CSUN Earns First First Win Behind Balanced Effort

Thursday, November 12

Northridge, Calif.

7:00 p.m.

California State University at Northridge

1-2,0-0Big West

108

Grace U

0-3

Team	1	2	F
Grace (CA)	37	32	69
CSUN	57	51	108

Photo by: Chuck Marvel

11/12/2026 9:37:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

NORTHRIDGE, Calif.---CSUN Men's Basketball notched its first victory of the season, rolling past Grace University 108-69 on Thursday at Premier America Credit Union Arena. Every Matador recorded points on the night while four scored in double figures. Mikah Ballew scored a career-high 24 points on 9-of-12 shooting while Brooklyn Hicks added a career-best 21 points and 10 rebounds in the win.

HOW IT HAPPENED
The Matadors came out firing from the floor, hitting seven of their first eight attempts to begin the game. Grace U though kept pace with CSUN in the early going by taking an early 10-9 lead. Josiah Davis answered with four straight points while BJ Omot and Hicks made back-to-back shots near the 15-minute mark to build a Matador 18-13 lead. Moments later, Keziah Ekissi buried a three with 11:45 to go, extending CSUN's advantage to double digits.

Noah Charles kept the Talons within striking distance with a big scoring half of 19 points as his three with 7:12 on the clock trimmed the CSUN lead to 34-25. The Matadors though countered with a 9-1 run, capped by a Ballew triple. Hicks went on to nail consecutive threes, each assisted by Ekissi to extend to a 49-27 lead. The half ended in emphatic fashion for the Matadors as Hicks threw down a dunk as time expired to make it a 57-37 game at the break.

The Matador lead slipped to 66-50 with just over five minutes gone in the second half, but CSUN countered with a 16-3 run to help put the game out of reach. Six different players scored in the stretch in helping extend to an 82-53 lead. Davis and Ballew later combined for nine points in a 13-0 Matador run that made it a 99-60 game with 4:11 left to play.

Down the stretch of the contest, Quinton Webb knocked down his first career basket with the Matadors and Jalen Barbee scored his first points of the season on a fastbreak drive, set up by a Daniel Culberson steal. Naceiar Kirksey punctuated the victory by knocking down a three for a 42-point advantage in the final minute. In the second half alone, 13 of 14 Matador players hit the scoring column with Ballew pouring in 13 of those points.

NOTES OF THE GAME

CSUN improves to 1-2 on the season while Grace U slips to 0-3.
Davis also finished with a double-double at 14 points and 10 assists. His double-double is the 10th of his collegiate career while his double-digit assist game is his ninth.
Omot totaled 11 points and five rebounds in 25 minutes of action.
The Matadors shot 57.5 percent for the game while hitting 9-of-20 threes (45.0 percent) and 15-of-23 free throws (65.2 percent). Grace U finished at 35.6 percent shooting overall to go with 10-of-23 three-point makes (43.5 percent) and 17-of-28 free throws (60.7 percent).
CSUN out-rebounded Grace 52-27 on the night.
The Matadors also dominated points in the paint at 64-10 and in second chance points at 18-2.
After missing all of last season with an injury, Webb scored his first career points with CSUN on Thursday. His points were his first in 642 total days, when he was a member of New Mexico in 2024-25.
Barbee also hit the scoring column for the first time in two seasons, the sum total of 670 days.
Emmanuel Stephen earned his first career start with CSUN, totaling six points and five rebounds.
Off the bench, both Jael Martin and Ekissi had six points and five rebounds each. Martin added four steals as well.

ACCORDING TO COACH ANDY NEWMAN
"It's good to get in front of our home crowd and just work out the kinks. We saw a lot of good things out there. BJ looked good, I think he's going to have a really good year for us moving forward. Mikah looked pretty comfortable out there. Brooklyn played tough and physical. A lot of really good things we saw out there today."

On Josiah Davis and how the team is coming together
"I think it's coming together well. Josiah's got great leadership qualities as everybody knows. In today's world, we've got 11 new guys and they were following somebody else last year. It's getting them to buy into what were doing and how we do it here. This group is really good at that. Very coachable from the start, so moving forward what you're going to see is a lot of guys pulling in the same direction."

UP NEXT
CSUN travels next to Troy University on Tuesday, Nov. 17. Tip-off is slated for 4 p.m. PT with coverage on ESPN+. Ghizal Hasan will be on the call in an audio only broadcast at GoMatadors.com/Radio.

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