POMONA – The Cal State Dominguez Hills men's basketball team made a valiant effort to come back from a 16-point deficit but ran out of time as the Toros fell to a red-hot No. 24 Cal Poly Pomona 69-64 at Kellogg Arena Thursday.
PLAYOFF SCENARIO
The California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) will go into March already feeling the madness in the men's basketball standings heading into the final day of the regular season Saturday.
Although Dominguez Hills knows it is in the CCAA Tournament, the loss to the Broncos, along with Cal State LA and San Francisco State winning their respective games tonight, drops the Toros one game behind the fourth-place Gators and one-half game behind the Golden Eagles. Saturday will pit the Toros at Stanislaus State and San Francisco State at Humboldt State. Both are at 7:30 p.m. The now-idle Golden Eagles' fate in the conference tournament will be at the hands of those results.
Simply put, a Dominguez Hills win AND a Gator loss will setup a three-way tie for fourth place, which that seed will get to host the first round on Tuesday. However, in order to determine the 4-6 seeding should the Toros win and the Gators lose, the conference must wait to see the outcome of Cal Poly Pomona, Cal State East Bay and UC San Diego, all of which are tied for first place.
While the Toros can earn the fourth seed, they can finish no worse than seventh due to the lone win over eighth-place Cal State San Bernardino.
TOP PERFORMERS
Colten Kresl – 20 points, 3 assists
Wonder Smith – 12 points, 5 rebounds, 3 steals
Andrew Whitsett – 11 points, 5 rebounds
WHAT HAPPENED?
- The Toros had trailed for nearly an entirety of the game. Their largest deficit was 16 mid-way through the second half.
- Dominguez Hills did battle back from that large gap to get to within three with 1:32 to go. The Broncos (18-5, 16-5 CCAA) kept themselves in front by scoring all seven of their points on the free throw line.
- Field goals proved to be a factor in the game as the Broncos shot 43 percent (27-for-63) while the Toros averaged 35 percent (22-for-63).
POSTGAME NOTES
- The Toros and Broncos will have to settle with a split in the season series, pending on if the two will meet again in the postseason. However, the Toros win over the Broncos in the Torodome in January may become critical in the tiebreaking procedure come Saturday.
- With 64 three-pointers made this season, Kresl is four away from jumping over Ivan Dooley's (2015-16) 67 and tying Pierson Williams (2013-14) for second on the program's single-season record book. John Nojima holds the mark of 74 set in the 1986-87 season.
