Fresno State men’s basketball: Offense fails in loss at San Jose State

Offense affecting defense, that was a problem at points this season for Fresno State, mainly at the start of games or second halves. The shots wouldn’t go down and soon enough it led to lapses at the defensive end, which only made things worse.

But that wasn’t it on Wednesday in a 65-53 loss at San Jose State that scuttled any momentum the Bulldogs had heading into a crucial home stretch.

It was the offense. Period.

Marvelle Harris struggled mightily to get anything to go down and the Bulldogs let the only tepid hand they had in the second half wither before they all went down.

Fresno State (14-8, 5-4 Mountain West) hit just 34.4 percent of its shots (21 of 61), including 20 percent at the three-point line (3 of 15). The Bulldogs couldn’t even make free throws, hitting 8 of 18, and the 53 points were a season low.

“We never got in a rhythm, we could never get into a rhythm in this game,” coach Rodney Terry said. “We missed a lot of easy shots, shots that we should make. And like I said a while ago it’s going to have to be player driven. As much as we talk about coaches, these guys have to want to do it right now. We’re at a juncture of the season right now, we’re at the midway point and we had put ourselves in a pretty good position, but in this league you have to come to play every night.”

The Bulldogs clearly did not, getting outrebounded, missing out on 50-50 balls and struggling to take advantage of opportunities when presented at the offensive end. That 34.4 percent included 39.1 inside the three-point line, a failure at all three levels.

Cezar Guerrero was the only one of the Bulldogs to have much going, hitting 5 of 6 shots to start the second half. Through the first 10 minutes he had half of what Fresno State had banked after halftime, scoring 10 of their first 20. But after scoring on a drive with 7:26 remaining to get the Bulldogs to within 44-41, he got only two shots before fouling out with 40 seconds to go.

And the Bulldogs had nothing else working.

Harris finished 2 of 16 including 0 of 6 beyond the three-point line, his worst game with 10 or more attempts since going 1 of 10 in a loss to Colorado State in the Mountain West Tournament last season. The 14 misses were the most by a San Jose State opponent this season, and the Spartans (8-15, 3-8)went in ranked eighth of 11 in the conference in field goal percentage defense. Down the stretch, those final 7:26, he was 0 of 4.

“The ball is in his hands – he’s a guy that’s third in the league in assists. He has to share the basketball when he’s not making shots,” Terry said.

“When things are not going for him, he has to move the basketball. Cezar made some shots for us tonight, but he doesn’t have to put it on his back for us to do it. Other guys can play and get things done as well.”　

Jones suspended – Forward Torren Jones was suspended one game for violations of team rules and did not make the trip.

Jones, who lost his spot in the starting lineup for a third time before a Jan. 26 victory over Wyoming, will be back Saturday against UNLV.

Cullen Russo started a second game in a row and sophomore Terrell Carter ended up playing 13 minutes, scoring four points and grabbing three offensive rebounds. Carter had played 7 minutes or fewer in four of the five conference games that he had appeared.

“He brings energy, we know that,” Terry said of Jones. “He brings energy and plays with a good motor, gives you some physicality inside. I think we had 14 points in the paint in the first half, but in the second half we didn’t do as good a job in the paint knowing that we could exploit those guys a little bit in the paint.

“We got the ball there, we just didn’t finish. We didn’t finish some shots around the basket that we have to make.”　

Not on the rebound – The Bulldogs have been one of the better rebounding teams in the Mountain West all season and went in with a plus-5.3 margin, second in the conference.

But San Jose State got the better of them, holding a 41-33 advantage including 14 offensive rebounds that led to 16 second-chance points. Brandon Clarke led the Spartans with a season-high 15 rebounds, seven at the offensive end.

“I’m not going to take any credit away from them in terms of how they played, but it’s easily one of our worst performances as a team in terms of the energy we needed in this game,” Terry said. “We knew we needed to come in and play with really good energy on their home court.”　　

Tark Toy Drive – The Tarkanian family is launching a toy drive at Saturday’s game to raise awareness of how strokes can occur at any age and to collect new stuffed toys for patients at Valley Children’s Hospital and the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas.

In April, the 5-year-old grandson of late Hall of Fame coach Jerry Tarkanian suffered an ischemic stroke. During his hospitalization and recovery, Kim and Danny Tarkanian were inspired to raise awareness of pediatric and other strokes.

Jerry Tarkanian, who played and coached at Fresno State and coached at UNLV, also had strokes during his lifetime.

Fans attending the 4 p.m. game at Save Mart Center may donate stuffed toys at the northwest entrance/concourse from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.　

Et cetera – The victory gave San Jose State back-to-back conference wins for the first time since they beat New Mexico State and Louisiana Tech in 2011. The Spartans had come in off a 21-point victory over Air Force.

▪ The Spartans have three conference victories for the first time since 2011 when they were in the Western Athletic Conference.

▪ The 34.4 percent marked the Bulldogs worst shooting game this season.

▪ Fresno State was coming off an unusually long midseason layoff, its previous game coming Jan. 26 against Wyoming.

“It didn’t help us,” Terry said. “Seven days, and playing the four games in a row and then you come back and you play three. It was hard deal for us,. But we’re not making any excuses. Those guys came to play. They played Saturday and played well. We knew they were going to play well, they’ve played well here all year. We knew we were going to have to come in here and play hard to beat these guys and we didn’t do that.”

This story was originally published February 3, 2016 at 9:37 PM with the headline "Fresno State men’s basketball: Offense fails in loss at San Jose State."