Sacramento State’s men’s basketball team began the long road to what the team hopes is a Big Sky championship on Friday as the Hornets manhandled the Knights of Warner Pacific by a score of 105-84 in the preseason opener.

On the strength of a 60-point first half the Hornets coasted to the 21-point win in a game that was not as close as the score suggests.

New addition Angel Alamo led the way with 22 points on 8-9 from the field to go with seven rebounds in 26 minutes.

Sophomore sharpshooter Loren Leath had 20 points in the game, including four three-pointers. Leath made it very clear what the team’s intentions are for the upcoming season. He intends to win.

“I expect to win a (Big Sky) championship,” Leath said. “I won’t accept anything else.”

Senior forward Alex Bausley tallied 15 points and eight rebounds in the first game of his final season.

“It feels good to get out there on the court and play,” Bausley said. Bausley assessed Friday’s performance by saying, “We need to work on our defense and rebounding, but we are very skilled and athletic. If we can force our tempo on our opponents, we’ll be fine.”

Sac State outrebounded the Knights 43-29, including a 19-10 offensive rebound edge.

Towards the end of the game the Hornets got complacent and sloppy on defense, a fact that did not please coach Jerome Jenkins.

“We let up a little at the end and we’ll talk about that,” Jenkins said. “We’ll be watching a lot of film on Sunday.”

Despite the late barrage of threes from the Knights the Hornets had the game well in hand by halftime. Jenkins knows what really matters in the end.

“We won,” he said. “We have to learn how to win games and we did.”

Sac State had five players score in double digits and the team shot 56 percent from the field.

The team had only nine players active for the game. Senior guard Haron Hargrave was among those not in action due to violating an unspecified team rule.

The Hornets take on San Diego Christian at 7 p.m. on Monday at the Nest in their second preseason tune up.