SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco State men's basketball team led wire-to-wire in Saturday night's 84-79 win over Sonoma State. In doing so, the Gators guaranteed themselves the program's third consecutive season with a winning record.
With Humboldt State beating Stanislaus State, the Gators (15-9/11-7 CCAA) move back into sole possession of fifth place while the Seawolves (9-13/7-11 CCAA) find themselves on the outside looking in at ninth place. The top eight teams advance to the CCAA Championships.
SF State held Sonoma State from making a field goal for the first five minutes. The teams played fairly even over the next 10 minutes but the Gators found separation thanks to a 15-7 run that closed out the first half and gave them a 43-29 halftime lead.
Brantley Bynum had 15 of his game-high 22 points in the first half. His bucket with 10 minutes to go in the game gave the Gators their largest lead of the night at 67-48. The Gators lead stood at 13 with two minutes to go but the Seawolves returned the favor and didn't allow a Gators field goal in that time span. Instead, the Seawolves chipped away with back-to-back deep threes from Mason Phillips that cut the lead to single digits, and a Noah Everly three-point play 15 seconds later made it a five-point ballgame.
Warren Jackson's pair of free throws pushed the lead back to seven but Jackson Gion's three with five seconds on the clock made it a four-point game.
Bynum finished his night 10-of-12 from the field with seven rebounds. Jackson added 21 points, his first 20-point performance since Jan. 13.
Evan Zeller added 14 points with three three-pointers and had 11 points by the first half.
Chiefy Ugbaja had a team-high nine rebounds.
Gion finished with a team-high 15 points. Armani Nicolis added 13 points, Lewayne Grant had 11, and Isaac Davison had 10 points. Phillips scored eight points in the loss.
"Late in the game we got a little loose and they started bombing in some 25-footers. We lost our mental edge there. It was a pivotal point where one or two baskets or one or two stops and we could have blown them out," said Head Coach
Vince Inglima. "We just didn't finish it. But at the end of the day it's February, it's late in the year, a win's a win."
Up Next
The Gators hit the road for a pair of games in Southern California. SF State plays Cal State San Bernardino on Friday, Feb. 16 and Cal Poly Pomona on Saturday, Feb. 17. Both games are set for a 7:30 p.m. start. Live stats and video will be available from the home teams, and be sure to follow
@sfstate_mbb for in-game updates.
