CHICAGO, IL.- The CSUB Roadrunners resorted to Uber cars and taxi rides to arrive to Monday night's game after their team bus wouldn't start in the snowy-Chicago cold; that was the only setback of the evening as the Roadrunners would power their way to another 11-point Western Athletic Conference win, 67-56 over Chicago State (4-15, 0-2 WAC).
The victory, coming on the heels of Saturday night's 11-point win at Missouri-Kansas City is a season-best fourth-straight for the Roadrunners, their third-straight road win and give them their best start since joining the WAC in 2013.
“You look and see three games on the road and now we're 40 minutes away from hopefully going 3-0 on the road,” said CSUB head coach Rod Barnes. “If we can do that it will put us in a great position as far as conference play.
CSUB was led by Aly Ahmed who scored a game-high 22 points on 8-10 from the field and 5-6 from the free-throw line. Ahmed also drained his first three-pointer of the season with four seconds remaining in the first half to give Bakersfield a 12-point halftime lead. CSUB never trailed in the game and opened the second-half on a 6-0 run to take control. The Roadrunners led by as many as 19 points with just over 12 minutes remaining.
“I am proud of our kids, you can tell we had a rough game on Saturday because our legs weren't quite under us and we were short-handed because we didn't have Jaylin [Airington] but I thought we hung in there,” said head coach Rod Barnes. “I thought we did a really good job following the game plan, we turned the ball over when we didn't need to turn it over but I told them it's a good sign of a good team to go on the road, not play as well as we can and still end up getting the win.”
Playing without Jaylin Airington who was injured late in the win over UMKC, the Roadrunners made up for his 10 points-per-game average by getting 12 points from Dedrick Basile on 4-of-9 from the field while Matt Smith scored a season-high eight points off the bench on 4-of-5 from the field. Justin Pride also played extended minutes in Airington's absence and added eight points on 3-of-7 from the field. The Roadrunners shot well all game going 24-of-50 (48%) while Chicago State was held to 20-of-59 (34%).
“Being on the road we're just trying to control the game but I thought our guys really hung in there and did some really good stuff and doing a good job of executing our offense,” Barnes said. “We're just glad to be 2-0, get this week off and work on Seattle; looking forward to any way to get to 3-0, it would be a great start.”
The Cougars cut the lead to as few as 10 in the second half but Bakersfield managed to score late baskets and make three of their final four free-throws to get the win. CSUB also continued their dominance on the glass outrebounding Chicago St. 39-33. The 'Runners entered the game with a plus-six rebounding advantage.
Kieran Woods led the Cougars with 15 points on 5-of-10 from the field and 5-of-8 from the free-throw line. Chicago St. attempted 24 three-pointers, only converting on six in the loss.
CSUB will continue WAC play on the road Saturday night as they travel to Seattle (7-9, 1-1 WAC) to take on Seattle U. That game will be the first of three televised on the American Sports Network, tip off is scheduled for 7:30 P.M.
