Boxscore

CALIFORNIA, Pa. – The Slippery Rock University men’s basketball team’s frustrations continued Wednesday night as the Green and White had their second lowest scoring night of the season and dropped a 79-65 decision to hosting California in Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference-Western Division action.

The Rock’s point total was only two points higher than the season-low effort Jan. 20 in an 81-63 home loss to division rival Gannon.

More importantly, though, Wednesday’s loss hampered The Rock’s bid for a second straight trip to the PSAC tournament.

The loss, SRU’s seventh in the last 10 games after a 10-0 start to the season, dropped the Green and White’s season record to 13-7 and its PSAC-West mark to 2-5 at the midway mark of the division season.

Conversely, Wednesday’s win was the first in seven division games for California, which snapped a six-game losing streak and improved its overall record to 13-9.

With the loss, The Rock finds itself tied with Edinboro (8-12) and Lock Haven (5-13) for fifth place in the division standings.

With seven division games left to play, SRU, the Scots and Bald Eagles are all two games behind Gannon (9-10) and Mercyhurst (14-6), which are tied for third place with 4-3 division records.

As a result, The Rock faces “must-win” situations in its next two outings, Saturday at Mercyhurst and next Wednesday at Gannon.

Following those back-to-back road trips to Erie, The Rock hosts Edinboro in a 3 p.m. game Feb. 13 in Morrow Field House.

Junior guard Jabril Bailey and junior forward Maron Brown shared team-high scoring honors Wednesday night with 14 points each. They also grabbed seven and six rebounds, respectively.

Senior guard Cecil Brown added 10 points and six assists for The Rock, who finished the game with a 38% (24-64) efficiency on its field goal attempts and a 29% (8-28) accuracy from 3-point range. SRU made nine of 13 (69%) free throws.

Andrew Young had game-high totals of 23 points and eight rebounds for California, which made 49% (29-59) of its field goal attempts but only 27% (3-11) of its long-range shots. The Vulcans hit 18 of 27 (67%) free throws.

The hosts also held a 41-35 rebounding advantage and had fewer turnovers (13-8).

The Rock led on only one occasion, 7-6 with 17 minutes left in the first half, and found itself down by 16 points (29-13) with five minutes remaining before halftime.

SRU went on an 8-2 run in the next two and a half minutes to trim the deficit to 10 points, 31-21, before California answered with a 6-1 run down the stretch to take a 37-22 advantage into the intermission.

That was a bad omen for The Rock, who have only come back to win two of nine games this winter in which they trailed at halftime.

The Rock’s first-half scoring total was its lowest of the season, five points fewer than it scored in the aforementioned loss to Gannon.

As was the case in the loss to Gannon, The Rock had an ice-cold shooting effort in the opening 20 minutes of action Wednesday. The Green and White made only 27% (8-30) of its field goal attempts and 25% (3-12) of its 3-point tries.

California shot 42% (14-33) from the field but, like their guests, had a frigid effort from beyond the arc as the Vulcans made only two of eight long-range shots.

The Rock committed eight first-half turnovers, compared to only four for the hosts, and was outrebounded by a 25-20 margin.

That was also a bad omen: The Rock has lost five of nine games in which they were outrebounded.

California opened the second half with an 11-8 scoring advantage to extend its lead to 18 points, 48-30, with 16 minutes left in the game.

SRU responded with an 8-1 run in the next three minutes to trim the margin to 11 points, 49-38, but California came right back with an 8-1 run of its own to push its lead back to 18 points.

The Vulcans never led by less than 14 points in the final 11 minutes of action and held a pair of 22-point advantages, the final one a 78-56 difference with three minutes remaining.