Bulldogs say no way 'Jose to Spartans
Coleman's 23 and Hernandez's 25 guide Bulldogs to home victory
Ryan Tubongbanua / The Collegian
Fresno State’s Ja’Vance Coleman was blowing by Spartan defenders all game while on his way to a 23–point effort. Fresno State won 79–66. |
By Chhun Sun
The Collegian
The similarities are obvious.
Both coaches are trying to rebuild basketball programs and turn them into dominant forces in the Western Athletic Conference. Both coaches spent some coaching time in the Fresno area. Both coaches are in their first years of coaching at their new schools and struggling to win. Plus, they’re good friends.
But on Saturday night, the similarities didn’t matter.
It was Steve Cleveland who was the one who coached his Bulldogs to a 79-66 win over George Nessman and his San Jose State Spartans at the Save Mart Center, the first meeting of the two teams this season.
“We knew coming in we weren’t going to just show up and win. I think our players, at the end, put out a great effort and they should be commended for that,” former Fresno City College coach Cleveland said.
“You have to show integrity and respect your opponent. Everybody we play can beat anyone at any given night.”
Nessman knows the feeling of respect.
“I’m most impressed about how well they played in the end. The only thing you can do is show support by shaking their hands and telling them they did a great job,” said Nessman, who coached at Porterville College and Bakersfield College before taking the head-coaching job at San Jose State this season.
The Spartans, who now drops to 2-8 in the WAC and 6-17 overall, had the Bulldogs (12-10, 5-6) on their toes — with the score tied at 38 at the half.
Then the Bulldogs built a 17-point lead in the second half, not allowing the Spartans to come back. That was enough for the Bulldogs to snap their two-game losing streak.
And it came with a career-best performance from Hector Hernandez, who had a career-high 25 points to go along with eight rebounds and four blocks.
But Hernandez, who also had two assists, remained humble about his night, saying that it was a solid team effort.
“Coach just told me to keep my head in the game and keep playing hard,” Hernandez said. “I think everybody came to play.”
But Cleveland thinks his performance is beyond just playing a good game.
“He’s giving everything he has every night,” he said of Hernandez. “He has four holes in stomach, things are oozing out from different directions.”
The coach is referring to a treatment Hernandez had last summer in Mexico, when he endured a significant weight loss after undergoing an appendectomy. Hernandez has still yet to regain the weight loss suffered from the surgery.
To take some weight of Hernandez’s shoulders was Ja’Vance Coleman, who scored 23 points and grabbed five rebounds.
He, too, remained humble, even though Cleveland said the junior guard played until he had nothing left, adding “in the locker room, Coleman was exhausted.”
“I put in a lot of minutes,” Coleman said. “I worked real hard to produce.”
And Coleman had to, because his tag-team scoring partner, Quinton Hosely, was a bit off from being his stellar self. Instead, the junior forward had eight points while grabbing a career-high 10 rebounds — and he had his fourth foul with nine minutes left.
“Our talk with coach was about being good teammates. Not getting down. Keeping our head up,” said Hosely, who, after the game, had a large bag of ice wrapped around his hand after he hurt his thumb in the Bulldogs’ loss to Idaho last week.
This is about a team who had to contain the duo of Alex Elam and Demetrius Brown, who both combined for 31 points and 13 rebounds.
But it was the performance of Brown, whose 6-foot-6-inch frame is built like a running back, which kept the Spartans close late into the game.
His performance wasn’t enough, though.
“The talk we had with coach about respect helped us out quite a bit. Of course you gotta respect each other,” Hosely added. “We bonded together. I think so. It was a turning point. It can only go up from here.”
Comment on this story in the Sports forum >>
|
