CSU Stanislaus basketball teams finally get a stretch at home

No one has to tell a Division II athlete how tough life can be on the road.

The teams use buses instead of planes, and in the California Collegiate Athletic Association, they play back-to-back nights while their Division I compatriots always have at least one day off between games.

All of that underscores how impressive it is for the Cal State Stanislaus men’s basketball team to be 4-2 in CCAA play at this point of the season, having played only one conference game inside Fitzpatrick Arena. The Warriors are one of five teams tied for second place in the CCAA behind 5-1 Sonoma State, which already has played five home games.

“Our fans are great and we have great support, but we don’t travel with a lot of fans,” Stanislaus coach Larry Reynolds said. “So when you have the sixth man at home, you want to take advantage of it. There’s a lot to be said for sleeping in your own bed and being able to maintain a routine instead of having to travel for five or six hours the day before a game.”

Right there is the silver lining to the Warriors’ schedule. Opening with so many road games has created a stretch of home cooking that begins this week. When Stanislaus (7-4 overall) hosts CSU San Bernardino (4-2, 4-5) tonight and Humboldt State (2-4, 8-4) on Saturday, it starts a 10-game run in which the Warriors will be home for eight. The only road weekend in that stretch calls for quick jaunts to Cal State Monterey Bay and Cal State East Bay.

“We’ve done a lot of what we wanted to do on the road,” said Reynolds, still aching from Saturday’s 60-57 loss at Cal Poly Pomona in which the host team outscored Stanislaus 9-1 in the last three minutes. “We had a chance to improve our situation dramatically and let it slip away.

“But I can’t fault this team’s effort on the road, where we’ve been for most of the season. Now it’s time to take advantage of some home games.”

The Warrior women (1-5, 3-7) have hit a rough patch in the schedule and have dropped six of seven games. The last five losses have come by an average of 19.8 points, and holding serve this weekend won’t be easy against San Bernardino (7-3, 3-3) and first-place Humboldt (6-0, 10-1).

The Stanislaus men have yet to play at full strength. Powerful senior guard Shey Mataele entered the year with only one semester of eligibility remaining, so he missed the opening eight games. At the same time, Mataele became eligible, shooting guard Tyler Barber went out because of a strained calf and has yet to return.

So the next five weeks not only will be a time for the Warriors to get healthy in the standings, but also healthy on the court to set themselves up for a run to the six-team conference tournament at the Stockton Arena.

“It’s going to be quite a race to get to Stockton with only six teams going,” Reynolds said. “There’s not a lot of room for error, so you have to focus on the game at hand and not worry about what’s going on around you.”

This story was originally published January 8, 2015 at 2:39 PM with the headline "CSU Stanislaus basketball teams finally get a stretch at home."