Weber State University Athletics
Weber State University
at Portland State
Wildcats fall 66-59 at Portland State
3/7/2014 5:28:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Weber State's chances to secure the outright Big Sky title will have to wait another day. The Wildcats fell 66-59 at Portland State Thursday night for their second-straight Big Sky loss.
WSU now sits at 16-11 overall and 13-6 in Big Sky play with one game remaining Saturday afternoon at Eastern Washington. WSU has a one game lead over Montana in the league standings. WSU must win Saturday or have Montana lose at Northern Arizona to secure the outright conference title heading into next week's conference tournament in Ogden.
Thursday night against the Vikings, Weber State shot just 38 percent from the field and committed 18 turnovers. The 'Cats had a season-low 17 points in the first half after shooting just 22 percent from the field in the half.
WSU started the second half on a 14-2 run and tied the game at 31-31 with 15:50 to play. The Wildcats would tie the game again four other times during the half but never managed to take the lead. With the game tied at 43-43 with 5:34 to play, Portland State responded with a 12-1 run and would never look back. It was PSU's first win over the Wildcats in three years, snapping a seven-game losing streak to Weber State.
The Wildcats outrebounded the Vikings 34-26 but committed a season-high 18 turnovers.
“Anything that could go wrong in the first half seemed to go wrong,” said WSU head coach Randy Rahe. “We didn't have any response to what Portland State threw at us. We came back and got into some rhythm and gave ourselves an opportunity. That was a hungry ball club we played tonight and Portland State made the plays when they needed to.”
Senior Davion Berry led the Wildcats with 17 points, all coming in the second half. Berry was scoreless in the first half and played just seven first half minutes after picking up three fouls. He came back in the second half with all 17 points, shooting 3 of 5 from the field in the half. Berry finished the night 3 of 8 from the field and 9 of 12 from the free throw line before fouling out with 1:16 to play.
Kyle Tresnak added 11 points and Jordan Richardson had nine points. Richaud Gittens had eight points and Joel Bolomboy grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds.
DaShaun Wiggins led the Vikings with 20 points and Gary Winston added 18. Portland State improves to 10-9 in conference play and is still in a fight for the conference tournament.
WSU will conclude the regular season Saturday afternoon at Eastern Washington. Tipoff in Cheney, Wash., will be 2 p.m. Pacific time (3 p.m. Mountain) from Reese Court.
