Cal State men now facing uphill battle

The Cal State San Bernardino men’s basketball team has not missed the NCAA Division II playoffs in back-to-back years since 1998-1999. But that is looming as a pretty strong possibility unless the Coyotes can regroup. Quickly!!!

The Coyotes were lambasted by Chico State on Saturday 73-58. And it wasn’t even that close.

It’s hard to figure out how the Coyotes could come out that flat. They started the night in a four-way tie for first place. That alone should have been enough motivation. But the Coyotes needed the game badly. They’re facing the daunting task of finishing the regular season with four straight road games inlcuding back-to-back games at Humboldt and Sonoma the last weekend that are nearly impossible to sweep.

The Coyotes also don’t have any quality wins to hang there hat on either. They were already 0-2 vs. Cal Poly Pomona and 0-1 vs. Humboldt. Now they’re 0-2 against Chico as well.

They also had a couple of sub-par performances in nonconference play against Pac West foes Grand Canyon and Dixie State. The Dixie loss looks legit but the longer the season plays out the worse the loss to Grand Canyon seems to be. Its a far inferior conference and going 0-2 against two teams from there will not help.

The Coyotes are 2-0 against both Dominguez Hills and Cal State L.A. but those are two are both floundering and looking like averaget teams at best,.

So when the West Region rankings come out on Wednesday the Coyotes will be nowhere to be found. Their only chance at advancing to the postseason will be to win the CCAA Tournament. As wildly as inconsistent as this team has been, it doesn’t appear capeable of putting together three straight quality wins, especially when their opponents will have the same sense of urgency.

It’s disappointing because the pieces appeared to be there.

 

 

 

Share this

Plusone Twitter Facebook Tumblr Reddit Stumbleupon Email