SF State guard Will Logan’s double-double, 22 points and 11 rebounds, weren’t enough to beat the Cal State L.A. Golden Eagles, whose forward, Jontae Vinson, had 25 points and 11 assists.

“It means nothing with a loss,” Logan said after the men's basketball game Dec. 2.

With 435 fans in attendance, SF State lost 82-72 to a tough Golden Eagles team. Several disappointed SF State players blamed a slow start for the home loss.

“The intensity wasn’t there,” Logan said. “We have to stop waiting for them to make an impression and just go out and play our game.”

SF State led briefly early on, but was down nine points at the half and never regained the lead.

“We came out sluggish. Things went slow,” junior David Van Someren said, who opened the game with a three pointer. “We did not play our game.”

Cal State L.A. out-shot the Gators with a field goal percentage of 56 percent to SF State’s 44.1 percent. Perhaps more devastating was the 20.9 percent difference in free throw shooting that Cal State L.A. took advantage of.

Cal State L.A. senior forward Jontae Vinson was honored on the All-California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) first team in the 2005-2006 season, during which he earned three Player of the Week awards.

“We expect to be able to limit a player like that,” SF State coach Bill Treseler said. Treseler also noted that the Gators defense made Vinson earn many of the points he scored. “He made some tough shots.”

“We have a lot of guys that have not played back-to-back nights,” Treseler said. “Physically, it’s an adjustment: sleep, stretching, nutrition.”

SF State sophomore guard Alex Thomas, who last played at Dominican University in Marin, is one of many Gators, whose pre-CCAA career did not involve back-to-back night games.

“We didn’t come out with enough fire,” Thomas said. “In the second, we came out with fresh intensity because we could look up at the clock and knew we were down.”

Thomas, SF State’s points leader, was not happy being held to five points. He pulled a muscle in his leg during Friday night’s loss to Cal State Bakersfield, and limped toward the bench early in the third quarter Saturday night. He stayed in the game to tally six assists.

“We played a tough game last night, but that’s no excuse,” Thomas said.

Although the Gators are a young team, Treseler has already seen positive attributes on the court.

“We’re a team of fighters. We kept fighting,” Treseler said after the game. “We had guys who came off the bench with aggressiveness.”

SF State will compete in a tournament in Washington this week against Walla Walla College Dec. 7, and Whitman College Dec. 8.

“We spent two months trying to do everything a certain way,” Treseler said. “We won’t make any major changes, maybe just a few tweaks."