Men’s head basketball coach Jerome Jenkins walked over to the scorer’s table and asked if everybody remembered what the score was.

Sacramento State’s 20-point lead over Idaho State with 5:16 left in the second half was erased on the scoreboard and the season high crowd of 1,302 — who began a chant of “new arena” — sat in darkness as the Hornets Nest was without power in a campus wide blackout.

“It is something to remember,” senior Brandon Guyton said after playing his last regular season game on the homecourt. “I just wanted to get it over with. With five minutes left the game was over, but when something like that happens you never know what could happen.”

When light was restored after a 48-minute delay, it was still much of the same. Joseth Dawson, who was named Big Sky Player of the Week for the second time in three weeks, sunk his sixth 3-pointer on his way to a game-high 23 points and a 84-70 Sac State victory.

But Dawson wasn’t alone. Guyton, who scored 15 points, nailed five 3-pointers moving his season total to 72, which leads the Big Sky. Senior Joel Jones finished with 12 points, eight assists and eight rebounds as Idaho State’s (10-17, 5-7) zone defense could not stop the final pass — leaving some of Sac State’s most prolific shooters ready and waiting. Senior Cedric Thompkins also pulled down 10 rebounds.

“I’m speechless,” Jenkins said. “They stepped up like seniors are supposed to and they led us and they did a great job. When they are playing like that all I can do is sit back and watch.”

The Hornets (12-13, 6-6), set records with most 3-pointers made (17), most attempted (39) and are now tied for second place with Northern Arizona in the Big Sky Conference.

The six wins in conference is also a program best, after Sac State rebounded from a 1-4 conference start to win five of its last seven games.

“We never doubted ourselves,” Jameel Pugh said. “At times when we were losing we knew there were adjustments we had to make ourselves, within our own program. There was nothing that any other team was doing that was so great that was keeping us from being successful. We were keeping ourselves back.”

The Hornets were able hold off the conference’s leading scorer, Marquis Poole. Despite scoring 21 points, Poole got into foul trouble in the second half and also committed seven turnovers as guard James Payne shadowed Poole for most of the game.

“I told coach I wanted to guard him … I was trying to keep him in check because how he goes the team goes,” Payne said.

On Thursday the Hornets topped defending Big Sky champs Weber State 64-61 behind a career-high 32 points from Dawson, who is the fourth leading scorer in the conference. It was the first time in 19 tries that Sac State defeated the Wildcats.

Despite the successful two-game home stand, the Hornets are not guaranteed a spot in the postseason tournament. The top six teams make the playoffs, but five teams are tied for fourth place with a conference record of 5-7.

Sac State will travel to Montana on Wednesday and Montana State on Sunday to finish up the regular season. If the winning streak continues the Hornets could finish over .500 for the first time in Division I history. “We are trying to make this program up and coming and establish some kind of history,” Guyton said. If we get the bye we only have to win one game and we’re on ESPN.”

Eastern Washington has already secured first place and will host the Big Sky tournament semi-finals and finals on March 9 and 10. The final game will be televised on ESPN 2.

If the Hornets finish second they will receive a first round bye. With a third or fourth place finish they will host a first round playoff game on Saturday March 6. If the Hornets finish with a No. 5 or No. 6 seed they will play on the road in the opening round.