By Benny Garcia — Editor
It was a cold night in Riverside, Calif. and after the turnout of tonight’s game, the Spartans were surely feeling blue.
San Jose State men’s basketball (1-2) lost a late lead and fell 67-66 to the Cal Baptist University Lancers (4-0) after commanding a lead for most of the game at the CBU Events Center.
After a few missed shots to start the first few minutes of the game, the Lancers were finally able to knock one down on a 3-pointer by sophomore guard Reed Nottage and it wouldn’t be the last shot that the Australian native would knock down.
The Spartans were met with a high-octane defense in CBU, as they missed on their first three shot attempts, but were able to find their stroke early in the first half.
CBU found themselves with an early 5-point lead, up 9-4, but not before SJSU found a way through the Lancers’ defense to go on a 17-2 scoring run for four minutes to lead 19-11 with 12 minutes left in the first half.
It wouldn’t matter though since the CBU offense decided to go on a scoring run of their own and stormed back to take the lead 26-24 on a jumper by sophomore Tre Armstrong.
The Lancers continued to score at a relentless pace, heading into the half with a 34-31 lead.
They jumped out of halftime and immediately found themselves extending the lead on an alley-oop by forward graduate student Dan Akin.
The Spartans were able to turn it around, however, with another scoring run on their own.
Freshman guard Alvaro Cardenas brought the Spartans back with a 3-point jumper to give them the lead 40-38.
Cardenas would finish the game with 12 points, four rebounds, and seven assists.
After a few lead changes during the second half, the Spartans found themselves with a 9-point lead with 5:06 left in the game, this time thanks to a three-pointer by sophomore forward Trey Anderson.
But it wouldn’t matter, as the Lancers came from behind after Nottage found fire late in the second half.
He found himself with 28 points to finish the game with 13 of those coming in the back half of the game with three three-pointers made, with two of those coming in the late minutes of the game.
Of those drained 3-pointers, one of them happened to be perhaps the biggest of the game, as it brought CBU to within one point of tying the game, 64-63.
After a missed three-point attempt by SJSU, Lancers’ Akin laid in a shot to give CBU a 65-64 lead with 1:28 left.
Directly after, junior center Ibrahima Diallo drained a hook shot to give the Spartans a lead of their own, 66-65.
Diallo finished the game with 16 points and 10 rebounds, securing his first double-double of the season.
Nonetheless, Diallo made a fatal mistake and fouled freshman guard Taran Armstrong with nine seconds left in the game.
Armstrong would go on to make both free throws to give the Lancers the lead.
Cardenas drove to the basket with less than three seconds left on the board but came up empty on his attempted layup, as SJSU fell to CBU 67-66.
The Spartans move to 0-2 on this three-game road trip.
They will take on the No. 8 Texas Longhorns on Saturday night at 3 p.m. in Austin, Texas. The game will be televised on the Longhorn Network.
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