Matadors Face Road Test at Fresno State

Monday, November 13

Fresno, CA

7:00 p.m.

California State University at Northridge

Fresno State

Photo by: Paul Trafecanty

Matadors Face Road Test at Fresno State

11/12/2017 9:30:00 AM | Men's Basketball

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NORTHRIDGE, CA---CSUN Men's Basketball (1-0) kicks off the Cancun Challenge at Fresno State on Monday evening at 7 p.m. inside the Save Mart Center. The game will be streamed live on the Mountain West Network and an audio only broadcast will be available on the CSUN Sports Network presented by Dignity Health with Ghizal Hasan and Alan Zinsmeister on the call.

The Matadors will play four games in the Cancun Challenge with the first two games played in the United States. After CSUN's game at Fresno State, the Matadors visit George Mason on Saturday, Nov. 18. CSUN will then take on Southeast Missouri State in Cancun on Nov. 21. The Matadors conclude their stay in Mexico a day later with a matchup with either Binghamton or Montana State. The games in Mexico are the first contests to be played outside the United States in Matador history.

CSUN kicked off the 2017-18 season on the right foot with a wire-to-wire victory over Life Pacific, 76-50. Terrell Gomez led the Matadors with 15 points on 6-of-10 shooting to go along with five assists in his CSUN debut while Tavrion Dawson had 14 points and four assists and Micheal Warren finished with 13 points and six rebounds. Also making their Matador debuts, Zeno Lake tallied 10 points and nine rebounds and Lyrik Shreiner finished with 11 points, nine rebounds, three assists and two steals.

Along with Gomez, Lake and Shreiner, the game featured the CSUN debuts of Carl Brown, Anthony Swan, Jalon Pipkins, Jonathan Guevara and Alex Sokol. This season, the Matadors have 11 newcomers including two redshirts from last season (Shreiner and Swan).

Breaking open a 10-point game at the half, the Matadors led by as many as 27 points in the second half and finished shooting 46.4 percent from the field including 45.0 percent from beyond the 3-point arc. CSUN reached the 50-rebound mark in a game for the first time since collecting 53 boards in last season's opener against Pomona-Pitzer.

Fresno State holds a 27-5 edge over the Matadors in the all-time series, dating back to 1960. CSUN has played the Bulldogs seven times in its Division I era with its only win coming in the 1999-00 season. The Bulldogs defeated the Matadors 80-64 four seasons ago in the teams' last meeting. Overall, Fresno State has won the last three contests. The last Matador wins over Mountain West Conference teams came in 2005 (Utah State) and 2002 (San Jose State), however those teams were not in the conference at the time. CSUN's last win over a team competing in the conference was a 74-71 decision over Wyoming in 2000.

The Matadors are 15-44 all time in road openers in program history. The team's last road-opening win came five years ago as CSUN won at San Diego 74-71.

A Closer Look at Fresno State
The Bulldogs defeated UC Santa Cruz 96-65 in their season opener on Friday. Last season, Fresno State went 20-13 and 11-7 in conference play. Among the team's accomplishments a season ago, the Bulldogs won eight times over Top 100 RPI teams and competed in the National Invitational Tournament. Six players scored in double figures in the Bulldogs' win on Friday led by junior Deshon Taylor who scored 16 points, dished out six assists and collected three steals. Sophomore Bryson Williams chipped in with 15 points and six rebounds. Taylor and senior Jaron Hopkins were named to the preseason All-Mountain West Conference Team.