After losing four straight games, the Sacramento State men’s basketball team returned to the Nest and responded with a dominant 81-54 win over UC Merced on Saturday.
Sac State, which entered the contest averaging 63.7 points per game (ranked 327 out of 347 NCAA Division I programs), shot a season-high 61.1 percent (33-of-54) from the field and featured four of its five starters in double-digit scoring figures. Junior forward Justin Strings led the way with 25 points (8-14 FG) and eight rebounds over the NAIA Division II Bobcats.
“I think in practice our coaches really tried to get us a little extra time shooting in the gym and playing so many road games it’s hard to really get a rhythm playing in such different arenas and things like that,” Strings said in regards to the team’s offensive struggles. “But there’s no excuse, just come out and play. Our coaches really worked hard to get guys in the gym and get more shots up so it’s paying off.”
The Hornets (2-6) began the game with an 11-3 run and eventually took its lead to as high as 29 points after UC Merced (1-8) struggled shooting 33.9 percent (20-of-59) from the field with a starting lineup consisting of four freshmen and a 13-man roster with only four players at a sophomore level or higher.
“When you have a young team, you want to get on them quick because they don’t have the experience and tenure as other teams that we’ll play (so) with a younger team a run can put them out of the game,” Strings said. “We try to focus on rebounding and the things that we can control and try to make sure we get the extra edge against them.”
Senior forward Nick Hornsby, who finished with 13 points (6-11 FG) and a career-high 15 rebounds to post his third double-double in eight games, did just this as he dominated with seven offensive boards to help Sac State win the rebound battle 51-17 against UC Merced.
“We’re a bigger team, we’re pretty athletic, pretty quick, so that’s one of the things that coach really focuses on as well,” Hornsby said after having the sixth best single-game rebounding performance in Sac State Div. I history. “For me personally, that’s probably the best thing I do is rebound, going to the boards. Coach is always on me, Justin, Eric, Joshua, James, always go to the boards hard, get rebounds and box out hard so that’s a really important key for us to do every game.”
Another important key to Sac State’s success lies in the ability to remain consistent and play a complete 40 minutes of “hard” basketball, Strings said. Before last night’s game against the Bobcats, the Hornets were being outscored 231-295 by opponents in the second half compared to only 215-242 in the first half.
This includes Sac State’s most recent loss against the University of the Pacific on Dec. 1 in which the Hornets held a 32-31 lead at halftime, but were outscored in the second half 43-26 en route to a 74-58 defeat. Against UC Merced, the Hornets secured a 43-29 halftime lead and finished the game by adding to it with a 38-25 advantage in the last 20 minutes of play.
“We were consistent and it’s the first game that ever really happened,” Sac State coach Brian Katz said. “We were very consistent tonight all the way across the board. We’ve had periods where if you look at every game you talked about, we had leads and then we had periods where our shot selection got a little shaky and it kind of transferred over to our defense. We’re telling our guys, ‘hey, if we have trouble scoring, it doesn’t make a difference, we’ve still got to defend, we’ve still got to defend, we’ve still got to defend.’ We’re starting to do that.”
Sac State also started to distribute the ball efficiently with a season-high 22 team assists led by junior guard Marcus Graves, who dished out a career-high 10 assists. After beginning the night with three back-to-back dimes, Graves ended the game with 12 points (6-6 FG), six rebounds and only one turnover in 30 minutes of action.
“Marcus is doing a great job and all of our guards really,” Strings said after Graves finished with his first career double-double performance. “We try to get the ball moving and get a lot of guys involved. There was a lot of guys scoring a lot of baskets today so when the ball is moving like that and we’re not turning the ball over, I think good things are going to happen.”
The Hornets’ victory brings Sac State’s record to 46-14 at home dating back to 2012, but the team will leave the Nest and travel to South Dakota on Dec. 10 for a matchup against the Coyotes at Sanford Coyote Sports Center.
“We’ve got two road games left, one home game left in the preseason,” Katz said. “We’ve got to be right by Dec. 27. We’d like to win all three of them (and) we’ve certainly proven we can do that, winning on the road in terms of recently in our program — haven’t won one this year, but we’ll see how it goes.”
