Guerrero’s six 3-pointers help Fresno State shoot past San Francisco

Fresno State had not been good shooting from beyond the three-point line in its first two games. But on Thursday against San Francisco, point guard Cezar Guerrero hit two more than the Bulldogs had made coming in, six in all, in a 78-71 victory at the Save Mart Center.

The Bulldogs had been only 4 of 28 outside the arc, with Guerrero just 1 of 3.

But there had been some work there over the past two days, and Fresno State is now 3-0 for the first time since a 7-0 start in 2006-07.

“That’s just what happens when you just keep at it at the gym and just keep on shooting, keep trusting your teammates would make the right decisions and find you,” said Guerrero, who hit 6 of 10 from distance, finished with a team-high 22 points and also had six rebounds, one assist and one steal. “Marvelle (Harris) and all my teammates did a great job in that.”

Guerrero is the first Fresno State player with six three-pointers in a game since Kevin Foster knocked down 6 of 9 shots in a 61-52 victory at UNLV on March 9, 2013.

Fresno State hit 10 of 24 as a team and for the first time this season hit at least 40 percent of its shots overall. The Bulldogs were 24 of 60 – 40 percent on the button.

Sliding off the ball – Marvelle Harris picked up two fouls in the first eight minutes and spent an extended period on the bench, with Lionel Ellison moving in at the point and Guerrero sliding to the two.

The combo worked at both ends of the floor, as the Bulldogs’ depth this season showed again.

“You know what, to have another big point guard that he can play with on the floor is big this year,” coach Rodney Terry said. “Lionel is a really good defensive, big, point guard who is a really unselfish player who can guard the point, and then Cezar can slide off and guard a shooter and play the two for us.

“But he has done that – he did that for us in Italy, he does it in practice all the time. It has been good to do it in the game a little bit. (Thursday), we had to do it in the game so it worked out for us. (Guerrero) is one of our better shooters, and he has worked on his shooting and he had great results for it.”

Ellison in 24 minutes had six points, two steals, one assist and one rebound.

“We’ve had some intrasquad scrimmages where those guys were on the same team, so there was never a doubt that they could play together,” Terry said. “Again, you’re playing to Cezar’s strength when you’re playing him off the ball in terms of putting him in the position to shoot the basketball as opposed to initiate offense. It’s big for us. And I think our guys have bought into the team mentality and playing the right way.

“I mean, to start the game, Marvelle Harris has three or four great assists and he drove the ball not for himself but for a teammate. We’ve shared the ball really well to start the year and I’ve been pleased with what we’re doing in that regard.”

Work to do – The Bulldogs have a chance to extend their run to 4-0 on Sunday at Rice – a team that San Francisco whipped 80-54 on Monday. The Owls are 0-3, also losing at Cal 97-65 and on Thursday at home to another Pac-12 team in Oregon State, 77-69.

“I think we’re doing a good job,” said Harris, who finished with 16 points and six assists. “Everybody is coming in and doing what they have to. I know early in the season we came together as a group and we talked about the things that we all need to do in order to be successful, and I think everybody is doing a great job.”

Et cetera – Bulldogs’ forward Torren Jones had his run of double-doubles end at two games – he had six points and eight rebounds. Jones was the first Fresno State player with back-to-back double-doubles in his first two games since Dominic McGuire in 2006.

▪ Jones had four of those rebounds at the offensive end. Fresno State had 13 offensive rebounds and has been in double-digits in all three games with 11 in the opener against Pepperdine and 18 against Lamar. Last season the Bulldogs had 10 or more offensive rebounds only seven times in 32 games, and two of them were against teams from lower divisions, Bristol University and St. Katherine. They went through their last 13 games with a high of nine offensive rebounds achieved just once.

▪ The Dons’ bench produced an average of 36.0 points in its first two games, victories at Illinois-Chicago and against Rice, but the Bulldogs held them to 12. San Francisco reserves hit just 2 of 12 shots (16.7 percent).

▪ Fresno State, which played through some foul trouble, got 24 points from its bench with Cullen Russo scoring 11, Lionel Ellison six, Julien Lewis five and Terrell Carter two. “We fought some adversity early,” Terry said. “Having some depth on the bench and some guys that could come in and make some positive contributions really helped us.”

▪ The attendance was 5,327.

▪ San Francisco committed 16 turnovers and in their first three games the Bulldogs have forced an average of 16.7 per game. Against the Dons, Fresno State scored 18 points off turnovers.

▪ The Bulldogs led for 39:20, going pretty much wire to wire. The score was tied for 40 seconds in the first half.

This story was originally published November 19, 2015 at 11:05 PM with the headline "Guerrero’s six 3-pointers help Fresno State shoot past San Francisco."