Fresno State Athletics
Fresno State
Cal State Northridge
Fresno State Powers Past CS Northridge, 75-60
12/7/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 7, 2005
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - Quinton Hosley scored a game-high 24 points and game-best 13 rebounds while Kevin Bell added nine points and nine assists to power Fresno State to a 75-60 victory over Cal State Northridge on Wednesday night.
With three 20-point games on the season and back-to-back double-doubles, Hosley's performance, which included 13 rebounds of which six were offensive boards, made up for the near-10-minute absence of Fresno State's leading scorer Ja'Vance Coleman, who went down after being poked under his eye while fighting for a loose ball with 5:28 left in the first half. Coleman didn't return until 17:09 in the second half, and came back with his right eye swollen and nearly shut.
After trailing 38-26 at halftime, CS Northridge (4-3) held Fresno State (4-1) scoreless for the first 4:20 in the second half and came as close as 49-42 on Jonathan Heard's fastbreak jumper with 9:40 remaining.
Fresno State, however, responded with a 24-12 run to build its lead to 73-54, engineered by Hosley's inside play and constant uptempo push from Bell, who had five assists and a coast-to-coast layup and a 3-pointer during the stretch. Coleman, along with Donovan Morris, each finished with 14 points in the game as the Bulldogs improved to 2-0 at home this season.
CS Northridge, which lost two straight games for the first time, got 20 points from Mike Efevberha, who is ranked 14th nationally in scoring. Heard added 13 points and three steals.
CS Northridge came into the game averaging 24.5 forced turnovers but got Fresno State to commit only 14 turnovers as the Matadors rarely pressed or trapped. Northridge had 22 turnovers.
"We struggled a bit offensively tonight but our defense won the ball game for us," Fresno State head coach Steve Cleveland. "Cal State Northridge plays very unorthodox defenses, including the 1-3-1 trap. We figured out how to attack their defenses, which allowed us to score because of our defense.
"To their credit, they are a very hard team to attack," Cleveland stated. "We were able to score in transition when we couldn't get anything going in the half court. We had guys penetrate to open up our perimeter shooting. We kept focusing on our defense and, in the end, that allowed us to come away with a win.
"If we can win without our best offensive output and do it with defense, that's a great credit to this team," Cleveland added. "We need everyone, from one to nine, on this team to contribute and perform their roles; I think everyone knows what their job is and they are focused on getting it done.
"I thought Ja'Vance (Coleman) came in and gave us a lot of energy, especially after he went down." Cleveland said. "He broke traps for us, had big passes and just gave us a lift. Donovan (Morris) hit some big threes and Quinton (Hosley) just played so hard. Hector (Hernandez) simply did an outstanding job defensively.
"We took care of the basketball the last 12 minutes of the game," Cleveland noted. "That's the personality of this team, to compete and play hard for every possession for all 40 minutes. I have a great respect for these young men. Defense was the key tonight."
