Take three on Bulldogs’ loss to UNLV: it’s all about the rebounding and the 3-point shot

Fresno State set itself up with several chances, but dropped its Mountain West Conference men’s basketball opener to UNLV, losing 81-80 in double overtime on Wednesday night at the Save Mart Center.

Here are three takes on the Bulldogs, who are now 2-5 and 0-1 in conference play …

About that three-ball …

The Bulldogs attempted 42 shots from the 3-point line, two off the school record of 44 set in a 1999 loss to Cal State Northridge at Selland Arena.

That game, surprisingly, did not go into overtime.

But back to Fresno State and UNLV, the Bulldogs went into the game leading the nation in 3-point rate, taking 52.9% of their shots from the 3-point line, and against the Rebels they put up a whopping 68.9% of their shots from three including 15 of their final 17 in the game.

They made only 14 of 42, 33.3%.

That seems like a tough way to go for a team that has not shot the ball particularly well from the perimeter. Fresno State is ranked eighth in the Mountain West in 3-point shooting percentage and that 33.3% against the Rebels is one of their better games – the ‘Dogs hit only 20.0% in losing at San Diego, 25.0% in losing at Oregon, 31.4% in losing at Cal State Northridge.

Can they win games taking that many threes?

Here are the 3-point rate leaders over the past three seasons with the percentage of shots from the 3-point line, the percentage of those shots they hit and their overall record …

2018-19

• 57.7% Savannah State hit 29.3% and went 11-20
• 53.6% Citadel hit 34.4% and went 12-18
• 53.5% Villanova hit 35.2% and went 26-10
• 53.4% Quinnipiac hit 37.7% and went 16-15
• 52.7% Winthrop hit 37.4% and went 18-12

2017-18

• 55.4% Savannah State hit 30.0% and went 15-17
• 54.2% Belmont hit 37.6% and went 24-9
• 53.3% Citadel hit 34.1% and went 11-21
• 50.4% Washington State hit 37.7% and went 12-19
• 50.1% Elon hit 34.9% and went 14-18

2016-17

• 57.4% Savannah State hit 33.2% and went 13-16
• 52.7% Belmont hit 34.2% and went 23-7
• 52.3% Central Michigan hit 35.8% and went 16-16
• 50.3% Liberty hit 35.9% and went 21-14
• 49.1% Citadel hit 34.1% and went 12-21

There are some winning teams in there, but they all shot the ball at a much higher percentage from the 3-point line than the Bulldogs have through seven games.

No knockout power

UNLV went through a 10-minute stretch in the second half where it made just 1 of 12 shots and had four turnovers.

The Bulldogs still couldn’t put together a winning run, land a knockout blow. The Rebels went up by one with 14:03 to go on a 3-point play by Donnie Tillman and made just one field goal until Tillman scored inside with 3:22 remaining.

Fresno State took a lead with 12:37 to go when freshman Orlando Robinson scored in the paint and pushed it to as many as six points, but when that run ended the Bulldogs were up by just 58-54.

What happened in there?

UNLV continually gave itself second chances, grabbing nine offensive rebounds, and it got to the foul line. The Rebels hit 9 of 11 foul shots around a made basket by Bryce Hamilton at the 6:12 mark, that make coming off one of those offensive rebounds.

Rebounding presence

Fresno State had out-rebounded its past five opponents, but it was no match for the Rebels on the boards.

UNLV had a 51-36 advantage with 18 offensive rebounds – that is the most rebounds and offensive rebounds against the Bulldogs since Texas-San Antonio had 52 and 23 on Nov. 11, 2016, a game Fresno State managed to win 69-66.

Bryce Hamilton, a 6-foot4 guard, led UNLV with 14 rebounds. That is a career high by eight – Hamilton had six rebounds last month in a victory over Jackson State.

The Bulldogs missed some rebounds at crucial times down the stretch, and coach Justin Hutson kept circling back to it. An answer about foul shooting – Fresno State went to the line four times in the first overtime period and hit just one of two every time – ended up about rebounding.

“Those things are tough,” Hutson said. “You get separation with making foul shots. You go down and you work as hard as you can on the defensive end and then you get a miss and they just come over and get it from you …

“We were trying to defend two or three shots and every message at the timeout was box out and hit your guy and the ironic part, it didn’t matter if it was the big lineup early, we were giving up offensive rebounds, we had the big lineup early that gave up one on a free throw. The second half the big lineup started out, where you had the little lineup in, we were giving up offensive rebounds and some of them were coming from wings. It wasn’t like it was necessarily two big guys sitting at the basket that were killing us. They were running in and rebounding. It’s something that we work on every other day. We don’t work on rebounding every day, but we do work on rebounds and interior box outs and every timeout it was obvious from the first tip that they were going to the boards hard. We just couldn’t get it done.”

The Bulldogs on Saturday play at Utah State, which is leading the Mountain West in rebounding margin at plus-10.4, well ahead of any other team in the conference.

San Diego State is second at plus-8.0 and UNLV is third at plus-6.8.