Warszawski: So far Fresno State meeting, but not exceeding, expectations

At the risk of mixing sports metaphors, I’m going to reach into a different court – tennis – to describe what we’ve seen so far from the Fresno State men’s basketball team.

The Bulldogs are holding serve.

Through 10 games Fresno State has neither exceeded nor fallen short of expectations. The Bulldogs have neither stumbled nor soared. At times they come together like a symphony. At others they flub basic notes.

If you go by the Arizona game, especially the first half, they look like a team that should challenge for the Mountain West Conference title. If you go by the Cal Poly game, they look destined for fifth or sixth.

Saturday afternoon’s 71-52 spanking of Pacific before 5,434 at Save Mart Center definitely belongs in the first category.

The Bulldogs, coming off their best offensive half of the season against Arizona, played arguably their best defensive half in limiting the Tigers to a season-low 22 points at halftime.

Whether it was Marvelle Harris threading a gorgeous bounce pass to Karachi Edo for a fast-break dunk or Paul Watson rejecting a shot with so much force that the sound of hand slapping ball echoed around the arena, Fresno State put all its wares on display.

But how much does it really mean against a 1-7 Pacific team playing without its head coach, suspended Friday in an academic investigation?

Hard to say. Just like the Bulldogs’ uneven-but-predictable nonconference results have been difficult to decipher.

There’s no question Fresno State has a talented roster. There’s also little question all that talent has yet to completely mesh.

“This time of year you’re not going to be perfect,” fifth-year coach Rodney Terry said. “I wish we were. We have a lot of work to do and have a lot of things to get better at.”

Watson echoed his coach: “We can only get better. We just need to keep working each day.”

Comparative scores don’t tell us much.

The Bulldogs played about eight good minutes on Oregon’s home floor and lost by five points. They played 37 good minutes at Arizona – a better team, in a much rougher environment – and lost by 13.

Is Fresno State the team that led the No. 13 Wildcats at halftime at the McKale Center? Or is it the one that let some guy from The Master’s College drain 11 threes in its own building?

Last weekend’s 77-65 stumble at Cal Poly is the only real blotch on the Bulldogs’ record. It’s not so much that the Bulldogs lost (Cal Poly gave UCLA and UNLV all they could handle), but how they came out so lackadaisical, missing 11 of their first 12 shots.

“We settled so much that game,” Terry said, “and were playing a team that was very focused against us (Fresno State had beaten Cal Poly two straight years) and coming off a loss at home.”

The Bulldogs have not experienced that – yet. They’re now 6-0 at SMC and have Cal State Bakersfield coming in Wednesday night. After that, the only landmine left before the MW opener is a Dec. 20 matinee (1 p.m.) against visiting Evansville of the Missouri Valley Conference.

The 8-2 Purple Aces are No. 63 in the latest KenPom.com rankings, third-highest of any Fresno State nonconference opponent behind Arizona (18) and Oregon (28).

So maybe next Sunday we’ll get a better sense of how good this team really is.

For now, here are three things we know for certain:

▪ The Bulldogs are bigger and burlier than we’ve seen. The additions of Torren Jones and Cullen Russo, both 6-foot-9, combined with Edo’s continued development, give this team serious interior presence.

Entering Saturday, Fresno State had a plus 7.3 rebounding margin over its opponents and almost double the number of blocks (41 to 22).

Those aren’t soft-schedule inflated numbers, either. The Bulldogs rebounded evenly against Arizona, whose 10.3 rebounding margin ranks 21st in the nation.

▪ Shooting is not a strength, nor does it figure to be. Fresno State’s 42.2 field goal percentage ranks last in the MW, and its 32.9 percent mark on three-pointers sits eighth.

The Bulldogs don’t attempt many from distance either, nearly 50 fewer than their opponents.

Cezar Guerrero (48.8 percent from three-point range entering Saturday) and Watson (40 percent) have been the only consistent perimeter shooters. If that doesn’t change, Fresno State can expect a steady succession of zone defenses.

▪ This is a much better team in transition than in half-court. The Bulldogs have done well limiting turnovers (12.2 per game). However, many of the mistakes they do make occur when they run a set offense.

When Fresno State creates fast breaks, it’s off to the races. Late in Saturday’s first half backup point guard Lionel Ellison made a steal in the backcourt and passed ahead to Russo, who found Edo for a one-handed alley-oop dunk.

It was the kind of play that gave everyone at SMC a glimpse of what the Bulldogs can be.

But as we’ve seen when Fresno State ventures on the road against quality teams, such glimpses can be fleeting.

This story was originally published December 12, 2015 at 7:34 PM with the headline "Warszawski: So far Fresno State meeting, but not exceeding, expectations."