RIVERSIDE - They saved their best for last! Facing the No. 5 team in the country in a packed house on Fox Sports, in the gym's final game in existence, the Point Loma men's basketball team came back from a double-digit deficit with under six minutes to go to stun California Baptist, 77-71, on Saturday, Feb. 25.
This was the Sea Lions (15-12, 11-9 PacWest) first-ever win over an NCAA top 5 team. The victory, coupled with Azusa Pacific's win from earlier in the day, secured PLNU the No. 6 seed in next week's PacWest Conference Tournament in Irvine, Calif. (Mar. 2-4). The loss snapped a six-game winning streak for California Baptist (25-3, 17-3 PacWest) and also prevented the Lancers from clinching a share of the 2016-17 PacWest Championship. Hawaii Pacific is now the outright conference champion.
Trailing 64-54 with 5:52 remaining, Point Loma faced its second-largest deficit of the half, and could have easily folded, but instead something else clicked for the Sea Lions, and head coach
Ryan Looney got to see the team he had been searching for all season.
PLNU outscored the Lancers 23-7 in the final six minutes, including 12-2 in the final 3:09. Point Loma went 7-for-10 from the field down the stretch, and two of those misses were rebounded and laid directly back in for layups.
The run all started on the defensive end but was finished by their seniors. A steal by Somers started an 8-0 PLNU run which was capped off by a corner 3-pointer from senior
Mike Planeta to cut CBU's lead to two (64-62) with four minutes to play. Following a pair of free throws by the Lancers' Jason Todd, Planeta again responded with a 3-pointer to bring the Sea Lions within one. CBU would answer with a '3' of their own and then it was time for
Zach Burnham to shine.
On back-to-back possessions for the Sea Lions he grabbed offensive rebounds and laid them back in. On the second he was fouled and he sunk the ensuing free throw with 1:37 remaining to give Point Loma its first lead since he made the first bucket of the game. Burnham then closed out the next defensive possession with a rebound, before
Josh Rodriguez found him open on the baseline with just seconds on the shot clock for the one-handed slam to stun the crowd and put Point Loma up 72-69 with 51 seconds remaining.
Following a pair of free throws by the Lancers' Michael Smith,
Josh Rodriguez again found himself with the ball in his hands with the shot clock running down. He drove middle and kicked again to Planeta in the corner for another 3-pointer, his third in the final five minutes.
"We have been questioning our competitive spirit all year, and we found it in the second half tonight," said Point Loma head coach
Ryan Looney, "there is no better time than right before the conference tournament.
"On offense we found some that was working for us (in the second half)," Looney explained. "Josh (Rodriguez) did a great job making plays on the ball screen, and for the first time all year he was patient enough o to get to those points. Hopefully we are at the point where we are playing the right way before the conference tournament."
Burnham led PLNU with 17 points on 8-of-13 shooting. He also grabbed eight rebounds.
Josh Rodriguez had a game-high seven assists to go along with 16 points and three steals.
Mike Planeta added 15 points and three of the Sea Lions' seven 3-pointers. He was 5-of-7 from the field in the second half and scored 13 of his 15 points.
Tanner Lancona matched a season-high with 10 boards.
However, it was not just the starters and Planeta that made big plays, the Sea Lions also got huge contributions from their bench which outscored CBU's bench 32-14.
Yusuf Shehata scored all nine of his points in the first half, going 3-of-3 from the field and 2-of-2 from the line.
Skyler White also played critical minutes adding five points when the Sea Lions desperately needed them.
"
Skyler White had no stats at halftime and I challenged him, and he responded," said Looney. "You can look at what he did in the second half of that game. He was not the only guy. There were a lot of guys that stepped up for us."
Michael Smith had a game-high 29 points for California Baptist going 9-of-17 from the field and 8-of-9 at the line. Kalidou Diouf added a double-double with 17 points and 13 rebounds. However, these were the only Lancers to reach double-figures as CBU went just 9-of-34 from 3-point range as over half their shots were from beyond the arc (34-of-58).
Meanwhile, for Point Loma the numbers were a complete turnaround from one half to the next. After scoring just 26 points in the first 20 minutes, PLNU nearly doubled its total, scoring 51 points in the second half. It did this by shooting 63.3 percent in the second half (33.3 percent in first half), and outrebounding CBU by three (38-35).
"Our rebound margin was negative in the first half and we challenge the guys to compete in their first-shot defense, so our block outs were great and we weren't giving up the second chance opportunities, and we had a plus-margin at the end of the night," he added. "We definitely picked it up defensively, especially in the second half of that game.
"This leaves us with a lot of confidence going into the PacWest Tournament," Looney continued. "Our goal all season was to be playing our best basketball going into the tournament."
PLNU will face Dixie State in the first round of the PacWest Conference tournament on Thursday, Mar. 2 at 2:45 p.m. Six of the last seven meetings have been decided by five points or less. The teams split their two games this season with each winning at home.
