'Dogs open with exhibition win

Fresno State is led by young players to 81-63 victory over Fresno Pacific in the Bulldogs' first exhibition of the year

By NATHAN HATHAWAY

Even with a crop of very young and inexperienced players, the Fresno State men’s basketball team could be pretty sure it would have little trouble with Fresno Pacific.

It was right.

Fresno State out-muscled, out-quicked and flat outplayed the NAIA Sunbirds en route to an 81-63 win in the Bulldogs’ exhibition opener at the Save Mart Center on Monday.

“Offensively, we played the way we’ve been practicing— pretty smart,” Lopes said. “I was pretty pleased with how we moved the ball, the shots that we took.”

The Bulldogs shot almost 46 percent for the game, hitting 28 of the 61 shots they took. Fifteen of those baskets were assisted.

The Bulldogs jumped out early, taking a 9-3 lead before Fresno Pacific closed the gap to 12-11 behind two 3-pointers and three free throws by Corey Duckworth.

But the Bulldogs quickly wrested back control of the contest, going on a 13-3 run to take an 11-point lead. The Sunbirds never got closer than six points after that.

The Bulldogs came out of the locker room after halftime on a mission. Fresno State rattled off nine unanswered points, including a layup, two free throws and two offensive rebounds by Donovan Morris.

Morris, a freshman guard, led the Bulldogs with 19 points and 12 rebounds.

“It felt good. It felt like we played team ball today,” Morris said. “We did a good job of that—moving the ball, finding good shots. It’s just us knocking them down.”

Sophomore guard Ja’Vance Coleman, a transfer from College of the Sequoias, contributed 17 points, going 5 of 8 from behind the 3-point line. Freshman point guard Dominique White had 10 assists.

A pleasant surprise came in the return of Fresno State senior center Mustafa Al-Sayyad. Al-Sayyad, who has been battling a knee injury and has been limited in practices, checked in about five minutes into the game to a shower of “Moose” cheers.

“It felt pretty good to be out there and back again after being out for awhile,” Al-Sayyad said. “So I’m just really glad to be back.”

While Fresno State coach Ray Lopes was happy to see Al-Sayyad back on the floor, he knows his center still has a ways to go.

“You can tell he’s a little rusty. You can tell he hasn’t practiced in three weeks,” Lopes said. “But it’s good to see him out there.

“He’s still a couple of weeks away from getting into the groove, and we’ll take it easy with him this week.”

Al-Sayyad had seven points and seven rebounds.

Lopes’ assessment of Al-Sayyad’s performance was downright kind compared to the way the senior gauged his own play.

“Very poor. Just a little bit out of shape. I’ve been away for awhile.”

The Bulldogs got a slight scare late in the first half when freshman forward Chris Berry went down with a twisted ankle. With Al-Sayyad and freshman forward Hector Hernandez (hamstring) already dealing with injuries, Fresno State could ill afford to lose anyone else to injury.

“We were short on depth as it was at that position,” Lopes said.

But Berry checked back into the game about a minute and a half into the second half and had five points and five rebounds in the half.

“He came out. He was a trooper,” Lopes said. “That was really good. He came back and toughed it out.

That was a good sign.”

Despite the team’s success, however, Lopes pointed to the shortcomings as areas to focus on heading into Sunday’s exhibition against Cal State Monterey.

The Bulldogs had 18 turnovers and were often slow on transition defense.

“The key is improvement,” Lopes said. “We’re a long ways from being good. We’ve got a ways to go.

We’ve got to get better. In a lot of areas, we’ve got to get better.”