'Dogs survive late Hurricane

The Bulldogs held on for the 68-61 win despite a second-half comeback effort behind a 30-point output from Tulsa point guard Jason Parker

By Nathan Hathaway

For the Fresno State basketball team, the key to rebounding from back-to-back losses was rebounding.

Fresno State dominated visiting Tulsa on the glass Saturday night in the Bulldogs’ 68-61 Western Athletic Conference win. The win snapped a two-game losing streak for Fresno State, which had won seven straight before losses at Texas-El Paso and Rice.

The Bulldogs out-rebounded the Golden Hurricane 46-29, including 31-11 in the first half. Fresno State’s 11 first-half offensive rebounds matched Tulsa’s first-half rebounding total.

The Bulldogs’ total of 46 rebounds was more than 10 rebounds above their season average.

Mustafa Al-Sayyad led the way for the Bulldogs, pulling down 14 rebounds to go along with his 11 points, his third double-double of the season.

“ Our program is all about defense and rebounding,” Al-Sayyad said. “If we limit them for one shot, that’s good.”

Terry Pettis led the Bulldogs in scoring with 20 points on 7-of-17 shooting. Pettis has scored in double figures in each of the 10 games he has played in since returning to the lineup Dec. 22. The sophomore leads the team with an average of 13.9 points.

“ This team’s looking for me to score,” Pettis said. “When I shoot it, it’s going in. I’m pretty effective.”

Pettis has scored in double figures in every game since his return to the lineup Dec. 22 and is leading the team with a 13.9 points-per-game average.

Less than five minutes into the game, point guard Shantay Legans got caught up with another player on a rebound and banged his ankle against the basketball standard. He came out of the game before returning to the floor less than a minute and a half later to the obvious delight of the 14,806 fans at the Save Mart Center, the second-largest crowd to ever watch a Fresno State home game.

But Legans played only another three and a half minutes before limping off the court and toward the locker room. Legans came back with just more than four minutes to go in the first half, however, and picked up right where he left off, hitting a jump shot shortly after his return. Legans finished with eight points—all coming after his spill.

Fresno State coach Ray Lopes said Legans bruised his ankle, but Legans wouldn’t even call it that.

“I just banged it against the post, but it’s all right,” Legans said. “Nothing happened.”

Fresno State built a 16-point halftime lead largely on the strength of a 12-2 run over a six-minute stretch. But Tulsa point guard Jason Parker, who led all scorers with 30 points, began to almost single-handedly chip away at that lead in the second half.

During a seven-minute stretch in the second half, Parker personally outscored the Bulldogs 16-8 to cut the lead to six points.

“ He’s a great shooter,” Tulsa coach John Phillips said. “It was one of those nights where he was feeling it.”

Tulsa got the Fresno State lead down to five points. The teams traded shot for shot the rest of the way, and Tulsa was never able to close the gap.

After the Hurricane’s Seneca Collins hit a 3-pointer to cut the lead to five for the fourth time in four minutes, Legans took a pass from Terry Pettis near the left elbow and sank a 3 to extend the lead to eight.

“ That’s a big shot Shantay hit tonight,” Lopes said. “Late in the game, when we’ve got a lead, I’ve got a lot of confidence in Shan and in Terry to take that shot.”

Fresno State’s free throw shooting also made quite a difference. The Bulldogs made 26 of their 33 free throws, while only letting Tulsa get to the line six times.