SAN MARCOS, Calif. — The San Francisco State men's basketball team carried its momentum from Saturday's upset of then-No. 21 Cal State LA into this week. The Gators built an early lead versus host Cal State San Marcos only to see it disappear but held on with a bucket in the final second to earn the 69-67 victory inside the Sports Center.
- San Francisco State improves to 10-8 on the year and moves to 4-6 in CCAA action. Cal State San Marcos slips to 7-9 overall and to 6-4 in CCAA play.
- Jailen Daniel-Dalton led the Gators with 19 points on 6-of-12 shooting. He scored the game-winning basket and had nine rebounds.
- Jonah Roth notched a double-double with 15 points and 12 rebounds. Donovan Cooks rounded out Gators in double digits with 13 points.
- All ten Gators who checked into the game scored at least one point in Thursday's win.
- The CCAA's leading scorer, Edwyn Collins, led all players with 24 points and shared the Cougars' team lead with seven rebounds. Mike Pope added 16 points and Charlie Henderson chipped in a dozen points in the loss.
- San Francisco State outworked its opponent on the glass, 41-30.
- The Gators shot slightly better from the field (25-of-58, 43.1 percent) than the Cougars (24-of-58, 41.4 percent), though CSUSM shot a smidge better from behind the three-point line (10-of-28, 35.7 percent) compared to SF State (10-of-29, 34.5 percent).
The Gators started the game on a 7-2 run and quickly led 22-13. However, CSUSM knotted the game back at 22-22 before Alec Smith's only bucket of the game put SF State back in front, 24-22, with two minutes left in the half. Neither team scored after that and SF State headed into halftime with the two-point lead.
In the second half, with the Gators still up two at the 16-minute mark, the Cougars rattled off a 7-0 run for a 36-31 advantage. The Gators responded with the next six points as a Daniel-Dalton dunk put SF State back up front, 37-36, and Bakke followed with his only bucket of the night, a three-pointer that capped off the 9-0 Gators run. Back-to-back threes from Burrell and Roth, followed by a Roth layup eventually pushed the lead to 10, and SF State grabbed its largest lead of the night with 3:16 to go. However, things nearly fell apart for the Gators as the Cougars surged for a 15-2 run over the next three minutes and erased the deficit, making it 67-67 with 15 seconds to go. The Gators called timeout with 10.1 seconds to go. Donovan Cooks inbounded from the side to CJ Bellamy who drove to the three-point line and found a wide open Daniel-Dalton, who slipped past his defender for the easy layup. That gave the Gators the two-point lead with .9 seconds to go, and the Cougars couldn't get off a final shot attempt.
SF State faces Sonoma State on Saturday, January 20 at 3 p.m. On Thursday night, the Seawolves pulled even at 5-5 in CCAA play with a win over Cal State East Bay. Saturday's game in the Wolves' Den will be broadcast on the CCAA Network with live stats available at sfstategators.com, as well as updates on X at @sfstate_mbb.
