Jackrabbits fall to San Jose State

Travis Kriens

Travis Kriens

The SDSU men’s basketball team started their 2008-09 season on the losing end. The Jacks fell to San Jose State 70-62 in front of 2,424 fans at Frost Arena Nov. 14.

All 62 of the Jacks’ points came from the starters. Junior guard Garrett Callahan led the team with 19 points, including five 3-pointers.

Anthony Cordova pulled down a career high of 15 rebounds to go along with 13 points.

“That’s the kind of energy that we need,” said head coach Scott Nagy about Cordova’s performance. “Playing him 34 minutes is a lot of minutes, but because of the injuries, we don’t have the depth that we need. Our depth will get better as we go along.

“Our bench will look a lot different once we get healthy,” he said. “We’ll get Michael (Palarca) and Josh (Cassaday) back, and those two guys will help a lot. Josh is physically ready to play, but just hasn’t been in enough practices to be ready to play, but he’ll get there. Both are starter caliber players.”

San Jose State looked like they were going to pull out in front early with a 10-0 lead in the first three-and-a-half minutes, but the Jacks came back to tie it up at 15 on a Cordova jumper midway through the first half.

That would be as close as the Jacks would get as the Spartans, led by Tim Pierce and his game-high 23 points, would hold the lead the rest of the way.

“The first game, particularly at home, the adrenaline is high and it drains you early,” said Nagy. “We got through that and finally started playing. Offensively we weren’t very good, and that is my fault not spending enough time working on it.”

SDSU shot 24 percent from the field in the first half and was 8-of-29 in 3-point attempts, while going 6-14 from the charity stripe.

Junior forward Kai Williams, who earned a spot on the preseason All-Summit League Second Team, was held to 13 points. He was 6-of-18 from the field and had four rebounds.

“It was like we could never get over the hump,” said Nagy. “I think the main reason why is we had so many guys playing so many minutes that when the opportunities were there, we were just too tired.”

The Jacks (1-1) return to the court on Nov. 19 as they travel to Richmond to play Virginia Commonwealth. Tip off is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. (CST.)

The Jacks will play at Drake on Nov. 23 and then host Upper Iowa on Nov. 25 before leaving for a pair of games at the Cancun Challenge Nov. 29 to 30.