Bulldogs rebound – a bit – with victory over Air Force

Fresno State didn’t exactly right itself, but it did get a win on Saturday, rebounding from a loss to Nevada in its Mountain West Conference opener by doing what it has to this point.

That more of less is beating up on the bottom half of its schedule.

The Bulldogs took down Air Force 71-59 at the Save Mart Center, distancing themselves from the Falcons when Jahmel Taylor and Ray Bowles Jr. knocked down shots from the 3-point line before and after an Air Force timeout with 13:34 to go.

Those baskets pushed a Fresno State lead to 13 points and it stayed right around there, though the Bulldogs were much tighter at the offensive end than in their conference opener, getting to the paint and getting an assist on a season-high 64 percent of their baskets (16 of 25) while knocking down 53.2 percent of their shots (25 of 47).

“We really tried to emphasize driving the ball against Nevada, as well,” coach Rodney Terry said. “We didn’t have great spacing. We didn’t do a great job of sharing the basketball – we knew we needed to share the basketball against those guys. We have spent a lot of time since we’ve been back on our spacing and working on sharing the basketball and having good movement and pace of play. ...

“I thought we did do a better job of that tonight. It was another switching man to man defense. We saw switching against Nevada, the same thing. We did get to the foul line against both teams, but we could have been much more productive against those guys and put more pressure on the basket had we done what we practice on a regular basis.”

In the loss to Nevada, the Bulldogs had an assist on just 39.1 percent of their baskets.

Air Force, which in its games against Division I opponents had the worst shooting percentage in the Mountain West inside and outside the 3-point line, just didn’t have the firepower to make much of a run at the Bulldogs (11-4, 1-1 in the MW).

With 10 minutes and a few ticks of the clock to go, the Falcons had nine turnovers and 11 made baskets, going 11 of 32, 34.4 percent.

The Bulldogs had 14 turnovers of their own – five on offensive fouls. But they also had answers down the stretch when the Falcons cut their lead back to a single digit.

“I just felt like to help the team out we all needed to come out aggressive,” Bowles said. “We needed to play with urgency on defense, defense leading to offense. Once we do better on the defensive end, that gives us momentum to go down and be aggressive on offense like we did tonight.”

The lead down to nine at the 7:46 mark, Nate Grimes had a dunk off a nice assist by Jahmel Taylor. Down to nine again at 7:09, Jahmel Taylor knocked down a shot from the 3-point line. Down to nine again at 4:10, Deshon Taylor missed a three, but Jaron Hopkins was there to steal the outlet from the Falcons’ Lavelle Scottie and was fouled by Scottie on a resounding dunk.

Air Force (6-8, 0-2 and No. 336 in the RPI) got it to seven with 2:46 remaining, but Grimes scored off an assist by Bowles and then came down with a big rebound at the other end after a miss by Falcons’ Jacob Van and that was pretty much it.

Deshon Taylor, who did not start for the first time this season led the Bulldogs with 18 points, Bowles had 16 and Jahmel Taylor added 10.

This story was originally published December 30, 2017 at 6:10 PM with the headline "Bulldogs rebound – a bit – with victory over Air Force."