Marvelle Harris keys late surge as Fresno State men’s basketball holds off Cal State Bakersfield

Fresno State escaped with a 76-68 victory over Cal State Bakersfield on Wednesday, but it got very interesting along the way for the Bulldogs, who won a ninth consecutive home game dating to last season, and in getting to 8-3, continued their best start since the 2006-07 season.

A poor stretch in the second half turned a six-point lead into a six-point deficit, and while the Bulldogs were scuffling along, forward Torren Jones, who was in a difficult matchup with Roadrunners center Aly Ahmed and battled foul trouble from the start, completely disengaged from his teammates, coaches and the game, taking a seat not on the bench but between fans seated along the baseline.

Jones went there shortly after picking up a third foul at the 17:59 mark, went back there after one timeout and then another. He didn’t go back to the bench until forward Paul Watson went over, said a few words and got him to rejoin his teammates.

“We addressed that,” coach Rodney Terry said. “You can’t do that. We don’t stand for that. We don’t do that here. The guy that’s playing got the minutes and got things done. This is not a one-man show right now, it’s not a two-man show. It’s a team, and that’s what we’re about.

“It’s not about an individual right now. Guys have to buy in to our culture and understand what we’re trying to get done. It’s not about one guy here. That’s not going to be tolerated, and we addressed that. We don’t just let things move along like we didn’t see it. We dealt with it.”

Any disciplinary measures, Terry said, would be handled internally.

“We’ll deal with it the way we need to deal with it,” he said.

What happened – The Bulldogs put themselves in a 60-54 hole with 7:15 remaining, struggling mostly at the defensive end.

Cal State Bakersfield hit only 34.3 percent of its shots in the first half, but in the first 12-plus minutes of the second hit 13 of 21 shots (61.9 percent). The Bulldogs recovered with an 11-0 run, putting the ball in the hands of Marvelle Harris, who finished with 20 points, six rebounds and five assists.

Playing the point, he said, helped.

“It opened a lot of things up,” Harris said. “They were trying to deny me. I think they were in the triangle. It just opened a lot of things up and it gave me a lot of opportunities off of ball screens and to find open guys or get open shots.”

Karachi Edo finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds and Terrell Carter, the sophomore center, played big at both ends of the floor in a season-high 22 minutes.

Carter hit all five of his shots from the field in scoring 13 points and had six rebounds.

Carter pick me up – Ahmed hit 3 of his first 4 shots, helping Cal State Bakersfield to an 8-0 run to open the game. But when Carter entered with 14:42 to go, he used his size to make the going much more difficult.

Edo took a turn defending as well, and Ahmed finished the half 4 of 6, that one basket coming when he found space through the lane and to the rim as a trailer in transition.

Carter, a 6-foot-10 sophomore who matched up against Ahmed last season in a 63-61 victory in Bakersfield, knocked around the Roadrunners center at both ends of the floor.

“I just used last year’s game,” Carter said. “I was starting against him and I was just trying to remember what he was doing and movements. But it was a great win, so I feel great about it.”

Terry said he could get more run Sunday against Evansville, which has a 6-10 center in Egidijus Mockevicius averaging 17.8 points and 13.8 rebounds.

Jones’ situation also will factor into that decision.

“We’ll see,” Terry said. “I’m not a guy who is going to sit here and make an impulsive decision. That’s not me. I think things out, and we’ll do what’s best for this team.”

Et cetera – The 20 points by Harris pushed his career total to 1,510. He is one behind Lucius Davis (1968-70) for fifth on the school career list.

▪ Fresno State had nine blocks – three by Watson, two by Edo and one each by Jones, Harris, Julien Lewis and Cullen Russo. That is a season high against a Division I team. The Bulldogs had 11 in an 84-72 victory over The Master’s, a National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics team.

▪ The Bulldogs’ 8-3 start is their best since opening 9-2 in 2006-07. The program’s longest winning streak at Save Mart Center is 10 games, the final four in 2005-06 and the first six in 2006-07.

▪ The double double by Edo was his second in a row and third this season. He had 14 and 10 against Pacific and 10 and 10 at Rice, both victories.

▪ Terry on Carter, who has come into several games and provided the Bulldogs a boost: “He played well, and he has been working really hard. He has competed at a really high level. He did a really good job for us. He did everything we asked him to do, and I think a lot of his stuff started on the practice floor, and he has carried it over to the games.”

Robert Kuwada: @rkuwada

This story was originally published December 16, 2015 at 9:30 PM with the headline "Marvelle Harris keys late surge as Fresno State men’s basketball holds off Cal State Bakersfield."