'Dogs tally blowout in opener

By NATHAN HATHAWAY

If there’s such a thing as a quiet blowout, the Fresno State men’s basketball team accomplished that feat in Friday night’s season-opening 83-42 win over the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore.

The Bulldogs thoroughly outplayed the Hawks in the second half, outscoring Maryland-Eastern Shore 44-17. Strangley, the Bulldogs did it in the most unspectacular way possible.

No dominating performance from any one player. No stifling defense. No amazing highlight-reel plays.

Nothing fantastic. Just a solid team effort that led to an opponent-demoralizing win.

“We took our defensive intensity up to another level (in the second half),” said Fresno State freshman point guard Dominique White, who finished with 11 points and four assists. “One of our strengths is getting out and playing in the open floor, and we got a lot of easy buckets. And we went to our strengths tonight.”

After surviving a quick start by the Hawks, Fresno State settled down and began playing to its strengths.

“I thought we handled the adversity to start the game really well. That was good to see,” Fresno State coach Ray Lopes said. “I actually thought we would be a little nervous to come out the gate and we played with nervous energy and couldn’t make any shots. I’ve been talking to this team over and over and over about mental toughness and handling adversity and being more mature as young men and growing as a basketball team.

“And we had a dose of adversity at the start of the game, but we handled it well. We didn’t break down. We didn’t go in the tank. We didn’t point fingers. We didn’t get frustrated.”

But once Fresno State saw the best Maryland-Eastern Shore had to offer, the Bulldogs knew what they had to do.

“We didn’t know what they were going to come in and do,” said freshman guard Dwight O’Neil, who led all scorers with 15 points. “We took their hardest run in the first five or six minutes, and once you take that, you know what they’ve got, so we just pushed right back at them, and we never let them run at us again.”

Not only did the Bulldogs not let the Hawks run at them again, they came out of halftime and spanked Maryland-Eastern Shore.

The Bulldogs opened up the half on a 26-4 run.

“I was also proud of our defensive intensity to start the second half,” Lopes said. “We’ve come out of the locker room and been able to get on some runs there. We talked about that hard at halftime, that our intensity on defense wasn’t where it needed to be, and we started defending a little harder.

“And that kick-starts our transition game. We’re showing that we can score in transition, and that’s good. That’s going to be a part of our offense, and we want to do that, as long as we take good shots and make good decisions.”

The announced crowd of 11,542 was also treated to the debut of 6-foot-9 freshman forward Hector Hernandez. Despite going scoreless, Hernandez pulled down six rebounds and was in the thick of most plays, once drawing fervent cheers from the crowd after he leapt out of bounds to save an errant pass before crashing into a sign along the sideline.

“He plays hard. He didn’t make any shots tonight, and Hector is a shot-maker,” Lopes said. “Being his first game, I’m sure he was quite nervous. He hadn’t played in a basketball game before at this level, so not too surprising, statistically, but I liked his effort and how hard he played.”

Ja’Vance Coleman and Chris Berry had 13 and 12 points, respectively, and senior Mustafa Al-Sayyad had 13 rebounds, nine in the first half, and nine points for Fresno State.