Matadors go down swinging
Men's basketball: CSUN not able to pull off shocker as No. 3 Memphis rallies
Alonso Tacanga / Sports Editor
Published: Thursday, March 19, 2009 in the Daily Sundial
Kansas City, Mo. – Senior Tremaine Townsend sat red-eyed next to his locker Thursday afternoon as Kenny Daniels approached him to give him a congratulatory hug for having lost.
“We lost. We gave it a good effort,” Daniels said. “I’m not going to hang my head down.”
The silent commendation among the men in tears was warranted following the Matadors’ 81-70 defeat to No. 3 Memphis in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. A loss to a team that came into the Sprint Center riding a 25-game winning streak did not spoil the end of the Northridge season; especially not since the almighty Tigers had to dig like miners to pull off a result everyone except the Matadors thought would be effortless.
“People don’t really know of CSUN basketball,” point guard Mark Hill said. “That’s what we wanted to show today.”
Ever since Northridge (17-14) drew Memphis as a rival a day after it won the Big West Conference Tournament, the Matadors mostly became write-offs in the majority of brackets of a Tournament-crazed nation. It was like a science-fiction story where the Tigers were the superior forms of extraterrestrial life and the Matadors were the underdeveloped earthlings.
Physiological tests notwithstanding, No. 3 Memphis (32-3) was composed mostly by human beings on Thursday.
“I never feared those guys at all,” Daniels said.
Panic wasn’t admitted from the Memphis side afterwards, but it sure looked like some sort of unease was running through the men in blue as the Matadors went ahead by six in the second half. The Tigers walked off the court shaking their heads and looking at one another incredulously as Vincent Cordell made a layup and CSUN led 62-56 with 10:11 to go.
Someone yelled “don’t bust my bracket!” from the stands. A No. 15 seed hadn’t upset a No. 2 since 2001 - coincidentally the Matadors' debut year in NCAA Tournaments - when Hampton beat Iowa State. CSUN was doing uncommon things with unusual plays. On one occasion, point guard Mark Hill, who at 5-10 was the shortest starter among both teams, flew under the Tiger defense for a reverse spinning layup that drew woos from the crowd and more head-shaking from Memphis.
“God didn’t bless me with height, but he blessed me with speed,” said Hill, who scored 13 points.
The Matadors started as fast as Hill, scoring at will and leading 9-2 with less than three minutes gone in the first half. The Tigers unveiled their claws eventually and roared back to take a 34-31 lead heading into halftime.
CSUN got ahead again, 44-43, following a Hill 3-pointer with 13:56 to go. The teams exchanged leads back and forth until Rodrigue Mels (15 points) made a three and Cordell turned a turnover into a layup for the six-point advantage.
“They punched us in the mouth,” Memphis coach John Calipari said. “They brought us back to earth.”
But just the way it came, it went away. CSUN misfired on eight of its next nine shots and Memphis rode a horse it wasn’t expecting to get on. The Tigers pushed ahead for good, 65-64, on an Antonio Anderson jumper with 6:54 to go. The Matadors were still within four with 2:30 to go right before Roburt Sallie finished off his are-you-kidding-me afternoon with his ninth and tenth 3-pointers of the game. Sallie, who averages 4.5 points per game, had 35.
Sallie's 10 three-pointers were a first round record.
“We played with heart,” Hill said. “Down the stretch, I feel we were kind of exhausted, and they made big shots.”
With the lead ballooning to 10 with 1:32 to go, the Matadors needed a miracle to complete the job. It never came.
“My hat is off to Northridge,” Calipari said. “They were not intimidated. They did not back down.”
Townsend was in and out of the game dealing with foul trouble when Memphis overtook the Matadors. The forward, who scored 14 points, picked up his fourth foul with 11:18 to go.
Daniels had 14 points. Willie Galick scored 12. Memphis shot 39 percent from the field in the first half, but rocketed to 60 in the second behind Sallie’s shooting. Even with that being a usual reason for Bobby Braswell to explode, there was no way the CSUN head coach was going to dwell on that on this particular day.
“We asked them to come out here and fight and compete, which we’ve done all season long,” Braswell said. “They came out here and did that, and I’m extremely proud of them.”
Galick said it best; Memphis wasn’t “head and heels” above CSUN. Carried by their hearts, the Matadors almost pulled a feat. “Almost” couldn’t get them to the next round, though, and their season ended.
It was by no means a disgraceful way to go.
“It was the best loss of my life,” Galick said.