Despite a 90-70 road loss to Northern Arizona University Saturday, the Sacramento State men’s basketball team remains in the sixth and final playoff spot in the Big Sky Conference.

“If we get in the playoffs, we’ll win the whole thing,” forward Jay Richardson said. “Nobody wants to play us.”

Sac State (9-15 overall, 3-7 in the Big Sky) has struggled all season on the road. The recent loss was the program’s 45th consecutive defeat on the road, a slide which began last season.

“The (road) victory will come once, and then they’ll come in waves,” Jenkins said.

The Hornets were leading in the first half, 34-26, before a 15-0 run by NAU left Sac State trailing 41-34 at the half.

“We got a little bit complacent and were never really able to recover,” Jenkins said.

Poor shooting plagued Sac State, as it shot an anemic 2-of-20 from beyond the 3-point arc and only 40.6 percent from the floor.

But the biggest difference in the game was the disparity in free-throw attempts.

Sac State’s frontcourt found itself in foul trouble early, and NAU was able to take complete advantage. The Hornets only made 18 trips to the line compared to NAU’s 45 free throw attempts.

NAU was able to connect on 34 of those free throws while Sac State converted just 12 points from the stripe for the game.

“NAU, they went out and they beat us,” Jenkins said. “They did what they were supposed to.”

For some Hornet players, it was the first time making the trip out to Flagstaff, Ari., and the change in altitude may have caught the team off guard.

Although Jenkins did not feel the altitude played a big part in the team’s defeat, he did feel it affected its endurance, which proved evident as the game lingered on.

With Saturday’s loss behind them Sac State now moves its focus to a trip to Montana, where they will play the University of Montana Friday night and Montana State University on Saturday night. Both games will tip off at 7:05 p.m.

In January the Hornets suffered a 10-point loss to Montana at home, but pummeled Montana St. by 22 points.

Sac State is hoping to at least pick up one win on the road trip, thus ending the streak and breaking a few more records. With one more win, the Hornets will break school records for conference wins as well as overall wins.

Since Sac State has joined he Big Sky Conference, the program was unable to win more than three conference games in a season.

No Sac State team has been able to win more than nine games in a single season either, and the Hornets are also on the verge of breaking that record.

“Our big goal is to get to the Big Sky tournament. Anything else is icing on the cake,” Jenkins said.

Some unexpected injuries have made things more difficult for the Hornets going into their final stretch.

Point guard Ronnie Walton will most likely be out for the season due to hairline fractures in his shin.

Walton has been playing with the Hornets for most of the year, but the pain started to increase as the season progressed.

“(Walton) brought a lot of intensity to our team. On the road, it’s really evident we don’t have that,” Jenkins said.

Junior Derek Lambeth is on the road to recovery from a knee injury.

He played nine minutes in Saturday’s loss but is still trying to get back in sync with the team.

The team’s two game road trip to Montana will be vital to keep them in contention for making the conference tournament.

“If we could just get a win. We go out every night and my guys are fairly confident,” Jenkins said. “We want to get to the Big Sky tournament on a neutral site. We’re very dangerous and we’ve showed we can beat the very best.”

The Hornets have four games left in the regular season to show just how dangerous they really are.