Hopkins’ career night on both ends paces Bulldogs past Weber State

Jaron Hopkins didn’t just set a personal best in points Thursday night, the senior guard also committed grand larceny.

Hopkins scored 29 points and made seven steals – both career highs – as the Fresno State men’s basketball team carved up Weber State 83-71 in a nonconference game at Save Mart Center.

Only some uneven play in the waning minutes prevented the Bulldogs, up 25 with 8:12 to go, from winning by a beefier margin.

Deshon Taylor added 18 points and Bryson Williams had 12 and eight rebounds for Fresno State, which improved to 5-2 overall with its third straight victory.

Brekkott Chapman had 21 points and eight rebounds for Weber State (4-3).

While his 11-for-16 shooting night leaps off the stat sheet, Hopkins also was instrumental in disrupting the Wildcats offense. The Bulldogs forced Weber State into 21 turnovers, scoring 22 points off those miscues.

“Just playing our defense and pressuring guys,” said Hopkins, who added five rebounds and four assists. “I know I got a couple steals off dribble handoffs. Playing pressure defense, making them uncomfortable and they fell into my hands.”

It was one of those nights where Hopkins and the Bulldogs could do little wrong, even when they did.

After collecting his seventh steal near midcourt, Hopkins drove to the hoop as the home crowd anticipated one of his usual one-handed dunks. Except Hopkins lost possession in traffic, only to see the trailing Sam Bittner gather up the loose ball and pass to Hopkins for the layup and a 56-35 lead with 14:32 to go.

“Just playing hard is the key to those kinds of plays,” Hopkins said. “I lost the ball but had a teammate back me up. I made a cut and (Bittner) found me. The chemistry like that is going to be key when we get into conference.”

The Bulldogs built a 16-point lead midway through the first half, let Weber State whittle its deficit to eight, then rallied again for a 44-30 halftime cushion.

Hopkins led the way with 17 points in 17 first-half minutes.

Hopkins set the tone from the opening tip, driving the lane for a finger roll. Taylor followed with a baseline layup. Williams dropped one in from the post and Ray Bowles hit a 3-pointer to give Fresno State a 13-2 lead before the Wildcats knew what hit them.

“We really want to try to win the Mountain West by shooting high-percentage shots, especially early in games when we can get into a rhythm and hopefully get back on the other end and set our defense,” Bulldogs coach Rodney Terry said.

“We said tonight we wanted to get the ball inside, we wanted to play in ball-screen actions because we knew they struggled a little bit with those. We wanted to play downhill, and I thought our guys did a good job attacking for themselves or something up for their teammates.”

Bittner hit two 3’s in near succession, both off Hopkins assists, as the Bulldogs stormed ahead 25-11.

Bittner finished 3 of 6 from beyond the arc and is shooting 71.4 percent for the season on his 3-point attempts. The junior forward lacks only the necessary makes to be listed among the national leaders.

Hopkins’ seven steals were four off the school-record 11, set by Travis DeManby in 2002.

This story was originally published November 30, 2017 at 11:09 PM with the headline "Hopkins’ career night on both ends paces Bulldogs past Weber State."