SAN FRANCISCO – The San Francisco State men's basketball team avenged a loss to Cal State Monterey Bay and split the season series with a 70-61 home victory over the Otters on Saturday inside the Main Gym at Don Nasser Family Plaza.
- Saturday marked the Gators' first conference win as SF State moves to 5-7 overall. The Otters slip to 3-7 overall and 1-4 in CCAA action.
- John Bakke led SF State with 14 points. Eche Okeke added his third double-double of the season with 12 points and 10 rebounds. Devon Jackson and Jonah Roth added nine points apiece.
- CJ Bellamy and Jackson earned their first starts of the season for the Gators.
- Jailen Nelson led all players with 23 points on 10-of-16 shooting and 11 rebounds. Levi Frankland finished with 16 points. Joe Wall was limited to just three points. In the two teams' previous meeting, the transfer from Seattle led all players with 28 points and nine rebounds. Jordan Archie, who scored 16 points in the last game, also finished with just three points.
- SF State outscored CSUMB 38-32 in the paint and had a 15-7 advantage when it came to points off turnovers.
- The Gators dominated the glass, outrebounding the Otters 52-39 thanks to a 23-8 advantage on the offensive end.
- SF State committed eight turnovers, their lowest total of the season.
The Gators jumped out to a 6-0 lead that forced an Otters timeout just 1:16 into action. Wall gave the Otters their first points of the game with a three-pointer but that's the only bucket he'd make. Okeke made a driving layup to put the Gators up five with 17 minutes to go but the Gators went cold over the next six minutes. However, the Gators defense stepped up and limited the Otters to four points over that same span. With the lead cut to one,
Toby Okwuokei dished to Bakke for a three-pointer that moved the Gators lead back to four. Frankland answered with the next two buckets though and the Otters took their only lead of the game, 12-11. Bakke answered with the next five points, swinging the lead back to the Gators for good. A driving layup and turnaround jumper by Jackson pushed SF State's lead to eight and Roth found Bakke at the two-minute mark to make it a double-digit Gators lead. SF State headed into intermission with a 32-22 lead.
CSUMB opened the second half on an 8-0 run that trimmed the SF State lead to 32-30, and the Otters kept chipping away, pulling to within one at 15:57 on Archie's three-pointer. A couple of timely Gators layups maintained the lead. The lead grew to 11 just inside the 10-minute mark, forcing another Otters timeout. CSUMB responded over the next half a dozen minutes and cut the lead to five with 3:31 to go.
Jake Paxton hit his biggest shot of the night, a floater in front of the Gators bench, that pushed the lead to seven and helped provide a cushion. The Otters got back to within four but the Gators kept them at arms length and
Caleb Oden finished things off with an uncontested dunk off of an Okwuokei inbounds pass.
"Great to get a win to end the year. We defended really well tonight, which gave us the ability to win despite not having it on the offensive side," said Head Coach Vince Inglima. "We got huge minutes from Devon and Jake who hadn't played much previously. Their success tonight can be credited to their hard work in practice every day."
The Gators kick off 2023 on Thursday, January 5 at Sonoma State as part of a women's and men's doubleheader. The men are scheduled to tip off at 7:30 p.m. with the game 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.
