Weber State University Athletics
Weber State University
Portland State
Weber State Defeats Portland State 73-68 For First Big Sky Conference Win in 2008
1/10/2008 7:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
OGDEN, Utah -- The comfort of home, familiar rims and a home crowd were all the Weber State Wildcats needed to give themselves a jump start in Big Sky Conference play. Led by a career high 23 points from forward Daviin Davis, the Wildcats posted their first victory in Big Sky Conference play with a 73-68 win over Portland State Thursday night before 2,785 in the Dee Events Center.
Coming off a dismal shooting performance in last Sunday's 52-55 loss on the road at Northern Colorado, the Wildcats hit 22-44 shots from the field and an solid 23-28 from the line to defeat the Vikings but it looked grim for the ?Cats in the beginning.
Portland State jumped out to a quick 9-0 lead before Davis scored a basket at the 16:16 mark. The was the beginning of an 11-0 scoring run by the Wildcats punctuated by a fast break slam dunk by Arturas Valeika with 12:54 remaining.
Neither team could mount any kind of scoring run after those two initial runs. PSU tied the game for the seventh time in the first half on a lay up by Jeremiah Dominguez at the 4:05 mark. That was followed by a Justynn Hammond three-pointer with 3:11 left giving the Vikings a three point lead at 29-26.
That three would be PSU's last score of the half as the Wildcats put together a nifty 8-0 run to take a 34-29 half time lead into the locker room.
Both teams struggled from the field to begin the second half but a jumper by Steve Panos and three-pointer by Juan Pablo Silveira gave WSU its biggest lead of the game (54-43) with 10:10 remaining. The Wildcats kept the double digit lead for another minute and looked content but the Vikings had other ideas.
Portland State came storming back to take a brief 62-61 lead on back to back three-pointers by Andre Murray and Dominguez.
Panos made one of two free throws with 3:04 remaining tying the game for the eighth time at 62-62. The Wildcats then basically won the game over the next 90 seconds on five straight points by Dezmon Harris with a two-pointer and three-pointer making it 67-62.
PSU's Kyle Coston the made a long three-pointer cutting the lead to two. Coston, who was coming off a brilliant 22-point performance last Saturday at home vs. Northern Arizona, scored just four points on 1-2 shooting from the field.
Davis then put the exclamation point on a career night hitting two free throws with 27 seconds left giving the ?Cats a four point lead then threw a down a dunk with nine seconds left following a missed three-pointer by Dominguez.
The Vikings, though, still had some hope when Murray made an old-fashion three-point play with two seconds left cutting the WSU lead to three at 71-68. DAVIS was then fouled on the inbounds play and made both free throws for the final margin of victory.
Davis's seven rebounds tied his career high set on Dec. 28 at home vs. San Francisco. He also had a career 13 free throw attempts and a career high 11 made free throws. Harris had 13 points and Panos came off the bench to score 11. Portland State was led by 13 points and nine rebounds from Murray. Julius Thomas came off the bench to score 12 on 6-7 shooting from the field.
Portland State drops to 9-8 overall and 2-2 in Big Sky Conference play. Weber State is now 6-8 overall, 1-1 in conference action.
The Wildcats are back in action in 48 hours taking on Eastern Washington on Saturday, January 12. Tipoff is at 7:05 p.m. (MST) and marks the return of former Weber State assistant coach, Kirk Earlywine back to the Dee Events Center. Earlywine spent seven seasons as a Wildcat assistant under former head coach Joe Cravens from 1999 through 2006. Earlywine was named head coach at EWU last Spring. The Eagles come into Ogden following a 58-56 setback on Thursday night at Idaho State after taking an early 18-4 lead in the contest.
