud, or maybe cringed, if they saw the pummeling the Cal State Northridge men's basketball team laid on Idaho State on Saturday night.

CSUN crushed the host Bengals 101-86 in front of a crowd of 3,562. It wasn't a close game. With few exceptions, the Matadors dominated from start to finish.

Mills Lane would have stopped this one in the second round.

"From the beginning to the end, we did a good job of controlling the basketball game," CSUN coach Bobby Braswell said. "We told our guys before the game to move the basketball, be patient. Our guys played hard and they played smart, Northridge basketball."

CSUN (10-3) improved to 2-0 in the Big Sky Conference and went over the 100-point mark for the first time since March 5, 1998, when Northridge beat Eastern Washington 104-98 in the conference tournament.

Want statistics? Here are a few:

--Northridge shot 67 percent from the field and missed only 16 of 48 shots. At one point in the first half, the Matadors were over 81 percent (17 of 21). Brian Heinle was the only CSUN player to miss more than two shots, and he was still 7 of 11 and scored 17 points.

CSUN was 11 of 17 on 3-point attempts. Andre Larry, a 6-foot-9 forward, and Heinle, a 6-10 center, were a combined 6 of 10 from beyond the arc.

"We had defensive problems matching up with (the Matadors) to start the ballgame," ISU coach Doug Oliver said. "They just got the feel and chucked it in."

--Every player who made the trip scored except for reserve guard Denny Ogden. Six had more than 10 points. Guard Marco McCain came off the bench to score a team-high 19 in just 25 minutes.

"Tonight you guys saw the real Marco McCain," Braswell said of the junior who had played sparingly in the first 12 games despite being a top-notch JC recruit out of Cerritos College.

--Eight CSUN players had assists, led by point guard Markus Carr's six. Carr also had two blocks and three steals.

"Division I players get open looks," Carr said, "and there's a good chance (the ball) is going to go in."

It was ridiculous, the way the Matadors made the first 20 minutes look like a shoot-around - and they didn't even practice on this court on Friday. CSUN was shoved into Reed Gym, a cramped on-campus court, for its practice Friday.

It was there the seeds of this rout were planted.

"We were all focused in practice," McCain said.

"When we practice well, we tend to play well," Braswell said. ". . . The guys just felt comfortable. Everybody gave something."

Even Lionel Benjamin, a freshman reserve forward, gave the Matadors a pick-up in the first half when he had a tip-in off a rare missed shot that pushed the lead to 54-33.

The Bengals never cut the lead below double-digits beyond the 10-minute mark - of the first half. The closest they came was 12, the last coming on Ammer Johnson's 3-pointer with 6 1/2 minutes left that made it 86-74.

Johnson had 19 for ISU, which dropped to 0-2 in the Big Sky and 5-8 overall. Kevin Sweetwyne, a senior guard who averaged 24 points in the Bengals' two games against CSUN last year, had a game-high 23. But he missed 12 of 18 shots.

"We played four games at home," Heinle said, referring to CSUN's recent 4-0 stint at Matador Gym, "and that was our comfort zone. It's really easy to come out lackadaisical on the road. We didn't let that happen."

CSUN's next game is Thursday at Portland State. The Pilots are 0-1, 8-5.