Fresno State bench fuels run past Youngstown State, advancing to The Basketball Classic semis
Fresno State forward Orlando Robinson had three shots at halftime and just eight with less than 12 minutes remaining in a quarterfinal matchup on Wednesday against Youngstown State in The Basketball Classic, which, clearly, was the way the Penguins wanted it.
They doubled, denied and zoned, throwing some 1-3-1 and 2-3 out there.
They did everything they could to make anyone else beat them. And in a somewhat odd occurrence with Anthony Holland and Junior Ballard out with hamstring and shin injuries and Jordan Campbell limited with a rib injury, just about everyone else did as Fresno State won 80-71 in front of a small but boisterous crowd of 1,754 at the Save Mart Center.
That would be center Braxton Meah, who scored 14 points with five rebounds and one blocked shot. That would be guard Destin Whitaker, who hit 5 of 9 shots including 4 of 7 at the 3-point line in scoring 14 points. That would be point guard Donavan Yap, who scored 13 points with one assist.
That would be three career-highs in scoring from sophomores who were averaging 1.6, 1.8 and 1.9 points per game, part of a season-high 41 points from a Bulldogs bench that has struggled to add much at the offensive end.
“I knew we were going to have some guys play more minutes and I told them we were confident in what we could do,” Bulldogs coach Justin Hutson said. “You saw sometimes some really good plays and just like our other guys on the team you saw sometimes some inexperience or some plays we don’t like. But what I did love about it, we kept playing and we kept fighting.”
The Bulldogs (21-13) had to because the first 10 minutes were abysmal, with Youngstown State limiting Robinson.
Fresno State fans traditionally stand before taking a seat with the first Bulldogs basket, and they were still standing at the under-16 media timeout. They started 0 of 7 with all of the misses on threes, and the worst 3-point shooting team in the Mountain West Conference took 19 of their 27 shots in the first half from three.
They were 4 of 19, 21.1%.
“When you have open shots and they don’t go in, and then you have somebody inside that you want to establish a presence, it’s kind of a Catch-22 because we were open for a reason,” Hutson said. “They definitely were running at and double-teaming ‘O.’ They were giving him a lot of attention. But when you have open shots, you have to keep plugging away and make sure you don’t make it worse.”
A 12-0 run from Bulldogs bench
The Bulldogs eventually rallied, with their bench putting together a 12-0 run in the second half with Robinson on the bench that turned a 5-point deficit into a 7-point lead to advance to the tournament semifinals.
They will play Monday at the Save Mart Center against Southern Utah. The other semifinal in The Basketball Classic is set with Coastal Carolina playing at South Alabama, also on Monday.
“Those guys, they have not had as many opportunities as they would like and the tough part is we were going with who we thought were best and we were able to stay in some really good games and almost beat four NCAA Tournament teams, going down to one possession,” Hutson said.
“It didn’t mean that those guys couldn’t play at all, but we knew these past two games were going to be more zone, more free flowing. Braxton was going to get some shots. Deon (Stroud) was going to get some shots and maybe some dunks, But we expected guys to hit some shots.”
The Bulldogs were 0 of 7 and then 3 of 12 to start the game, and 9 of 12 to end it.
“Definitely hard, without some of our key players, but as Coach said, we all agreed that we’ve learned how to fight, we know how to play hard,” said Yap, who had scored 13 points total over his past eight games including four in which he was scoreless. “Without them guys, we had to play harder to try to come out with a ‘W.’”
Extra Bulldogs bones
Fresno State had 41 points from its bench against Youngstown State and 40 points from its bench in its four previous games, including 24 in a victory over Eastern Washington in the first round of The Basketball Classic. It had four in a loss to San Diego State and eight in a victory over San Jose State at the Mountain West Tournament and four in the final regular-season game at Wyoming. …
With Holland out, Stroud got his first start of the season. He struggled, going 1 of 5 including 0 of 4 at the 3-point line in scoring two points in nine minutes with a plus/minus of minus-9, the lowest on the team. Stroud is now 11 of 64 at the 3-point line this season, 17.2%. …
Robinson finished 4 of 11 in scoring 16 points with 13 rebounds and three assists, two blocked shots and one steal. …
This story was originally published March 24, 2022 at 12:12 AM.