Men’s basketball team was unable to weather the storm as the Broncos fell to the hot-shooting Toros by 74-69 Thursday evening.
Cal State Dominguez Hills was feeling it early with back-to-back threes that put it up 13-4 with just four minutes into the first half.
The Broncos were able to answer with a couple of buckets of their own and a layup by Mason Dickerson, which tied the game at 16 apiece.
Cal Poly ended the half on a 12-6 run thanks to a three by Phoenix Shackelford and went into the locker room leading by six.
“We played a very good first offensive half,” head coach Greg Kamansky said.
“Only had two turnovers and took good shots, but the second half is what let us down. We had 10 turnovers in the second half and missed a lot of free throws and missed a lot of open shots. I mean it happens, but that was the downfall.”
Turnovers and poor shooting in the second half definitely hurt the Broncos.
The Toros scored 16 points off of Cal Poly’s 10 turnovers.
“We just have to slow down a little bit and make better decisions,” Kamansky said. “We’ve been talking about it and we’ve been working on it in practice. When it comes down to game time and the game is being sped up, you gotta be able to make decisions and relax yourself out there.”
Midway through the second half, Riley Schaefer dished a pass to Shakelford, who laid the ball in for an easy two and CPP jumped out to a 10-point lead.
However, the Toros answered right back with a three from Colten Kresl to cut the lead to seven.
Cal State Dominguez Hills hit over 50 percent from the field and went 12-22 from three.
“We knew they were a really good 3-point shooting team and at halftime we talked about them going on a run,” coach Kamansky said.
The Toros did just that, as they went on a 33-18 run to close out the game.
“We just can’t buy into the antics and into the energy and control our own energy and our own pace for the game,” Shakelford said.
The momentum was in favor of the Toros later in the game.
Cal Poly was unable to knock down any shots to get back into the game.
The Broncos went 3 of 13 from the 3-point line, three of seven from the free-throw line and shot just 38 percent from the field in the second half.
“We gotta get some confidence,” Kamansky said. “We have to make some shots. At some point, you have to make shots if you’re going to win games. Our guys are playing hard, they have a good spirit about them, but it goes back to basic stuff like limiting turnovers.”
Both Shakelford and Christmas finished with a team-high 13 points and six rebounds.
Nikhil Peters added nine points of his own while Dickerson, Chris Sullivan, and Jordan Ogundiran each added seven points.
The Broncos secured a win on Saturday at Cal State L.A. where they beat the Golden Eagles 80-69.
At the end of the first half CPP was down by 11 to L.A., 44-33. In the second half the Broncos held the Golden Eagles to just 25 points in the half while the offense surged for 47 points.
William Christmas had a game-high 25 points, shooting 75 percent from the field and was 2 of 2 from deep.
He also had six rebounds and six assists.
Sullivan poured in 13 points and pulled down seven boards.
Dickerson had nine while both Dwight Ramos and Schaefer each added eight.
The size of the Broncos bigs dominated the Golden Eagles as they scored 44 points in the paint.
One big contributing factor for the Broncos was their bench, who outscored the Golden Eagles 37-16.
The Broncos are now sitting at 8-5 overall and 6-5 in the CCAA.
“We have to keep fighting,” Kamansky said. “We have one of the best conferences in the country from top to bottom and no one is going to let up on us.”
The Broncos will take on Sonoma State on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. and San Francisco State on Saturday at 3:05 p.m. Both games will take place at Kellogg Arena.
Sitting in seventh place, the Broncos are one game behind San Francisco State for the sixth spot.
The top-six teams in the conference make it to the CCAA tournament.