Late Rally Not Enough In 69-62 setback to San José State

USAF ACADEMY, Colo. - Air Force men's basketball dropped a 69-62 contest to San José State (8-10, 1-5 MW) in Mountain West play on Saturday afternoon at Clune Arena. Senior guard Ethan Taylor led the Falcons with 16 points.

AIr Force led 31-29 at the half. The teams traded leads nine times in a back-and-forth battle in the opening half. A buzzer-beating three by Taylor put the Falcons ahead at halftime.

San Jose State opened the second half with an 11-0 to jump ahead 40-31. The Falcons continued to struggle to get its offense going, as the Spartans built their lead into double-digits.

The Spartans led by as many as 15 before a furious late-game rally by the Falcons. After trading buckets to get the game down to 14, the Falcons went on a 9-0 with three-straight three's to pull to within five with 1:48 to play. Beau Becker hit back-to-back three's and Will Cooper knocked down the third to make it a 62-57 game.

San Jose State was able to withstand the late rally, by making four free throws with less than 30 seconds in the game to hold off the Falcons.

Taylor led the Falcons in scoring, also hitting four three's. His four three's gave him 207 for his career, moving him into fifth place for most three's made at Air Force. He also went from 21st to 17th all-time in scoring with 1,109 career points. Taylor also led the Falcons with six assists.

Cooper had a career day with 10 points, knocking down a pair of three's. Becker had his best game of the season, knocking down three three's for nine points.

Sophomore center Wesley Celichowski had a career-high three blocked shots and senior Byron Brown had four assists.

Air Force made 11 three's on the day and tied a season-high with six blocked shots. The bench out-scored SJSU 30-6.

Will McClendon led three Spartans in double figures with 20 points.

Air Force returns to action Tuesday, Jan. 14, at Nevada. Tip time is slated for 7 pm PT at Lawlor Events Center in Reno, Nevada, with the game slated to be simulcast on NSN and ALT2 and streamed on the MWN.

Footer

The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the u.s air force of non-u.s. government sites or the information, products, or services contained therein. Although the u.s. air force may or may not use these sites as additional distribution channels for department of defense information, it does not exercise editorial control over all of the information that you may find at these locations. Such links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this website.