SAN FRANCISCO – The San Francisco State men's basketball cruised to victory in a 96-80 non-conference victory over visiting Pacific Union on Tuesday night in the Main Gym at Don Nasser Family Plaza.
- SF State improves to 3-1 on the season while the Pioneers fall to 0-8.
- The Gators shot 52.6 percent (30-of-67) from the field, including a blistering 68.2 percent (15-of-22) in the second half. The Gators also shot 48.1 percent (13-of-27) from deep.
- SF State had five players in double digits for the first time since a January 13, 2022 win over Cal State Dominguez Hills. Jonah Roth, coming off of a double-double in Saturday's win over Regis, led the charge yet again with a team-high 18 points on 7-of-9 shooting. Toby Okwuokei added 16 points and has reached double digits in all four games thus far this season. Alex Gilat added 15 points in his first career start. CJ Bellamy added a dozen points off the bench and John Bakke had 11 points, all in the second half.
- Harkaran Sidhu led all players with 24 points for the Pioneers. Sterlen Thomas and Trayvon Little came off the bench and added 12 points and 10 points, respectively.
- The Gators won the rebounding battle 35-26. SF State has now won the rebounding battle in all three of its wins this season.
- SF State got the ball into the paint at will and outscored the Pioneers 32-12.
- The Gators forced 24 turnovers but still made 18 themselves, which directly led to 14 points for PUC.
The Gators led wire-to-wire. Gilat drained a three on the opening possession, Eche Okeke scored a pair of free throws, Okwuokei grabbed a rebound and went coast-to-coast for a layup, Roth similarly grabbed a rebound and drained a three-pointer, and Roth had a putback that gave the Gators a 12-point lead to start the game. The Pioneers finally got on the board with 13:43 to go on a jumper from Little. SF State grew the lead to 17 at the half thanks to a Bellamy three-pointer.
Roth started the second half with back-to-back buckets in the paint, and Gilat and Roth hit back-to-back threes to put the Gators up 27 with 18 minutes to play. The lead grew to as large as 28 and SF State never led by fewer than 15 the rest of the way.
"It's always nice when you're able to get a lot of your guys into the game and play extended minutes. Our starting group was really good and efficient, they took care of the ball, shared the ball and created a lot of opportunities," said Head Coach
Vince Inglima. "In the second half, we turned it over 15 times and got sloppy. There are definitely things to improve on but it goes to show how hard it is to be good at this level. Some young guys got an opportunity and now they know what they need to practice to get themselves there."
The Gators head north across the Golden Gate Bridge for the SSU Thanksgiving Classic, where SF State will take on Holy Names and Fresno Pacific with both games hosted by Sonoma State. SF State will take on Holy Names (2-3) at 2 p.m. on Saturday, November 26 in what will be the two teams' final meeting as Holy Names announced earlier in the week that the University will discontinued its athletics program after the 2022-23 season. The games will be broadcast on the CCAA Network with live stats available at sfstategators.com. In-game updates will also available on Twitter at @sfstate_mbb, pending platform availability. 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.
