Bulldogs stuck with 'sap-py loss
Despite heroics of Fresno State's Ja'Vance Coleman, Louisana Tech, behind the dominating performance of Paul Millsap, pulls out victory in a thriller
Ryan Tubongbanua / The Collegian
Seconds after what the officials called a foul instead of a jump-ball, Fresno State player Dwight O'Neil (far left) and head coach Steve Cleveland (second to right) dispute the call with the referee. Below: With 16 points against Louisiana Tech on Saturday, Fresno State's Hector Hernandez continued his hot shooting, hitting on 7 of 15 field goals.
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By Chhun Sun
The Collegian
The answer was a no-brainer.
Who was going to take the last shot with about 13 seconds left in overtime when the Bulldogs were down by two points to Louisiana Tech, the top team in the Western Athletic Conference?
Ja’Vance Coleman, of course, who’s been known to make last-second heroics.
The junior guard was the one who hit a three-pointer over Tech’s Paul Millsap with seconds left in regulation.
Ja'Vance Coleman |
But Coleman mishandled the ball, tried to attack the hole and then threw up a shot that fell short in the waning moments of overtime.
“It was one of those shots that didn’t go in,” said Coleman, who finished with a career-high 29 points. Also, he needed only two points to become the 44th player in school history to score 800 points.
“Sometimes I make the shot and sometimes I don’t. It’s just unfortunate it happened in the same game,” he continued.
His performance was part of the nail-biting game on Saturday night, but the Bulldogs suffered a heartbreaking 66-68 defeat in front of an announced crowd of 11,199 at the Save Mart Center.
Tonight, the Bulldogs (10-8, 3-4 WAC) face Idaho, a team that sits at the bottom of the conference.
“Yes, I’m disappointed at this loss, but I’m not disappointed at this team,” coach Steve Cleveland said.
“They fought hard till the end.”
The game remained close, despite a less-than-stellar performance by Quinton Hosley, who had a mere seven points and seven rebounds. The only game in which Hosley did worse was the game in Louisiana, where he had only six points and four rebounds.
But Louisiana Tech (14-7, 7-1 WAC) got much-needed help from Millsap, who used his 6-foot-8, 245-pound frame on the smaller Hosley.
Then again, Millsap did more than just defend. He also scored 18 of his 29 points in the second half to go along with 18 rebounds.
“It gets harder and harder,” James Tchana said about defending the star forward.
He couldn’t be more right.
Just ask Hector Hernandez and Renato Cesar, who both also had to share duties of guarding Millsap.
Millsap didn’t do it alone, though. He got help from Corey Dean, who had 12 points and made the first bucket in overtime.
“They made shots. That’s what championships team do,” Cleveland said, adding that Millsap “is going to get his 20 points, no matter what we do.”
That also meant that Hernandez stepping up and scoring 16 points, with six of them coming from beyond the arc, wasn’t enough.
One of his three-pointers came with 43 seconds left to put up the Bulldogs 59-62 in regulation. On the ensuing play, Louisiana Tech put the ball in the hands of Millsap, but he forced up a bad shot. Then everyone in the Save Mart Center knows what happened next — Coleman hit a three at the top of the key to go into overtime.
“We never felt out of it,” Hosley said about the game, despite some fans leaving at 49.5 seconds left in the second half after Hernandez missed a pull-up jumper.
Too bad the Bulldogs only made one field goal in overtime, coming from a Hernandez jumper. But that’s not to take away from a team that took LouisianaTech down to the wire.
“We got some wins left in us and we’re going to compete,” Cleveland said.
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