Southern Utah Basketball Falls Short In Loss To Cal Baptist Lancers
Jan 20, 2024, 8:24 PM
(Courtesy of SUU Athletics)
RIVERSIDE, Calif. – The Southern Utah Thunderbirds men’s basketball team fell to the Cal Baptist Lancers, 83-76, despite some big performances from the T-Birds.
Parsa Fallah led SUU in the first half with 12 points. It was all Dominique Ford after halftime as he scored 28 points.
Southern Utah will head to Texas on Friday for a game against Tarleton State.
— SUU Men’s Basketball (@SUUBasketball) January 21, 2024
First Half
Parsa Fallah got the T-Birds started with a post hook near the free throw line.
Fallah would be Southern Utah’s go-to guy in the first half. He was SUU’s only double-digit scorer with 12.
Parsa gets us going early with a sweeeet baby hook pic.twitter.com/9sKMwvGHM1
— SUU Men’s Basketball (@SUUBasketball) January 21, 2024
Most of those points came very early on too.
Fallah scored eight of Southern Utah’s first ten points.
The Thunderbirds led, 10-7, with most of the points coming right at the rim.
Parsa with a strong offensive rebound and putback 💪🏽💪🏽
He’s got 8 of our 10 points so far! pic.twitter.com/tTlRQM3NVI
— SUU Men’s Basketball (@SUUBasketball) January 21, 2024
Cal Baptist went on a 16-9 run over the next five minutes to take the lead.
Just about halfway through the first half, the game was tied at 23.
Zion drops in a deep one for his first points of the game! pic.twitter.com/jUfICxD4mq
— SUU Men’s Basketball (@SUUBasketball) January 21, 2024
With the home crowd behind them, the Lancers rattled off eight unanswered points.
The rest of the half was mostly defense as CBU held onto its lead.
Southern Utah missed its last six attempts before halftime and trailed by seven, 37-30.
— SUU Men’s Basketball (@SUUBasketball) January 21, 2024
Second Half
Coming out of the break, the Thunderbirds began slowly chipped away at the Lancers’ lead.
Southern Utah was able to pick up some extra stops and take advantage of scoring opportunities early in the half.
Too little. And-1 for dom, to cut the lead to 5 pic.twitter.com/Ygn5RWHd1T
— SUU Men’s Basketball (@SUUBasketball) January 21, 2024
With ten minutes left in regulation, SUU closed the lead all the way down to two.
But Cal Baptist wasn’t going away.
It took almost no time for the Lancers to regain a 7-point advantage.
Seriously? Dom is up to 21 points… all in the second half. pic.twitter.com/j5tW8bdNTd
— SUU Men’s Basketball (@SUUBasketball) January 21, 2024
Dominique Ford single-handedly kept Southern Utah in the game.
He scored 28 points in the second half.
Unfortunately, Ford and the T-Birds efforts wouldn’t be enough. Cal Baptist held on to at least a four-point lead for the rest of the game.
Southern Utah fell to 6-12 on the season with the narrow loss to the Cal Baptist Lancers.
Are you on Threads yet? Let’s connect, give us a follow @kslsports.
Chandler Holt is a co-host for the Jazz Notes podcast and a Digital Sports Producer for KSLSports.com, specializing in all things basketball and football. Follow Chandler on Twitter @ChandlerHoltKSL or on Threads @chandlerho1t.