Matt Weir / The Collegian
On Saturday night, the Fresno State men and women’s 2010 basketball campaign kicked off with exhibition games against cross-town NAIA foe Fresno Pacific.
In the first game of the doubleheader, women’s head coach Adrian Wiggins’ squad pummeled the Sunbirds with a final score of 94-44. The second game of the night pitted the men’s teams and Fresno State won again by a score of 71-50.
Wiggins was quite pleased with his team’s overall play.
“I’m happy with it,” he said. “I thought they came out and played hard. We tried to do a lot of things and had success. The good news is we could cover better defensively. I thought we could shoot the ball better from the perimeter. Our returnees did a great job executing and being confident in themselves. Our newcomers were very aggressive.”
Right from the start of the first game, Wiggins’ squad showed a lot of energy and aggressiveness defending as the team came away with 18 total steals. By constantly pressuring the ball handler for Fresno Pacific, the ‘Dogs flew all over the court and seemed to surround the Sunbirds and suffocate their offense. Senior forward Hayley Munro led Fresno State in scoring with 20 points and went to the free throw line five times, making 8-of-9 attempts.
Redshirt freshman Taylor Thompson was strong on the night, showing composure as the point guard.
“It was pretty obvious she does a great job,” Wiggins said. “She was effective tonight. The biggest compliment is she did what Emma (Andrews) and LaShay (Fears) have been doing. It doesn’t look like we have any deficiencies there.”
Tipping off the second game of the night in which the men’s basketball team of Fresno State took on Fresno Pacific, the flow of the match was sluggish at first. Yet, as the game wore on, the scoring picked up and was a back-and-forth battle throughout the first half.
Matt Weir / The Collegian
At the end of the first period, the score stood 28-19 in favor of the ‘Dogs. However, the Sunbirds continued to keep it close after the teams resumed play in the second half. A little past the halfway point of the second half, sophomore center Greg Smith began to take over and had a stretch of scoring multiple baskets en route to acquiring a game-high 16 points.
Head coach Steve Cleveland was pleased with his team’s efforts, and cited that they played tough and maintained a defensive posture.
“Well, we’re, going to talk about the positives,” Cleveland said. “And the positives are that we defended, got in the lanes and played very competitive defensively. I’m very pleased about that. In the second half we committed to throwing the ball into the post and attacking them by getting into the paint.”
Cleveland’s squad starts regular season play against BYU on Nov. 12 in Provo, Utah, while Wiggins’ quest for an NCAA tournament bid begins against Santa Clara on the same day.