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POMONA, Calif. – The Cal Poly Pomona men's basketball team and the university community joined together in a ceremony Wednesday night to commemorate the 2010 NCAA Division II National Championship. Then, the Broncos got rolling on the new 2010-11 campaign with a 86-50 rout of Pacifica.
Mitchel Anderson and Kevin Menner led the CPP attack with 19 points apiece, helping the Broncos give the home crowd of 1,019 plenty to cheer about. Anderson, a sophomore from Temecula, Calif., shot 9-for-14 en route to his career-high 19 points. Wednesday marked Menner's first game as a Bronco and he added nine rebounds to his 19 points.
"It felt good to get out there in front of the home crowd," Anderson said. "We've been practicing hard and that carried over into the game."
CPP improves to 1-0 on the season while Pacifica drops to 2-2. The visiting Gladiators of Riverside, Calif., are in their first year as a program.
The 36-point margin of Wednesday's contest marks the largest spread of victory for the Broncos since Feb. 3, 2006, when CPP defeated San Francisco State 99-52.
The Broncos ended up shooting 53 percent against the Gladiators and outrebounded the visitors, 42-26. CPP received a strong boost from its reserve group, as the Broncos' bench contributed 35 points led with Menner's 19.
"Coach is expecting a lot of energy off the bench," Menner said. "I felt like I did a good job of bringing that tonight. When the other team goes on a little run, I felt like it was my job to stop it."
To start Wednesday's game, CPP jumped out to a 13-2 lead as the crowd turned electric. Dwayne Fells got going early, scoring six of those 13 points, while Anderson added five in that span.
The Gladiators kept pace somewhat early on, thanks to 5-for-7 shooting from three-point range in the opening 20 minutes. Pacifica last saw a single-digit deficit at the 11:33 mark in the first half, after a trey from Sean Farrior cut CPP's advantage to 20-12.
The Broncos would push on from there though, stretching their first-half lead to as high as 21 when Matt Rosser threw down a crowd-pleasing dunk with 26 seconds left in the period. The Gladiators' Julius Armon answered with a three-pointer, leaving the halftime score at 43-25.
Pacifica found themselves down 15 roughly five minutes into the second half but from that point on, CPP found yet another gear. The Broncos sprinted out to a 12-0 run between the 15:10 and 10:39 marks, lifting their advantage to 27. Freshman Terrence Drisdom played a key role in that stretch, following up PC turnovers with a three-pointer and then later, a dunk.
A Drisdom layup at the 1:27 mark stretched the CPP lead to 38 and a pair of Gladiator free throws brought the final score to 86-50.
The Broncos will return to action on Dec. 3 with a road game at Cal State Dominguez Hills to start conference play.
With President J. Michael Ortiz and his wife Betty joining Dahir Nasser and BEAT Activities Director David Chen to unveil the 2010 NCAA Division II National Championship banner before Wednesday's game, fans of the program were able to reflect on March's magical run.
With a long and windy regular season road ahead, the Broncos will be aiming for a return to playoff madness.
