Take three on Fresno State victory at Air Force: Short turnaround puts ‘Dogs in zone
Fresno State rebounded from its worst loss ever at the Save Mart Center, going on the road and taking down Air Force 79-68 on Tuesday at Clune Arena behind big games from seniors New Williams and Nate Grimes.
Williams, 0 for 7 in the Bulldogs’ 34-point loss to Boise State on Saturday, knocked down 7 of 16 shots, including 6 of 13 at the 3-point line, to score a game-high 25 points.
And Grimes, coming back from what amounted to a one-game suspension for conduct detrimental to the team, had 21 points and nine rebounds with three blocked shots and two steals.
Here are three takeaways from the game …
ZONED IN
The Tuesday game in the Mountain West Conference can’t be very popular with the road teams – they were just 1-6 so far this year when having to travel and play on short prep time. And that win is from San Diego State, which is 21-0 and ranked No. 4 in the nation.
It might have worked in the Bulldogs’ favor playing at Air Force, though.
Fresno State coach Justin Hutson knew time was limited in preparing for the Falcons. But he felt he needed to give the Bulldogs the day off Sunday after that 87-53 loss to Boise State at the Save Mart Center.
“We were getting residual effects so we decided to roll the dice,” he said.
That left them with only a couple of hours on the floor Monday morning in the North Gym before boarding vans for a ride to the airport and a flight to Colorado.
“I knew I was going to have to do something different with the less prep, so we tried as a staff to decide what we were going to do that was going to be easiest for guys guarding this complicated offense,” Hutson said. “Very short turnaround. It’s hard to guard their stuff with one day of prep, especially with five freshmen.”
The Bulldogs decided to use a 2-3 zone defense.
Except that defense is susceptible to 3-point shots, and Air Force is one of the most efficient scoring teams in the conference and shoots the ball well from the 3-point line.
The Falcons went into Tuesday ranked second in the Mountain West shooting 38.7% from behind the arc.
The Bulldogs’ zone didn’t work very well in the first 10 minutes.
The Bulldogs were giving up some open looks on the perimeter, and the Falcons’ first six baskets all came from the 3-point line.
Hutson stuck with it, though.
“We had a little trouble with it at first, but once we got in the groove of communicating and getting where we needed to be we were able to make some plays out of it,” Williams said.
Once the Bulldogs settled into it, the game turned.
Air Force, which started 6 of 10 and 6 of 8 from three, made just 18 of its last 49 shots (36.7%) and 5 of its last 21 threes (23.8%). Between a made layup at the 2:39 mark in the first half to another score in the paint at the 15:09 mark in the second, it missed 11 shots in a row.
The Bulldogs (7-14, 3-7 in the MW) pushed a lead to seven points in that stretch, and it reached as many as 13 in the second half.
FIXING WHAT’S BROKEN
Williams had hit 54.1% of his 3-pointers in the five games prior to Saturday’s 0-for-4 outing against Boise State, and that included a Mountain West record-tying 10 threes in a victory over San Jose State on Jan. 4.
He spent his day off in the gym.
“I shot 1,000 of them,” Williams said. “I went 0 of 4, 0 of 7 from the field (against Boise State). So, yeah, I had to get back in and get some shots up, see the ball go in a couple of times …
“I wanted to get the shots up after the (Boise State) game, but I didn’t get a chance to. I went home and I watched the film on the game and I saw the mistakes that I made.
“There were a couple of times that I was open and I’d back cut or something and the defense was able to capitalize on me not seeing when I’m open, seeing when I have an opportunity to get a screen,” Williams added. “I watched that and went to the gym the next day and I got those shots up.”
Of those 1,000 shots, Williams said 805 went down.
SENIOR NIGHT
Grimes had been suspended by Hutson following an incident after the Bulldogs’ loss last week at Colorado State.
He was impactful in his return.
In the first 94 seconds, Grimes had a dunk, blocked a shot and had a steal.
There is the rout by Boise State that Grimes missed. But in the most recent two games that Grimes has played, he had 23 points at Colorado State and 21 against the Falcons. which gave him 20-plus points in back-to-back games for the first time in his career.
Getting Grimes right again obviously was a priority.
“That’s our guy,” Williams said. “We talked to him. Nate’s a good guy and he wants to win. We all have our own personal issues that go on off the court, but we’re a family. This team is a family, so we came together as brothers and we talked to Nate, and Nate knows.
“He’s a great guy. He was right on board with it. He apologized for the mistakes he made. We want to continue to get better and he wants to continue to get better, so we were all on the same page.”
This story was originally published January 28, 2020 at 10:40 PM.