(SAN DIEGO) In front of an electric Golden Gym crowd, No. 21 PLNU Men's Basketball continued its golden start to PacWest play with a 77-71 victory over visiting Azusa Pacific on Wednesday night.
"It's always important to protect your home court," Logie said. "Azusa is a really talented team. They're well-coached and present a lot of challenges out there. Our guys have stepped up to the challenge against them each time we've faced them this year and even the last couple years.
"I can't say enough about our guys' toughness. The last 10-11 days – traveling to Hawaii, playing three tough games on the road and then coming back in a short turnaround and having a game of that magnitude – just speaks to their character and how much they care about one another. The way they dug down tonight, I'm just really proud of them."
Wearing their golden uniforms, the Sea Lions fed off the energy of the nearly 1,200-person home crowd to race out to a 13-3 start to the game.
A
Kaden Anderson 3-pointer then put PLNU up by 11 with 1:45 left in the first half before APU scored the final five points of the opening period to cut its halftime deficit to six.
The visitors then got to within two early in the second half, only for back-to-back 3-pointers from
Tobin Karlberg to spark an 11-0 PLNU run that gave the hosts a game-high 13-point advantage.
"If you can get stops, you can get out in transition," Logie said of his team, which held a 17-7 advantage in fast break points. "We were able to do that early in the second half and we separated a little bit."
APU chipped away at its deficit before
Luke Haupt (16 points, 14 rebounds) brought the house down with an emphatic dunk with seven points left to put the Sea Lions ahead by seven.
The Cougars, who beat Point Loma in last year's NCAA West Regional, wouldn't go down lightly though, making it a one-possession game in the final minute.
Karlberg (11 points) hit a pair of free throws to make it a two-possession contest before the Sea Lions got a defensive stop and Anderson (30 points, 13 rebounds) made two more foul shots to put the game to bed, extending PLNU's winning streak to 11-straight overall and 10 in-a-row to start conference play.
The victory keeps Point Loma unbeaten in the PacWest and gives the Sea Lions a two-and-a-half game lead atop the conference standings.
"With all the new guys on the team, we're really starting to click right now," Haupt said. "All the guys are so unselfish.
"The key is nobody cares who gets the success. We don't care who gets the recognition and that's what makes us special."
Point Loma (15-3 overall, 10-0 PacWest) isn't taking its lead atop the PacWest for granted and will look to continue its unbeaten start to conference play on Saturday at Concordia. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.
"Our guys haven't been complacent all year," Logie said. "We're halfway home. We've played half our conference games. We have 10 more to go.
"Each time we step on the floor is an opportunity to continue to improve and get better, learn from the lessons that we can and see how good we can get.
"The one beauty of this group, in addition to their unselfishness and how they've embraced our defensive identity, is they're very mature. They know it's a marathon and not a sprint. At the end of the day, we're going to wake up tomorrow and it doesn't matter what we did today. We have to continue to prepare and do what we do every single game."
