San Jose State University’s men’s basketball team fell in defeat to Big Sky Conference foe Southern Utah 66-59 on Saturday night at the Event Center.
This was the first loss of the season for the Spartans after previously defeating Life Pacific College last week.
The Spartans fell down 6-0 early against the Thunderbirds before SJSU junior guard Brae Ivey got the first score for the Spartans with three minutes into the
first half.
With the Spartans trailing 8-3 early on, freshman guard Zach Chappell made a 3-point field goal to cut the Thunderbird lead to 8-6 with 14:03 remaining in the first half. The Spartans started to play catch up from there.
This seemed to be a turning point for the Spartans as they took a 9-8 lead and built on that to 14-10.
The Spartans started to lose their momentum and it put them down 16-14, however they managed to regain the lead 23-22, with five minutes until halftime.
With just 17 seconds remaining on the clock, the Spartans managed to tie up the game right before halftime as junior forward Michael Steadman made four free throws after a technical foul was called, following a foul on a layup attempt. The game was tied 31-31 heading into halftime.
Junior forward Craig LeCesne mentioned the Spartans were trying to work on their team chemistry.
They plan to start off with more energy for future matches to avoid from being behind in beginning of the first half.
“We try not to start slow. We try to start fast and have energy which is something we’re still working on,” LeCesne said.
The Spartans hit 36.1 percent from the field at the end of the first half. Freshman guard Seneca Knight looked at the game as a sign of improvement for the Spartans.
“We just have to get better. Stay in practice just to take more shots in the gym by ourselves,” Knight said.
LeCesne felt the Spartans were rushing too much during the first period, which was a factor to the low field goal percentage.
“We took some uncharacteristic shots and that’s what lead to it to. We didn’t shoot the ball well,” LeCesne said.
In the second half, the Spartans tied up the Thunderbirds with 37-37 at the 16:43 mark and they found themselves gaining momentum in the game. The Spartans managed to take a 51-44 lead with 9:19 left in the game.
As the game continued, the Thunderbirds went on a 15-2 run and took a 59-53 lead with 3:32 remaining in the second half.
The Spartans tried to catch up to the Thunderbirds in these situations, but were unable to make shots and grab offensive rebounds down the stretch.
The Thunderbirds defeated the Spartans 66-59.
Head coach Jean Prioleau hoped the Spartans would be able to out-rebound the Thunderbirds, but it didn’t go their way.
“They were tougher than us tonight. They had 16 offensive rebounds and we wanted to try to obviously not turn the ball over. We turned the ball over a lot,”
Prioleau said.
The Spartans only had seven offensive rebounds as a team. Prioleau looks forward to future games despite losing early on in the season.
“It’s one game. It doesn’t define who we are very early this season. We’ll get better,” Prioleau said.
