Short-handed Fresno State shows flashes with zone and big man. What happened at finish?
Fresno State had just six scholarship players available and eight in uniform on Saturday for a Mountain West Conference men’s basketball matchup against Air Force, with Isaih Moore, Jemarl Baker and Isaiah Hill all out with injuries.
But it still had a chance, using a 2-3 zone to flummox the Falcons at the offensive end before its own lapses and deficiencies scoring the basketball caught up to it in a 51-48 loss at the Save Mart Center.
The last one was no stunner. Needing a stop and a three to tie the score coming out of a timeout due to a clock malfunction with 22.1 seconds to go, the Bulldogs got halfway there.
Anthony Holland rebounded a missed three, pushed the ball ahead to point guard Donavan Yap and they couldn’t even get a shot off, turning it over on a backcourt violation.
Coach Justin Hutson had a timeout available, but got what he wanted there … except for the outcome.
“The best time to get an open three is in transition,” Hutson said. “Otherwise, you call timeout, they switch everything, they foul you, they take you to the line. We got exactly what we wanted.”
The other part of that equation is someone has to knock down that three, which is not a strength for the Bulldogs.
They went into the game ranked last in the Mountain West and 330th of 352 in the nation in 3-point shooting at 29.5%, and were only 2 of 15 against the Falcons. And that poor 3-point shooting played a part in a lead that was 12 points at one point in the first half getting away.
The Bulldogs (6-11, 2-4 in the MW) built that lead by taking a big piece out of the Air Force offense with that zone.
The Falcons get to the rim, using the constant motion in a Princeton offense, screens on and off the ball. Air Force was coming off an 85-74 victory at Colorado State in which 20 of its 31 made baskets came on layups or dunks.
Fresno State center a force but forgotten in second half
But the Falcons couldn’t get to the rim against the Bulldogs’ zone, and in the few instances that they did the 6-foot-11 Eduardo Andre was there. Air Force (11-7, 2-4) hit just 7 of 27 shots in the first half (25.9%) and 17 of 54 in the game (31.5%) and only 10 of those shot attempts came at the rim.
It went like this: layup, block by Andre; layup, good; layup, block by Andre; layup, shot altered by Andre; layup, block by Andre … Andre finished with 14 points, 15 rebounds and five blocked shots.
But in the second half, despite the Falcons‘ lack of length and size and ability to defend the Bulldogs center in the paint, Andre got just three shots in 18 minutes. He had eight in 20 minutes in the first half.
Fresno State, which has a week to get healthy before it plays UNLV on Jan. 21 at the Save Mart Center, instead fell into its habit of missing jump shots and threes.
The Bulldogs went up five with 14:22 remaining on a drive by Jordan Campbell, but missed six of their next eight shots, five of which came from the 3-point line and only one of which came from Andre.
Fresno State made only 5 of its final 16 shots, going 2 of 8 from three.
BULLDOGS NOTES
Fresno State played only seven players including walk-on Steven Vasquez, who had injured a knee in practice on Friday and was in a brace and walking with aid of a crutch when he arrived at the Save Mart Center. Vasquez was evaluated and cleared before the game. He played five minutes.
Campbell led the Bulldogs with 14 shot attempts, hitting four (28.6%). Yap was 4 of 13 (30.8%). They were a combined 1 of 6 at the 3-point line and had one assist and four turnovers between them.
The Bulldogs had only four assists on 20 made baskets. The four assists are a season-low and the fewest they have had in a game since they had four in an 87-53 loss at Boise State on Jan. 25, 2020.
The available records go back through only the 2010-11 season, but Fresno State had not lost a game when an opponent had hit less than 32% of its shots in that span. The Bulldogs had won 28 such games in a row.