Cal State Northridge stuns UCLA, ends Bruins’ 29-game home winning streak – Daily News

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LOS ANGELES — A public university in Los Angeles walked out of Pauley Pavilion with a historic win Tuesday night, but it was not the host. The UCLA men’s basketball team trailed Cal State Northridge by as much as 19 points in the second half, rallied to get within one then lost, 76-72, as the Matadors brought the Bruins’ nation-best 29-game home winning streak to an end.

Junior guard Dionte Bostick had 18 points and seven rebounds to pace CSUN (8-3), which beat UCLA for just the second time in 11 meetings. Senior guard De’Sean Allen-Eikens added 17 points and four rebounds.

“Our guys really played great,” CSUN coach Andy Newman said. “I’m so excited about how tough they were. Our guys were not scared and they rose to the challenge. We basically played our brand of basketball.”

The Matadors had not beaten any Pac-12 team since Dec. 21, 2012, and they hadn’t won in Pauley Pavilion since November 2000, a season that resulted in a rare trip to the NCAA Tournament.

Reserves Mahmoud Fofana added 13 points and grabbed 11 rebounds and Gianni Hunt – a transfer from Sacramento State making his Matadors debut – scored 12. Keonte Jones added 12 points before leaving late due to injury.

“We’ve got a fragile group. It showed,” UCLA coach Mick Cronin said. “They’re older, more confident. We don’t have anybody when things go bad to rally the troops.”

Freshman guard Sebastian Mack finished with a career-high 27 points and four rebounds to lead UCLA (5-5), which has lost three games in a row and five of its past seven. Sophomore guard Dylan Andrews had a career-high 22 points, junior guard Lazar Stefanovic had 11 points and sophomore forward Adem Bona added eight points and 10 rebounds.

“We came out kind of flat in the beginning, it just felt like CSUN, credit to them but I feel like they want it more than us this game,” Andrews said. “They had fire in their eyes and they shot the ball pretty good and we knew for a fact that they were a drive-and-kick team and we were trying to play the game but it didn’t work out the way we wanted it to.”

The Bruins had a season-high 19 turnovers and shot 37% from the field (20 for 54), including 37.5% from 3-point range (9 for 24), and shot 65.7% at the free-throw line (23 for 35).

“We failed as a coaching staff because when you have two points of emphasis your job as a coaching staff is to make sure your team adheres to them,” Cronin said. “It’s not like we didn’t know that they were going to drive the ball. Obviously, they hit some hard shots.”

CSUN’s biggest lead was 45-26 less than two minutes into the second half. UCLA rallied behind Mack and Andrews and eventually closed within 57-56 on a layup by Mack with 7:48 left, but the Bruins never took the lead down the stretch.

“We can say that once we raised the physicality at the start of the second half, we came back in the game very quickly,” Stefanovic said. “So we showed ourselves the team we can be when we play physical and with high intensity and play together.”

The Matadors responded with a 6-0 run and built the margin back to nine points when senior guard Gianni Hunt made a 3-pointer for a 68-59 lead with 5:18 left. Stefanovic and Andrews hit 3-pointers to get the Bruins within 71-67 with 1:45 left, but a spinning jump shot by Bostick made it 73-67 with about one minute left. A corner 3-pointer from Andrews cut the margin to 75-70 with 10.1 seconds remaining.

“We didn’t just give up,” Andrews said. “We fought back.”

CSUN then turned the ball over on the ensuing inbounds pass, giving the Bruins 9.4 seconds to tie the score but Andrews missed a corner 3-point attempt before he was fouled with 4.3 seconds left as he tried to score off of his own miss. Andrews made both free throws to make it a one-possession game, then UCLA fouled Allen-Eikens with 3.5 seconds left. He missed the first free throw but made the second for a 76-72 lead.

The Bruins’ 29-game streak included a perfect 17-0 mark at home last season and dated to January 2022.

UCLA’s only other loss to CSUN was a 78-74 decision on Nov. 21, 2000, at Pauley Pavilion – a Bruins team that included Earl Watson, Jason Kapono and Matt Barnes.

Cronin went with a new starting lineup Tuesday, using just one traditional post player in Bona. Cronin surrounded Bona with Andrews, Stefanovic, sophomore guard Will McClendon and freshman forward Brandon Williams. Mack, the team’s leading scorer, came off the bench, entering less than one minute into the game when McClendon left briefly with an injury.

The Matadors raced to an 18-7 lead before UCLA closed to 20-19 with a 12-2 run in a 2½-minute stretch. CSUN unloaded again by outscoring UCLA 20-7 over the final 7:03 of the first half and the Matadors led 40-26 at halftime.

Bona, Stefanovic and Mack each had six points a piece in the first half. The Bruins shot 29.6% in the first half (8 for 27), including a 2-for-10 showing from 3-point range.

UP NEXT

UCLA will host Maryland (7-4) on Friday at 6 p.m. at Pauley Pavilion.

“We don’t even think about Maryland,” Cronin said postgame. “We just worry about practice (Wednesday). That’s all you can do.”

“You’ve just got to try to get better. … Especially when you’ve got a young team, they need to worry about one thing, try to get better at practice. Because if you don’t get better you’re not going to change your result. You give up 17 layups, you’re not going to change anything.”

CSUN hosts Montana State on Friday at 1 p.m.

“We are going to look at film and see our potential,” Newman said. “We’re going to see how playing basketball 100 percent of the time looks. Also, it’s going to show us how the game of basketball is played when you don’t take plays off. I just have to prepare these guys for our contest on Friday against Montana State.”

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