Matt Weiner (@mattweiner20) – Basketball Beat Reporter
SJSU men’s basketball fell short to Pacific 59-58 in its most disappointing loss of the season, blowing a 17-point second half lead.
“It’s really more I feel we lost the game than they won it,” said second-year guard Alvaro Cardenas. “But also give credit to them with playing such great energy.”
Cardenas led the Spartans with 17 points, tying his season-high, but he also turned the ball over five times. SJSU finished with 18 turnovers on the game, a key component of the loss.
“We had some real head scratchers,” said SJSU head coach Tim Miles.
Sage Tolbert III went to the free throw line for two shots with 10 second left and the Spartans down 59-58.
He missed both for one final head scratcher Spartan fans can stew over.
“Sage has been shooting them alright and misses them both,” said Miles. “It was disappointing for him.”
SJSU went into the first half up 37-22 after forward Tibet Görener drained a three from the corner at the buzzer.
The Spartans shot 7-13 from three in the first half and hit at a far better clip than Pacific’s 3-11.
But Pacific found its footing in the second going 6-11 from beyond the arc.
Entering with a 39.8% clip, Pacific lived up to its reputation as the best three point shooting team in the WCC and 27th best in the nation.
Fourth-year guard Keylan Boone led the Tigers perimeter attack with five threes leading to a team-high 17 points.
The Tigers took a 52-51 lead at the 6:29 mark on a layup from Donovan Williams from an assist by Tyler Beard, who led the team with nine dishes.
The Spartans scored five-straight on a score in the post from Robert Vaihola and a three from Cardenas and eventually built a 58-54.
Pacific punched right back ending the game with five straight points on a three from Nick Blake and the final dagger, a lay up from Beard.
Fourth-year guard Omari Moore only scored seven points and looked all out of sorts. A rare sighting for the Spartans leading scorer this season.
“O [Omari Moore] was struggling, but we still trust him that every shot that he takes is going to fall,” said MJ Amey who finished with eight points. “It just happened to be one of those days.”
“One of those days” is an accurate way to describe the performance from the mistake-infested Spartans.
From Tolbert III’s botched free throws, to a plethora of traveling violations, and even a double dribble on Cardenas, SJSU looked precisely inept at many points.
Overall, a direct opposite of how it looked in the second half a week ago in the upset win over Santa Clara.
SJSU men’s basketball is set to play Cal Poly this Tuesday in its last game before Mountain West play kicks off on Dec. 28 against UNLV.