March 1, 2008

Box Score

San Luis Obispo, Calif. - The Pacific men's basketball team improved to 20-9, 10-5 in the Big West Conference with a 68-47 win at Cal Poly on Saturday, March 1. The Mustangs fell to 12-16 (6-8 Big West) with the loss. It is the 11th time in school history that Pacific has won 20 games.

The Tigers battled back from an early six-point deficit to tie the game at 14-14 with 10:07 left in the first half, after a three-pointer from junior Chad Troyer (Seattle, Wash.). The Mustangs scored the next four points on a pair of inside shots before the Tigers used a 15-5 run to take their largest lead of the half (29-25) with 2:34 remaining. Pacific led 31-29 at the half.

Pacific started the second half with a 6-0 run over the first three and a half minutes keyed by four points from junior Michael Nunnally (Stockton, Calif.), before the Mustangs responded with three straight points to make the score 37-32 with 16:24 left in the game. A 14-5 spurt by the Tigers took the lead to 51-37 with 10:34 left, and the Tigers' lead did not fall below 12 the rest of the way. Pacific held the Mustangs to just 18 second half points, outscoring the Mustangs 37-18 in the final 20 minutes.

Junior Steffan Johnson (Kent, Wash.) led the Tigers with 22 points. Junior Casey Neimeyer (Woodland, Calif.) added 13 points, while junior Anthony Brown added 10 points. Seventh in the country in field goal percentage on the season at 49.2%, the Tigers shot that percentage in the game (29-59).

Pacific is next in action with a road game at UC Riverside on Wednesday, March 5 at 7:00 p.m.