Fresno State builds early lead but crumbles when pressured by No. 25 San Diego State

Fresno State has played some good stretches of basketball against some good teams this season.

The Bulldogs were in there against Utah State and at Boise State.

But they played some of their worst stretch of hoops Thursday against San Diego State, another team in the top half of the Mountain West Conference men’s standings.

Due to a nightmarish final 15 minutes in the first half, Fresno State saw its 11-0 lead quickly go to waste all while the Aztecs increased the investment at the defensive end, which proved far too much for the Bulldogs to overcome in a 67-53 loss at the Save Mart Center.

“When they picked up the pressure on us on the defensive end, like good teams do, we didn’t respond and play with a purpose,” Bulldogs coach Justin Hutson said. “We didn’t cut hard. We didn’t drive hard and more importantly we didn’t make the extra pass.”

How bad did it get? Fresno State hit 50% of its shots in the second half, trimming a 21-point deficit down to nine with 3:47 remaining. But that 50% got them to only 33.3% for the game, a low to this point in an offensively-challenged season.

The Bulldogs (9-8, 7-8 in the MW) missed 10 in a row at one point, hit only 4 of their final 26 shots of the half (15.4%) and had seven turnovers as San Diego State went on a 19-0 run, extended it to 24-2 and then 28-5 en route to winning a seventh game in a row.

It was the sixth time this season the Bulldogs have failed to score 60 points, the seventh time they have failed to hit even 40% of their shots, the ninth time they have had 15 or more turnovers, and the 15th time they have had more turnovers than assists in a game.

Orlando Robinson had his eighth double-double of the season with 17 points and 13 rebounds, along with four assists and four turnovers. Guard Isaiah Hill hit three threes in scoring 11 points.

But the lack of consistency, and anything resembling a counter-punch in that 15-minute stretch where it all went awry, stood out coming off four wins in five games with a COVID-19 postponement against Utah State in there.

“I was definitely surprised,” Hutson said. “I thought we got over that hump. But, again, you find more things out about your team and I was excited with how we played in the second half, as a whole. I was excited how we played the first five or six minutes, as a whole. And, that big stretch when they turned up the heat, at that point in time, that’s when you need to get better and we were not.”

San Diego State (16-4, 10-3), with four seniors and one junior in the starting lineup, is long past such issues.

Matt Mitchell, who had averaged 10.6 points in seven career games against Fresno State, led the Aztecs with 19 points. Guard Trey Pulliam, who came in averaging just 5.4 points per game, hit 8 of 14 shots in scoring 18 points with a team-high three assists.

The Bulldogs’ struggles to defend guards this season is not new, just another thing on a long to-do list, along with that inconsistency.

“You pick out the things that we’re consistently good at and how we build a lead on both ends,” Hutson said. “You watch some of the things they do, watch some of the things we do and then you hit on some of the things that we’re not doing well.

“Through the course of this year, what you’re seeing is the guys that are starting to become more consistent are the guys that are playing more and you’re still finding things out, especially against better teams. We found a lot of good things tonight and we found out some things we didn’t like.”

This story was originally published February 18, 2021 at 10:55 PM.