CSUN Falls at Northern Iowa in First Road Test

CEDAR FALLS, IOWA---CSUN Men's Basketball fell for the first time this season at Northern Iowa by an 86-57 score on Thursday evening at the McLeod Center. Larry Hughes II led the way with a career-high 21 points on 8-of-14 shooting. A 21-0 run in the first half would turn the tide of the contest as the Panthers never looked back in the second half.

HOW IT HAPPENED
CSUN would get off to a quick start with Joshua O'Garro drilling a three on the first possession of the game. Moments later, Mahmoud Fofana scored on a layup near the hoop, set up by Josiah Davis to put the Matadors ahead 7-4. The game remained tight through the first six-plus minutes of action until the Panthers took control from then on. The Matadors would go on a near five-minute scoring drought, with five turnovers made over that span, as UNI soon raced out to a big double-digit lead. During that dry spell, UNI went on a 21-0 run, capped by a layup from Tristan Smith for a 33-11 lead. CSUN chipped away at the deficit later in the first half, forging an 11-0 run as Hughes made three consecutive 3-point shots. The Matadors pulled to within 43-32 with 1:48 to go, but UNI went into the break leading by 14 points on a three from Trey Campbell.

A Fofana layup made it a 46-34 game early in the second half, but the Matadors never got closer the rest of the way. After a 9-0 run, closed by a Leon Bond III three, UNI went ahead by a 55-34 margin with 17:32 left to go. Bond later drilled another three to extend the lead further to 60-38 before Grady Lewis answered on the other end for CSUN. Shortly after Jordan Brinson made two free throws, the Panthers executed another 9-0 spurt to push the lead to 69-42 with 9:15 on the clock. The Panthers, who made 14 from beyond the arc on the night, led by as many as 34 points down the stretch in cruising to the win.

NOTES OF THE GAME

CSUN falls to 1-1 on the season while UNI improves to 1-0.
The Matadors were held to 32.7 percent shooting for the night while going 6-of-21 from three (28.6 percent) and 17-of-23 at the free throw line (73.9 percent). The Panthers would shoot 50.8 percent overall while hitting 14-of-33 threes (42.4 percent) and 8-of-10 free throws (80.0 percent).
CSUN led in rebounding 38-33 for the game.
The Panthers had a 34-16 edge in points in the paint and 27-9 lead in points off turnovers.
Hughes made 4-of-8 from 3-point range.
Davis had nine points, six assists and four rebounds while Fofana chipped in with eight points and nine rebounds.

ACCORDING TO COACH ANDY NEWMAN
"Northern Iowa is a really good team and we ran into that. Pregame we talked about them exposing our weaknesses and that certainly was the case tonight. They were really physical, really tough and took us out of what we wanted to do because of their physicality. It's a good learning opportunity for us, we know what we need to work on moving forward. I like this group of guys, they've all bought in and want to get better. Sometimes, you get punched in the face and realize you're not as good as you think you are. That's something we need to work on, so I like that our guys have that posture and mentality right now, and I'm looking forward to playing again."

UP NEXT
CSUN stays on the road to face North Dakota on Sunday afternoon. Tip-off is slated for 11 a.m. PT on the Summit League Network. Ghizal Hasan will have the call in an audio broadcast at GoMatadors.com and the Varsity app.

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CSUN Falls at Northern Iowa in First Road Test

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Team Stats

Larry Hughes II

Josiah Davis

Mahmoud Fofana

Grady Lewis

Players Mentioned

Jordan Brinson

Josiah Davis

Mahmoud Fofana

Larry Hughes II

Grady Lewis

Joshua O'Garro