The coaches and media selected Cal State Northridge to capture the 2008-09 Big West men's basketball regular season title at the conference's annual Media Day on Wednesday.  The Matadors return three starters and nine letterwinners from a squad that went 20-10 overall and won a Big West regular season tri-championship with a 12-4 conference record.
   
The Matadors earned 14 of a possible 20 first-place votes from the media for 173 points.  CSUN received eight first-place nods and 64 points from the coaches.
   
CSUN welcomes back the Big West's leaders in rebounding, blocked shots and assists from last year to form the core of a veteran squad, which features five seniors and eight juniors on the roster.  Seniors Tremaine Townsend and Deon Tresvant lead the charge after both players earned 2007-08 All-Big West Second Team accolades.  Townsend became the first Big West player since the 2001-02 season to lead the league in both rebounding (9.8 rpg) and blocked shots (1.3 bpg).  He also averaged 10.1 points per game last season.  Tresvant, the 2007-08 Big West Best Sixth Man, averaged a team-high 13.9 points per game and drained 83 three-pointers in 30 games off the bench.  He was the first Matador reserve in school history to lead the team in scoring.
   
Senior Josh Jenkins led the Big West in assists at 6.4 per game while averaging 10.5 points.  His 191 assists was the third-highest single season total in CSUN history.  Senior Rob Haynes, with 68 starts in 89 career games, gives the Matadors another experienced guard.
   
UC Santa Barbara finished in second place in both the media and coaches polls.  The Gauchos claimed three first place votes and 156 points in the media vote, while grabbing the lone remaining first place vote and 56 points from the coaches.
   
The Gauchos won a school record 23 games in 2007-08 and also shared the three-way regular season title with CSUN and Cal State Fullerton.  They are led by 2007-08 all-conference honorable mention standouts Chris Devine and James Powell.  Devine, a 6-8 senior, is the Big West active career scoring leader with 1,143 points.  He ranks No. 15 on the UCSB career scoring list and has shot better than 50 percent from the field in all three previous seasons.  Powell, a sharpshooting 6-2 guard, canned 79 three-pointers and set a school single season record for three-point field goal percentage (.467).  Both players averaged 12.3 points per game, with Devine earning the Big West Co-Best Hustle award.   
   
Pacific and Cal State Fullerton finished third and fourth in both polls, respectively.  The Tigers collected two first-place votes and 127 points from the media and had 48 points in the coaches poll.  The Titans, last year's Big West representative in the NCAA Tournament, notched the lone remaining first place vote in the media poll.  CSF garnered 42 points in the coaches poll.  The Tigers are buoyed by the return of seniors Anthony Brown and Chad Troyer, both All-Big West Honorable Mention selections a year ago.  Cal State Fullerton returns just two letterwinners, but one of them is senior guard Josh Akognon, a second team all-conference choice who averaged 20.2 points per game in 2007-08.
   
The remainder of both polls had a different look to them.  The media poll had Long Beach State fifth with 96 points and UC Irvine sixth (73), followed by UC Davis (65), Cal Poly (54) and UC Riverside (49).
   
In the coaches poll, UC Davis landed the fifth spot with 28 points.  Cal Poly and UC Irvine tied for sixth at 23 points.  Long Beach State and UC Riverside rounded out the vote with 21 and 19 points, respectively.
   
The media also voted on a six-player preseason All-Conference Team.  The list of honorees included Pacific's Anthony Brown, Cal State Fullerton's Josh Akognon, UC Santa Barbara's Chris Devine, Long Beach State's Donovan Morris and Cal State Northridge's Tremaine Townsend and Deon Tresvant.

Media Poll Results

1.    Cal State Northridge (14)    173
2.    UC Santa Barbara (3)          156
3.    Pacific (2)                               127
4.    Cal State Fullerton (1)         107
5.    Long Beach State                   96
6.    UC Irvine                                  73
7.    UC Davis                                  65
8.    Cal Poly                                    54
9.    UC Riverside                           49

( ) First-place votes

Coaches Poll Results

1.    Cal State Northridge (8)        64
2.    UC Santa Barbara (1)            56
3.    Pacific                                       48
4.    Cal State Fullerton                 42
5.    UC Davis                                 28
6.    Cal Poly                                   23
       UC Irvine                                  23
8.    Long Beach State                  21
9.    UC Riverside                          19

( ) First-place votes

Preseason All-Conference Team

Name                               School                             Pos.    Yr.
Josh Akognon                Cal State Fullerton         G          Sr.
Anthony Brown               Pacific                              F           Sr.
Chris Devine                   UC Santa Barbara         F           Sr.
Donovan Morris              Long Beach State         G           Sr.
Tremaine Townsend     Cal State Northridge      F           Sr.
Deon Tresvant                Cal State Northridge     G           Sr.