Cougars Embark on Final Road Trip of the 2022-23 Season
The Chicago State's men's basketball team will wrap up the 2022-23 season with a pair of road games during the week, first, traveling to Spokane, Washington to face Gonzaga University on Wednesday, March 1 at 8 p.m. at the McCarthey Athletic Center, then continuing on to Fresno, California to face Fresno State on Saturday, March 4 at 6 p.m. at the Save Mart Center.
Gonzaga enters the contest ranked No. 10 in the latest Associated Press poll with a 25-5 overall record, having just clinched a share of the West Coast Conference regular season title with a 77-68 win over St. Mary's last Saturday. The Bulldogs have been one of the most successful teams in recent years and hold the distinction of having the longest current consecutive streak of reaching the NCAA's Sweet 16, accomplishing the feat seven times in a row.
Cougars Undefeated at Home in 2022-23
Chicago State's men's basketball team earned their eighth consecutive home win with a 75-53 victory over Hartford. The Cougars home win streak is now nine games dating back to an upset home win over New Mexico State on February 26, 2022, and surpassed CSU's last eight-game home win streak which was established across two seasons, when the 2008-09 Cougars won five in a row to finish the season and the 2009-10 team won its first three for an eight-game home-win streak.
The Cougars enter Wednesday's game at Gonzaga with 11 wins which is the most victories in a season for a CSU men's basketball team since the 2013-14 team went 13-19. Chicago State has won three straight games entering Wednesday's contest and have walked away victorious in seven of their last nine games.
Cougars Snap Road Losing Streak
With the 74-70 road win at Coastal Carolina the Chicago State's men's basketball team snapped a 21-game road losing streak which was 22 games if you add the neutral-court loss to Utah Valley in the first round of last year's WAC Tournament. The last true road win prior to Coastal Carolina was at Lamar on January 15, 2022 by a score of 67-56. Last season, head coach Gerald Gillion snapped an inherited 24-game road losing streak with a mid-December win at IUPUI. Under Gillion, CSU has won 17 games over the past two seasons, which is more than the previous five seasons combined (16 wins from 2016-21).
Independent Status
Chicago State and Hartford are the only two Division I programs playing an independent schedule during the  2022–23 season. CSU left the Western Athletic Conference following the 2021–22 season while Hartford began a transition to Division III in the 2021–22 school year, and left the America East Conference in July 2022. Hartford has announced it will join the D-III Commonwealth Coast Conference in July 2023.
Before 2022, the last D-I independent school had been NJIT, which was forced to go independent when its then-current home of the Great West Conference collapsed in 2013 due to conference realignment. NJIT would eventually find a home in the ASUN Conference in 2015, and is now in the America East.
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About Chicago State Athletics
Chicago State University Athletics is composed of 15 intercollegiate teams involving over 150 student-athletes that compete in basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, tennis, indoor and outdoor track and volleyball. CSU held memberships in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and NCAA Division II before transitioning to NCAA Division I in 1994.Â
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