Men’s basketball watched its season come to an end Friday after falling in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) opener 61-50 against UC San Diego.
William Christmas, who was named to the Division II CCA All-Region Team, led the Broncos with 19 points and five rebounds.
The team struggled in the opening frame as it went cold for the first five minutes, allowing UCSD to jump out to an 11-0 lead.
Christmas was able to get the Broncos on the board with back-to-back points in the paint.
Chris Sullivan cut the deficit to three, when he backed down his defender underneath the basket and tossed up the right-handed hook shot.
With less than six minutes remaining in the first half, the Broncos picked up their intensity on the defensive end as they trapped the Tritons’ player in the corner and forced UC San Diego to call a timeout.
Dwight Ramos hit the pull-up jumper, but the Tritons continued to light it up from beyond the arc.
They knocked down five threes in the first half, while the Broncos went 0-9 from three.
After failing to make it to the foul line and committing 10 turnovers, the Broncos went to the locker room down 26-16.
“Our first half offensively we did stuff that we haven’t done since the beginning of the year when we went on a losing streak,” head coach Greg Kamansky said. “Our guys got a little excited, played a little too fast and too timid. Sixteen points in a NCAA game, you’re not going to win many and I don’t care who you’re playing, so that first half pretty much cost us the game.”
Off a missed basket from UCSD, Jordan Ogundiran grabbed the rebound and pushed it up the floor to find an open Christmas, who knocked down the 3-pointer.
The second half was much better offensively and defensively for the Broncos as they came out on an 8-0 run to get within two.
The Tritons however, seemed to have an answer for Cal Poly anytime they cut it close.
The two-point lead quickly grew to 11 for San Diego with 12:47 left in the game.
Mason Dickerson dished the ball to Riley Schaefer at the top of the key, who knocked down the three and cut the lead to eight.
From there, the Broncos made another run as Ramos found Christmas for the deep three and tied the game for the first time at 39 apiece.
“We had our chances in the second half,” coach Kamansky said. “We played better offensively and tied them, but they hit some big shots.”
Christmas had 15 of his 19 points in the second half alone.
Once again, the Tritons answered as they extended the lead and never allowed the Broncos to get ahead.
They ended the game on a 22-11 run and defeated Cal Poly in the NCAA Division II West Region quarterfinals.
Nikhil Peters scored eight points and grabbed four rebounds for Cal Poly.
The two seniors, Ogundiran who had six points and Sullivan who had eight, played in their final game as Broncos.
“We have a good resilient group of guys,” Christmas said. “We started off the season and got into a rough patch and we were able to fight through that and make it back to a second league title and make it here again. It’s tough to lose obviously, but for the most part I feel like we are a tight-knit group of guys. We’re tough and we’ve been resilient all year and I think we showed it up to this point.”
Cal Poly finished the season with an overall record of 21-7 and finished first in the regular season standings for the second straight year.
Offensively the Broncos finished seventh in the CCAA averaging 72 points per game.
The Broncos’ strength was their defense as they ranked first in the CCAA. Next season the Broncos will have their leading scorer Christmas returning for his senior season.
