Weber State basketball: Sacramento State follows Prophet and sprints past WSU
MBB final: Sacramento State 104, Weber State 90
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- Weber State guard Tijan Saine Jr. (3) rises for a layup against Sacramento State during a Big Sky Conference game Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, in Sacramento, Calif.
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- Weber State center Malek Gomma, right, pivots to shoot against Sacramento State’s Arman Madi during a Big Sky Conference game Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, in Sacramento, Calif.
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- Weber State guard Duce Paschal (9) surveys the court as Sacramento State’s Mikey Williams (1) defends during a Big Sky Conference game Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, in Sacramento, Calif.
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- Weber State guard Viljami Vartiainen (8) drives against Sacramento State’s Jahni Summers (4) during a Big Sky Conference game Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, in Sacramento, Calif.
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- Weber State forward Edwin Suarez Jr. (0) drives against Sacramento State’s Arman Madi during a Big Sky Conference game Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, in Sacramento, Calif.
“Follow the Prophet” is a song many from Utah might recognize but, in Sacramento, it’s the new refrain for the Sacramento State Hornets.
Hours after being named College Insider’s national mid-major player of the week for his performances in two wins last week, senior guard Prophet Johnson again had the Hornets swarming on their home court Monday night with Weber State men’s basketball in town.
Johnson scored a career-high 35 points and Sacramento State burned shorthanded Weber 104-90 in WSU’s first, and possibly last, game at brand-new Hornet Pavilion. Sac State improved to 9-1 at home, including 5-0 in league play, in its final Big Sky season.
Weber allowed 100 points for the first time since Dec. 1, 2018 — a 113-103 home win over BYU. It’s the first time WSU has allowed 100 points in a Big Sky game since a 105-83 loss at Sacramento State on Feb. 26, 2007.
Like Montana State discovered last week, the guard-led Hornets (9-13, 5-5 Big Sky) are a tough matchup for teams shorthanded on the perimeter. Weber State (11-12, 5-5) played its second game without sophomore Trevor Hennig, out with illness, and its fourth straight without Jace Whiting (foot).
WSU freshman Duce Paschal made plenty of plays in the first half. He drove for a tough basket, hounded his man for two straight steals that led him to a 3-of-4 mark on two transition free-throw trips, and he ended a Sac 7-0 run with a 3-pointer. That made it 25-24 for the Hornets just after the midway point.
The game changed from there, and quickly. Jahni Summers hit four 3s in the final 9 minutes for Sac State, including two in a 13-0 run coming out of the under-8 media timeout, and that was part of a larger 20-3 rally to put the home team up 38-24.
Weber finally found the basket a few more times but the Hornets got one 3-pointer apiece from Johnson, Summers and Shaqir O’Neal to provide a 53-32 lead at halftime. Summers’ final 3 capped a streak of 11 straight field goal makes for the Hornets.
In a postgame radio interview, WSU head coach Eric Duft pointed to Paschal needing a break and Vartiainen getting in foul trouble — “running out of bodies” on the guard line to defend — as a key moment in those fatal 8 minutes in which Sacramento State scored 28 points.
“Boy, when we got in foul trouble … we were in a bad way because we’re just so low on numbers. We tried David (Hansen) a little at the 3 but this is a tough game for him to try to guard a 3-man, and credit to them. They made us pay and shot it great, and we just had some really silly turnovers when we had a chance to get it back.”
Sac State extended that to 57-32 early out of halftime on a reverse lob dunk by Mikey Williams.
WSU got off the mat with a 9-2 run to stay in touch, then later a 12-1 rally that saw the Wildcats tally 11 straight field goal makes of their own, capped with 3s from Tijan Saine and Viljami Vartiainen to make it 71-60 with 11:24 left.
Weber could not keep Sacramento State from scoring, though, so that’s as close as it would get. The Hornets ballooned the lead, WSU cut it back to 12 for a short stretch, and then Johnson sealed the game with an and-one to make it 94-77 with 3:26 left.
Saine led Weber State with 22 points, 20 of which came after halftime. Nigel Burris, who started, added 17 points and eight rebounds. Malek Gomma pitched in 16 points and 10 rebounds; he has 11 offensive rebounds in his last two games. Paschal and Edwin Suarez Jr. each added 10 points.
Summers also tallied a career-high for Sac State, scoring 22 points on a 5-of-6 night from distance. Mark Lavrenov added 18 points. Johnson and Lavrenov combined to shoot 20 of 25 at the foul line; WSU was 16 of 21 as a team. Williams finished with 11 points.
Sacramento State is a much different-looking team than the one that gave up nearly 100 points in four straight losses one month ago, a stretch that included a 95-82 defeat to Weber State on Jan. 3 (and much different at home; Sac State has yet to win on the road this season). Two days ago, Sacramento State led Montana by 17 at halftime.
“I talked to (Sac State coach) Mike (Bibby) before the game … he’s like, ‘We’ve finally got them all on the same page and figured out how we can blend them a little bit, and have got them playing harder,” Duft said. “Their talent is really good and … boy, at home, they are a tough handle.”
That’s largely because the Hornets seem to have taken the keys from Williams and handed them to Johnson, the senior in his fourth school in four years. Johnson averaged 26.5 points, six rebounds and five assists per game in wins over Montana and Montana State last week.
Williams, meanwhile, averaged 15.0 field goal attempts per contest before missing two games two weeks ago, both home wins that ended Sac State’s seven-game losing streak. Since returning from those two absences, Williams has averaged only 9.8 field goal attempts per game.
“Those guards, those guys are electric players and they are finding their way,” Duft said. “They’ve got Mikey Williams being more of a facilitator than scorer and Prophet Johnson is as hard a guard as we’ve had all year.”
Weber State is apparently a different team, too; the Wildcats have lost four of their last five, needing an ArDarius Grayson winner at home Saturday to avoid a full slide. WSU was one of the nation’s best 3-point defenses prior to Whiting’s injury in both percentage and average makes allowed per game but, in his absence, opponents have been lighting it up from behind the arc.
In four games without Whiting, WSU opponents average 11 3-pointers per game and are 44 of 91 (48.4%). Sacramento State shot 12 of 19 on Monday.
“We’re really missing Jace right now defensively,” Duft said. “Duce and (ArDarius Grayson) make plays defensively but they’re a little unsure on rotations sometimes and, you gotta hand it to them, they were guarding some pretty good players tonight. It was a good lesson for them; they got shocked a little bit, but they’ll grow from it.”
The loss was Game 2 in a stretch of four games in eight days for Weber State. The Wildcats return home to host Northern Colorado on Thursday and Northern Arizona on Saturday.
Portland State moved to 9-1 in league play, beating Idaho State 88-65 at home, in Monday’s only other action.
