Picked to finish seventh in the Big Sky Conference by both the coaches and media poll, the Sacramento State men’s basketball team has once again risen above expectations.

The Hornets (8-14, 4-5) split its weekend games at home, defeating Eastern Washington and losing to Portland State, and remain tied for fourth in the Big Sky standings. The top six teams advance to the Big Sky Tournament, while the No. 3 and 4 seeds receive first round home games. The top two teams are awarded first round byes.

Despite the team’s 71-66 loss to first-place Portland State at the Hornets Nest on Saturday night, head coach Jerome Jenkins remains confident with his team’s ability to compete in the Big Sky.

“Even when we play bad against the teams in this league, we still have a great chance to beat them,” said Jenkins.

The Hornets, despite shooting just 25.9 percent from the floor against Portland State, rallied from an 11-point halftime deficit to tie the game at 64 with 2:30 remaining, before the Vikings ultimately pulled away.

The loss ended Sac State’s seven-game winning streak. In the Hornets previous contest, Sac State won 83-72 over Eastern Washington.

Harris, Pugh stay hot

The play of junior transfer Jason Harris and senior Jameel Pugh has propelled the Hornets recent winning ways. In the Hornets last five games, Harris has averaged 25.3 points and Pugh averaged 23.6. Harris missed one of those four games, out with the flu against William Jessup.

Harris is averaging 21.8 points in Big Sky play, while Pugh is averaging 16.

Pugh slams home win

All alone down court with 11 seconds remaining and a nine-point lead over visiting Eastern Washington, Sac State’s premier dunker wasn’t thinking about whether or not it was appropriate to dunk instead of running out the game clock, but rather, what dunk out of his repertoire he’d perform.

“I was thinking, ‘What dunk do I want to do? Do I have enough energy to do it?'” Pugh said.Pugh opted to attempt one of his favorites. “I grabbed it with my right hand, and then put my elbow in,” Pugh said of his elbow-in-the-rim dunk attempt. “It was kind of like a grab-the-rim elbow.”

Eastern head coach Mike Burns stormed onto the court following the dunk, complaining to officials that a technical foul should have been called for grabbing the rim.

Both Burns and Jenkins discussed the situation before shaking hands at midcourt.

“(Burns) thought it was classless and I agree with him,” Pugh said. “I regret doing it. I did apologize to him and let him know it wasn’t any intentional disrespect to him and it won’t happen again.

“The excitement runs through your mind so quickly and it happens so fast.”

In the Hornets’ loss to Eastern earlier in the season, the Eagles, too, ended the game with a last-second dunk.

“It wasn’t something done intentionally to spite them,” Pugh said about his dunk. “But they did do it to us and it was something we remembered and we wanted to show that we remembered that.”

History repeats itself

This year’s Sac State team has the same 4-5 record through nine Big Sky games as last year’s team. Like last season, the Hornets will finish its conference schedule playing three of its last five games on the road.

The Hornets went 3-2 in those games — winning both home games (Idaho State and Weber State) and one on the road against Montana State to finish with a 7-7 conference record and a Big Sky Tournament home game.

Coming attractions …

This time, the Hornets travel to Weber State and Idaho State before coming home to play Montana and Montana State. Sac State’s final conference game will be on the road at Northern Arizona.

The Hornets are currently 0-11 on the road.