Matadors Drop Hard-Fought Battle at Hawai'i, 72-65

HONOLULU---CSUN Men's Basketball battled back from 20 points down to trail by single digits late in the second half but could not overcome Hawai'i in a 72-65 loss on Thursday at the SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center. Atin Wright led the Matadors with 19 points while Christian Gray collected 16 points and six rebounds. Elijah Hardy added 12 points on 5-of-10 shooting.

CSUN (5-14, 1-6 Big West) shot 41.8 percent for the game while Hawai'i (10-5, 5-0 Big West) finished shooting 47.9 percent from the floor. From the 3-point arc, the Matadors went 2-of-12 (16.7) compared to the Rainbow Warriors who went 7-of-22 (31.8) but shot 0-of-9 in the second half. Hawai'i made 19-of-23 free throws (82.6 percent) while CSUN converted on seven of 10 attempts. The Rainbow Warriors led on the glass by a 41-26 margin and posted a 38-28 edge in points in the paint.

GAME BREAKDOWN
Both teams came out firing in the early going as the Matadors made six of their first 10 shots but the Rainbow Warriors countered by making seven of 10 to start the game. Darius Beane made three of his first four shots while Wright helped keep the Matadors within striking distance with eight first-half points. After baskets from Fidelis Okereke and Gray in the paint, the Matadors trailed 17-14 with 11:40 remaining in the first half.

However, the Matadors could not contain the hot-shooting Rainbow Warriors from long range. Hawai'i made 7-of-13 from the 3-point line in the opening stanza and shot 58 percent overall from the field. Jovon McClanahan and Noel Coleman made consecutive 3-pointers to quickly push the lead to nine. Moments later, Junior Madut would stretch the lead further to 29-18 on a trey of his own at the six-minute mark. Gray put down another basket in the final minute to cut the lead to 10 but Hawai'i went into intermission ahead 36-24 on a late basket from Bernardo Da Silva who scored 10 in the half.

Out of intermission, the Rainbow Warriors went on a 10-4 run as Da Silva scored four of those points. Da Silva would later score in the paint to put CSUN in a 48-30 hole with 13:17 left to play. The Matadors would fall behind by 20 points at the 11-minute mark after a 3-point play from Mate Colina.

Despite the deficit, the Matadors continued to battle over the final eight minutes of the game. Gray would score six in a Matador 8-2 run that trimmed the deficit to 54-41. CSUN made 6-of-7 shots over a three-minute stretch to cut into lead before pulling to within 10 points on an Okereke put-back layup. The Rainbow Warriors though continued to keep the Matadors at bay with key baskets from Madut and Jerome Desrosiers. CSUN would trim the Hawai'i lead to single digits in the final minute of play after a jumper from Wright. Hardy later drilled a 3-pointer to bring CSUN to within seven but the Matadors would not get any closer. The Rainbow Warriors helped secure a win by making eight free throws over the final 2:45 of the game.

GAME NOTES
Gray's 16 points was one point shy of his career of 17 that he scored while with Fresno State last season. Hardy tallied all 12 of his points in the second half. Beane scored eight points on 4-of-8 shooting to go with two steals while Okereke chipped in with seven points and six rebounds. Brendan Harrick returned to the lineup after missing last Tuesday's game and scored two points.

For Hawai'i, Da Silva scored a game-high 19 points with nine rebounds while Coleman scored 14 points.

ACCORDING TO COACH TRENT JOHNSON
"I thought the guys played hard and stayed with the game plan. I thought we competed really hard defensively in the second half and there were some plays that were made defensively and offensively where we played through some physicality. [Hawai'i] is good, they really hurt us on the glass, but I thought all in all, we competed. To start the second half, we've had notorious bad starts where we've lost our composure, gotten away from the game plan and we had breakdowns defensively and offensively. It looked like we were going to go in that direction then we regrouped and fought back, which was nice to see and hopefully we can build off that."

UP NEXT
CSUN returns home on Thursday, Feb. 3 against UC San Diego at 7 p.m. Ghizal Hasan and Alan Zinsmeister are on the call on ESPN+ and GoMatadors.com/Radio.

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Team Stats

Atin Wright

Christian Gray

Elijah Hardy

Darius Beane

Players Mentioned

Darius Beane

Christian Gray

Elijah Hardy

Brendan Harrick

Fidelis Okereke

Atin Wright