Fresno State men’s basketball: Bulldogs bounce back, rout Nevada

This time, Fresno State got a lot right.

The Bulldogs rocketed out at the start, played one of their most efficient games of the season at the offensive end and handled zone well enough when it was put in play. They maintained a very good pace, hit shots at a high percentage, defended, forced turnovers and most of all rebounded from a low-effort loss last outing to drill Nevada 85-63 on Wednesday night at Save Mart Center.

The Wolf Pack, like the Bulldogs in a Saturday loss to New Mexico, were out of it very early.

“I thought our guys played with urgency and that’s what we tried to emphasize to our guys,” coach Rodney Terry said. “We played with urgency from the opening possession.”

Fresno State (11-5, 2-1 Mountain West) started on a 12-0 run fueled by point guard Cezar Guerrero, who knocked down a three-pointer 17 seconds into the game, hit another from distance and had eight of those points.

“When Cezar hit that three I looked over at Coach (Byron) Jones and thought, ‘I think that’s the first time we’ve scored on the first possession,’ ” forward Cullen Russo said.

The Bulldogs extended that lead to 24-5 at the under-12 timeout and were up 30-7 at the under-8 timeout. Nevada, which came in second in the conference in scoring at 79.6 points per game, didn’t break into double-digits until Cameron Oliver scored with 6:01 remaining in the first half. By then, the Bulldogs were long gone.

The Wolf Pack went zone, trying to slow the Bulldogs, and it did for a bit. But the Bulldogs played right through, continuing to move the ball and get paint touches and ended up hitting 52.9 percent of their shots while racking up 21 assists on 36 made baskets.

Marvelle Harris led the Bulldogs with 18 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. Karachi Edo had 15 points and seven rebounds and Guerrero and Russo scored 13 points.　

Lineup adjustments – Terry started sophomore Terrell Carter over Torren Jones and had guard Jahmel Taylor on the floor at the 14:23 mark in the first half ahead of Lionel Ellison, much sooner than Taylor saw action in either of the previous two games he had played.

Matchups, Terry said, were a part of that.

“There’s ebb and flow of every game. There are matchups for different games for different guys and opportunities,” he said. “Maybe a game one night that’s a better matchup for another guy. I know this game that we’re playing on Saturday (at Boise State) is a major matchup game. They pose a lot of problems from an offensive standpoint because their big guys can run down the floor and they’re not traditional bigs.

“They’re in the corner, at the top of the key and they can shoot. Transition defense and locating those guys as big men shooters, most of the time big guys are used to running back to the paint and then working their way back out, but they’re going to work outside in this game so it will be a big matchup game.”

Carter played 17 minutes, scoring six points and grabbing two offensive rebounds. Jones, who went in averaging 27.2 minutes per game, tied with Paul Watson for second most on the team, was on the floor for just 12 minutes. He scored six points and had four rebounds, two at the offensive end.

Taylor, in his third game since becoming eligible after sitting out as a transfer from Washington, played 14 minutes and scored three points with an assist and a steal.　

Sharing is caring – The Bulldogs’ 21 assists were a season-high against a Division I opponent; they had 24 on 35 made baskets against Pacific Union, a NAIA program.

They also were more than Fresno State had in its first two Mountain West games combined (nine at UNLV, seven against New Mexico) and most against a D-I opponent since getting 27 in an 86-56 victory over Seattle on Jan. 24, 2011.

“Any time you have 21 assists in a ball game, the ball is not sticking,” Terry said. “The ball stuck a lot the other day and a lot of that was on us in terms of New Mexico’s zone and everything. We knew tonight at some point these guys were going to go zone because we did a good job attacking in our man-to-man offense.

“I thought we did a better job moving the ball, attacking the gaps and getting the ball where we wanted to and then finishing.”　

Et cetera – The 22-point victory was the Bulldogs’ second largest in a Mountain West game. They beat San Jose State by 26 (82-56) on Feb. 8, 2014. They have three other victories by 15 or more: 81-63 over the Spartans on Feb. 4, 2015; 68-51 over Air Force on Feb. 5, 2014; and 56-41 over the Falcons on March 2, 2013.

▪ The 18 points by Harris moved the senior guard into fourth place on the Fresno State career scoring list. He has 1,600 points and is 90 from tying Terrance Roberson for third.

▪ The Bulldogs are 8-0 in their past eight home games that follow a home loss.

▪ Fresno State has won four in a row and 5 of 6 in the series against Nevada. None of those were anything like this one, though. The Bulldogs’ previous four victories all were by eight points or fewer and one was in overtime. The loss was in double overtime. “We really haven’t had too many of these I know since I’ve been here,” Terry said. “These have been possession ball games and games that have gone down to the wire and we expected that kind of fight tonight as well. Not taking anything away from Nevada, I thought they came obviously ready to play, they came off a big win on Saturday and I just think our guys came out and knew at this time of year you have to play with unbelievable urgency on every possession and I think they really set the tone from a defensive standpoint and then let their offense come to them.”

This story was originally published January 6, 2016 at 9:40 PM with the headline "Fresno State men’s basketball: Bulldogs bounce back, rout Nevada."