SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — The San Francisco State men's basketball team closed out the PacWest/CCAA Challenge with a 66-56 victory over host Dominican on Sunday afternoon inside the Conlan Center.
- The Gators (1-1) have won their last eight meetings with the Penguins (1-1) dating back to 2013-14.
- SF State shot 45.3 percent (24-of-53) from the field, 35.7 percent (10-of-28) from deep, and 66.7 percent (8-of-12) from the free throw line. The Gators held the Penguins to 31.9 percent (22-of-69), 25.9 percent (7-of-27) from deep, and allowed just eight free throw attempts, which the Penguins made five of.
- SF State won the rebounding battle, 46-32.
- Jalen Flanagan and Toby Okwuokei led all players with 16 points apiece. Jalen Flanagan also bounced back from Saturday's scoreless game with a game-high 10 rebounds for his first career double-double. Okwuokei finished with nine rebounds. Caleb Oden and Jonah Roth both added nine points apiece, and John Bakke added seven points and nine rebounds.
- Jaayden Bush led Dominican with 16 points on 5-of-16 shooting. Marcus McCutchen added a dozen points and Garrett Siebels had 11 points.
- Parsa Hadjighasemi made his first college appearance and knocked down a three, and Bryson Ryan also made his first appearance of the season.
SF State took control around 10 minutes into action with a Roth three-pointer from the top of the key. Roth then found Bakke on a slipp for an easy layup and five-point Gators lead. The Penguins countered and tied the game back up at 19-19. Back-to-back threes from
CJ Bellamy and Oden immediately pushed the lead to six, and a Flanagan floater in the lane made it 27-19. Two possessions later, Oden buried a sideline three in front of the Penguins bench that grew the lead to 30-21 and forced a Dominican timeout. Another Flanagan basket gave the Gators their largest lead at 13 with a little over two minutes to play in the first half, and SF State led 34-23 at the break.
The energy stayed strong to start the second half. The Gators had a third-chance putback that set the tone for the next several minutes. Good ball movement at the 13-minute mark led to a wide-open three for Okwuokei that gave SF State its biggest lead of the night at 20 points. However, SF State racked up 18 turnovers and they came in bunches in the second half. The Penguins cut the lead to 12 on a Bush layup with under 10 to go but Okwuokei dished to Flanagan for another three to keep the lead at 15. However, the Penguins answered with an 11-0 run that cut the lead to just four with 2:30 to go but the Penguins wouldn't score after that. Bakke sank a pair of free throws, Flanagan made a layup, and Okwuokei iced the game with a pair of free throws with 10 seconds to go.
"It was nice for Toby and Jalen to really bounce back and lead the charge on both ends of the court for us. We're going to need a lot of that throughout the year. It was a really good collective defensive effort and steps forward from last night. However, if we want to be consistent we've got to to be better with the ball," said Head Coach
Vince Inglima. "We were monsters on the glass. We had two or three bodies flying after every ball, I mean 46 rebounds. Being able to finish those stops with rebounds and outlets really fuels our offense."
The Gators host Regis for their home opener on Saturday, November 19 at 1 p.m. The game will be broadcast on the CCAA Network with live stats at sfstategators.com, as well as in-game updates also available on Twitter at @sfstate_mbb. Tickets are available at sfstategators.com/tickets.
Mark your calendars for Purple Out on Thursday, December 1 when the Gators open CCAA action versus Cal State San Bernardino. The first 500 fans that night will receive a purple SF State T-shirt.
