Matadors Return to the Road with a Contest at San Diego

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NORTHRIDGE, CA---

CSUN Men's Basketball (4-7) returns to the court with a Wednesday night non-conference contest at San Diego (4-6) with a tip off time slated for 7:00 p.m. from Jenny Craig Pavilion. The game will be broadcasted on the West Coast Conference's network TheW.tv. Live stats and an audio feed will also be available on the CSUN Sports Network with Ghizal Hasan and Alan Zinsmeister on the call.

The Matadors seek their third-straight victory after earning back-to-back victories last week against Portland State, 77-71, on Thursday and Bethesda University, 79-49, on Sunday.

CSUN was able to pull off a six-point win at Portland State thanks in large part to a strong second half. After going into intermission trailing by four, the Matadors outscored the Vikings 41-31 over the final 20:00 with both Micheal Warren and Tre Hale-Edmerson scoring 11 a piece in the period.

Warren had a team-high 15 points in the contest while Hale-Edmerson finished with 14 points to go along with nine rebounds. Tavrion Dawson chipped in with 14 points off the bench and junior transfer Kendall Smith scored 13 points in his Matador debut. In the victory, CSUN earned its first non-conference road win since Dec. 2013.

Three nights later, CSUN cruised to a 79-49 win over the Bethesda Flames, for its first 30-point victory in three seasons. After the two teams played a tight game in the early going, the Matadors ended the period on a 33-15 run to lead 40-22 at the intermission. CSUN continued to apply the pressure in the second half, holding the Flames to 27.7 percent shooting in the contest en route to earning the win.

In his second game in a CSUN uniform, Smith set a career-high with 22 points and three steals while adding four assists against the Flames. Along with Smith, Dawson posted new career-highs in points (21), free throws made (13) and rebounds (13).

For his efforts in the two Matador victories, Smith earned Big West Conference Player of the Week honors. After sitting out a full year due to NCAA transfer rules, Smith has averaged 17.5 points per game in his first two games with CSUN including making his first career start as a Matador against Bethesda.

After another strong week of performances on offense and defense, Hale-Edmerson continued to climb several CSUN all-time top 10 lists. Already the school's top shot blocker in history (148), Hale-Edmerson has moved into 9^th place with 593 rebounds and into 10^th place on the steals list with 123 in his career.

The senior forward also is 4^th in school history with 105 games started and 9^th in minutes played with 2,921.

In the all-time series with the Toreros, the Matadors are trailing 19-15 but have won two-straight contests with each coming on the road. CSUN defeated San Diego 74-71 in Dec. 2012 in the teams' last meeting. The Toreros have taken 12 of 20 meetings at home in the series.

A Closer Look at San Diego
The Toreros (4-6) have won four of their last five games after dropping their first five games to start the season. In its last game played on Dec. 15, San Diego earned a 61-55 victory over UC Davis. The matchup with the Matadors is the final non-conference contest on San Diego's schedule as the Toreros open up their conference slate at Pacific on Dec. 31.

Team leader in scoring, senior guard Duda Sanadze, is posting 13.3 points to go along with 3.9 rebounds. Sophomore guard Marcus Harris is second in scoring with 8.4 points and junior forward Brett Bailey is averaging a team-best 5.5 rebounds while averaging 8.1 points. Jito Kok has 28 blocks through the team's first 10 games and the senior center is posting 6.7 points per game.

Matadors Return to the Road with a Contest at San Diego

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Players Mentioned

Tavrion Dawson

Tre Hale-Edmerson

Kendall Smith

Micheal Warren