The windy city took the wind out of the Matadors.? Chicago State took the winning streak.? In one of Northridge's poorest defensive outings of the season, the Matadors ran out of second-half comebacks in an 83-75 defeat at Chicago State on Tuesday night.

Come on ref! You're missing a good game!" said the custodian, implying at least partial blindness by the referees at the CSUN-Utah Valley State basketball game. The man, who had earlier accompanied Northridge's Jonathan Heard while he practiced, proceeded, "You blew that one!" The custodian, along with 1,000 other fans attending the game were voicing their disapproval after a no-call following Heard's missed dunk-attempt on a breakaway.

In what players called a "wakeup-call game," the Matadors almost didn't get up in time from a nightmare. Deon Tresvant's three-pointers down the stretch, however, provided the alarm clock. Northridge trailed throughout the game, only to come back -yet again- in the final minutes, to stay perfect in the Big West Conference with a 66-62 win at pesky Riverside on Wednesday night.

Once finals' week was done, so were most of the Matadors' rivals. The Northridge men's basketball team went 7-1 over the winter break span, defeating Big West Conference rivals Santa Barbara, Cal Poly, Pacific, UC Davis and Riverside, for a 5-0 start in conference play.