The SF State men's basketball team held their annual spirit night, a homecoming celebration with a Mardi Gras theme, on Feb. 26 in the main gymnasium.

Unfortunately, the fans had little to celebrate.

The electrifying atmosphere was misleading. The fans, hoping for a Gator win, saw only the one-sided defeat of their team .

Coming in with the second best record in the conference, Cal Poly Pomona showed their superiority. The Broncos led from the start and never trailed during the game.

Jahn scored 18 points and grabbed 8 rebounds against SF State, as the Broncos stampeded the Gators 72-56 in their wire-to-wire victory.

"We missed low percentage shots," said head coach Bill Treseler. "We missed some shots that we usually make and against that team you have to make shots."

Most of the Gators' output came from the back-court tandem of SF State guards Alex Thomas and Robert Hayes, who combined for 39 points on 13 of 32 shots.

The bench has played well in the past two games but was a non-factor Thursday night.

"I feel our struggles [were] in the offensive end," Treseler said. "Obviously, we could have done better defensively, but we needed to make more shots."

Even with the trouble, the Gators made some impressive plays. On a two-on-one fast break Thomas pushed the ball down the floor and lobbed it to forward Ryan Wessels for an alley-oop, which got the crowd in a frenzy, and cut the Broncos lead to seven points at 42-35 with 11:45 left in the game.

The Broncos responded quickly. A Jahn tip-in capped a 13-7 run and push the lead right back to 55-42.

Gator back-up center Derek Fletcher said his team was bothered by the Broncos stingy zone defense, which resulted in SF State's poor shooting performance.

"We struggled against the zone," said Fletcher, who finished with four points and four rebounds in 18 minutes. "We are a fast pace team so it slowed our game down a little bit."

Just over 1,200 fans watched the state rivals battle. Many SF State faithful turned the typical regular season match-up into a raucous playoff type atmosphere.

Phoenix O'Rourke appreciated the turnout.

"It was great to definitely see them come out there," he said. "I want to say thanks to everyone for supporting us."

A large and vociferous Southern California contingent came to see the Broncos, who are 18-6 overall and 14-5 in the CCAA. With the win over the Gators, Cal Poly Pomona split the season series with each team winning on the opponents home floor. A month ago, the Gators beat the Broncos 66-62 in Pomona, Calif.