San Luis Obispo, CA – When Portland State made eight of its first 12 shots from the field at Cal Poly and led 24-19 midway through the first half, it looked like the Vikings would continue their recent winning ways. In this case, looks were deceiving.
 
PSU went cold the remainder of the game and the Mustangs took advantage, defeating the Vikings, 72-49, at Mott Athletics Center.
 
After that early hot streak, the Vikings made only 6-32 shots over the remainder of the game. The result was the end of PSU's three-game winning streak. The Vikings dropped to 5-5 on the season.
 
Cal Poly won its fourth game in a row and improved to 5-3 overall.
 
The lack of scoring was shocking for the Vikings, who went into the contest averaging 85.3 points, the most in the Big Sky Conference.
 
In addition to the lackluster shooting, the Vikings were out-played on the glass. Cal Poly had a 42-20 rebounding advantage. PSU finished 14-44 from the field, a .318 mark, compared to 26-53 for Cal Poly (.491).
 
Isiah Kirby led Portland State with 12 points in 21 minutes off the bench. Cameron Parker scored 10 points.
 
Brantly Stevenson paced the Mustangs with 20 points.
 
There were six ties and seven lead changes in a back-and-forth first half. Cal Poly had a 7-2 run to close out the half, grabbing a 35-31 lead. The Mustangs out-rebounded the Vikings 21-10 in the first half, including 10 on the offensive glass. They converted those extra chances into 12 points. 
 
Also hurting the Vikings was the shooting of Stevenson. The junior guard had 18 points at intermission after hitting 7-10 from the field, including all three of his triples. Mikal Starks had eight points for the Vikings.
 
Coming out of halftime, things did not improve for PSU. The Vikings missed their first eight shots of the half. That made 13 straight field goal misses going back to the first half and Cal Poly's 17-4 run pushed the lead to 44-31. Finally, Parker hit a three-pointer for the Vikings a little more than six minutes into the second half. 
 
Parker's three gave the Vikings a boost and they scored eight in a row, forcing a Cal Poly timeout. But it turned out that was all the Vikings had. They were outscored 28-10 over the final 12:26 of the game, getting just 18 total points in the second half.
 
Cal Poly's largest lead was 24 points at 70-46 with 2:10 left to play.
 

GAME NOTES

• The 49 points scored were the fewest by a Viking team since Dec. 18, 2014 when PSU lost 77-40 at University of San Francisco.
• PSU and Cal Poly are now tied 5-5 in the all-time series. 
• Portland State moves on to play at Santa Clara (8-3) on Tuesday night. The Vikings and Broncos meet at 7 p.m. in a game live streamed on www.WCCSports.com.