The SF States men’s basketball team ended their three-game winning streak Saturday after a 61-77 loss to the visiting Sonoma State Seawolves.
The Seawolves shredded the Gators defense by stretching the lead to double digits midway through the first half. The Gators gave up 44 points in the first period while only mustering 27 points of their own. They struggled all night going just four of 21 from the three-point line while turning the ball more than 20 times.
“I don’t think we played as hard as we needed to, our energy level was lackluster especially defensively,” said SF State head coach Paul Trevor. “We threw it all over the place. Just very careless, no point guard play really hurt us tonight. I need a point guard, someone who can run my team, execute our offense, be in charge out there and set the tone defensively.”
Trevor believes that senior guard Tyler Brown has been doing a nice job as the point guard this season, but believes Brown’s skill set is best suited for the shooting guard position. Brown had just two points and handed out only three assists in tonight’s loss, no other Gator had more than three assists in the game.
The point guard is responsible for creating opportunities for teammates to score as well as protecting the ball, but when these key things are missing in a game it makes it tough for any team to compensate.
Despite turning the ball over 18 times, Sonoma State never seemed rattled. They carried a comfortable lead throughout the game thanks to their 50 percent shooting (25-50). The Gators made a push early in the second half to come within 10 points of the lead but the Seawolves quickly caught fire and stopped any chance for a Gator comeback.
“The ball wasn’t falling, we should of went inside more,” said junior guard Nefi Perdomo. “Nothing really worked, we were supposed to come together as a team through adversity and we didn’t do that. They out worked us tonight, we didn’t work hard enough on the rebound and during the whole game really.”
With a poor shooting night Perdomo managed to lead the Gators with 17 points, 6-15, but was outdone by the Seawolves’ sophomore forward Justin Harold, who led all players with 18 points and seven rebounds.
Sophomore center Max Fodor added seven rebounds and 10 points with an efficient 5-7 shooting for the Gators. Fodor echoed Perdomo’s thoughts that the players needed to come together in desperate times instead of breaking backs by shouldering the teams load.
“When we play as a team we have a lot more cohesiveness so I don’t need to worry too much about my man or someone elses man, but when we split apart that’s when things go bad,” said Fodor. “A couple times people took it upon themselves to try to get us out of the rut we were in instead of being a team. We can’t just put the team all on one person, were all part of a team, were not just individual(s).“
