NAIA Master’s proves tough, but Bulldogs men finally pull away

For Fresno State, a game against The Master’s College marked a soft spot on the schedule and the Bulldogs played down to it in a 84-72 victory on Thursday at the Save Mart Center.

All of the requisite and expected physical advantages against a NAIA team were in place, but the Bulldogs couldn’t get away from the Mustangs until they were inside the final 8 minutes in large part because they couldn’t stop Reid Shackelford, a 6-foot guard who hit 11 shots of 19 shots (57.9 percent) from beyond the 3-point line and finished with 35 points.

The 11 3-pointers by Shackelford alone represented a season high by any team against the Bulldogs this season – Delaware State had 10 – and the Mustangs junior broke Save Mart Center records of nine 3-pointers set by Eddie Miller against Idaho in 2008, 3-point attempts of 17 set by Shantay Legans against Texas El-Paso in 2004 and 3-point percentage of 54.5 set by Ja’Vance Coleman against Oregon in 2004.

The Master’s, playing the game as an exhibition, came in 3-3 with victories over Cal Tech, Simpson College and Montana Tech and losses to La Sierra, Cal Maritime and Westminster.

Fresno State (6-1) didn’t have a double-digit lead until Cezar Guerrero hit a 3-pointer with 7:17 remaining to go up 70-60. The Bulldogs were led by Marvelle Harris, who had 21 points with five assists. Torren Jones had 19 points and seven rebounds, Karachi Edo had 14 points and eight rebounds and Paul Watson had 13 points and five rebounds.

“You give those guys a lot of credit in terms of the way they came in and played,” coach Rodney Terry said. “They played about the way we thought they would play. We knew that they would come in and shoot the basketball at any time in a possession – we knew shooter defense was going to be a big deal, you couldn’t have your hands down. Not really surprised in the way they played.

“They were real scrappy, they really out-scrapped us in the first half. That’s hard for me to say because, again, that’s something that we like to hang our hat on and take a lot of pride in, that we’re the scrappy team. We’re the team that out-competes the other team. But this game is a great lesson. It’s a great lesson for our guys in terms of you have to take every game and understand how important it is. I’m not saying our guys didn’t take it as important, but we didn’t come with the level of intensity and attention to detail that we need to have.”

Advantage, Bulldogs – The Master’s stayed in the game for 32 minutes even with Fresno State holding a 44-28 advantage in rebounds including 17 at the offensive end, shooting 29 free throws to just four for the Mustangs and scoring 42 points in the paint to just 22.

Slow out of the blocks – The Bulldogs, who started terribly in a loss at Oregon on Monday, struggled again at the start. Fresno State hit just 3 of its first 9 shots and had two turnovers at the under-16 timeout, trailed at that point 7-6 and never led by more than six points in the first half.

“You have to come out ready to play, no matter who you’re playing,” Harris said. “It’s more about us than the opponent so we have to come out and be ready to play and not take any win for granted.”

Carter gets run – Bulldogs sophomore center Terrell Carter II got some good run in the first half and was productive playing 7 of his season-high tying 8 minutes. He hit 4 of 5 shots and 1 of 1 at the free-throw line to score nine points and had six rebounds in the first half.

The Bulldogs needed it – the score was tied at 34 at halftime.

“Terrell came in and gave us a great lift,” Terry said. “But he has been doing a good job in practice over the last two weeks. I thought his attitude and his approach has been really good. It’s just a matter of us to find an opportunity for him to get in and have a chance to play. (Thursday), I thought he came in and he was engaged in the game, was talking, and he gave these guys a great lift to get this going for us.”

Carter played 8 minutes in the opening victory over Pepperdine, but did not play against Lamar, got 5 minutes against San Francisco, did not play at Rice, got 5 minutes against Delaware State and 1 minute in the loss at Oregon. He had eight points and three rebounds coming in.

On Shackelford – Shackelford entering having hit 18 of 49 shots from beyond the arc (36.7 percent) and 32 of 76 overall (42.1).

“I’m not going to take anything away from this kid. He played well,” Terry said. “I thought their team played really hard and played well. I give him a lot of credit. He made a lot of tough shots. I thought that we did not have the intensity and the attention to detail on that end of the floor.

“There were times that we were supposed to be in a couple of defenses that we weren’t and for whatever reason we didn’t do what we needed to do. Again, we’ve challenged our guys this month to have follow-through on those details that we’re trying to get better with. We have to buckle down and do that. We’re going to be able to score the ball night in and night out. It’s going to be about our defense, about how far we go. We know we have a long way to go, but we have to continue to buy-in because it’s all buy-in at that end of the floor.”

Et cetera – Harris, with 21 points, continued his climb up the Fresno State scoring list. The senior guard, who hit 8 of 15 shots, has 1,446 points in his career. He passed Tod Bernard (1,426 from 1989-92) and moved into ninth place on the career list. Just ahead is Bernard Thomson, who scored 1,452 points from 1981-84.

▪ Fresno State made an effort early on to play inside-out taking advantage of their size and athleticism advantages. They scored 42 points in the paint and hit 52 percent of their 2-point shots, but weren’t particularly efficient given the matchup. “I don’t think anything in regard to our offense, we really drilled our guys about our defense,” Terry said. “Our attitude and our approach to the defensive side of the ball weren’t where it needed to be and we took a couple of steps back. You can’t do that. You can’t do that this time of year, especially when you’re trying to build what you’re trying to build on that end of the floor. But there was never a concern about our offense. We got a chance to play against a man-to-man defense for the first time in about five games and we got into a pretty good flow and there were possessions where we really were trying to make a conscious effort to put the ball inside.”

▪ The 17 offensive rebounds by the Bulldogs was one off their season high of 18 set in an 80-72 victory over Lamar. The Mustangs had 18 rebounds at the defensive end.

▪ The Master’s hit 14 shots from the 3-point line, including three by Delewis Johnson. The Save Mart Center team record is 16 set by the Bulldogs against Cal Poly on Dec. 23, 2006. Fresno State won that game 95-75.

▪ Master’s freshman Kaleb Anderson, a Clovis High grad, hit 6 of 7 shots and scored 14 points for the Mustangs before fouling out.

This story was originally published December 3, 2015 at 9:19 PM with the headline "NAIA Master’s proves tough, but Bulldogs men finally pull away."