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Plenty of Milestones Still Ahead for Titans THE QUICK SCENARIO: Having clinched
their first winning season since 1992-93, the Titans (15-8, 9-5) can now
set their sites on these remaining goals in the final four regular season
games -- (in no particular order of importance): TELEVISION: The game at UCSB will be telecast live on KVMD (Ch. 23) with Geoff Witcher and Don Ford at the microphones. PROBABLE STARTERS:
ABOUT THE GAUCHOS: UC Santa Barbara (9-14, 6-8) is 7-3 at home and only 2-11 away from the Thunderdome. Josh Davis (10.3 ppg) and Chrismen Oliver (10.2 ppg) lead the offensive attack, but Alex Harris (8.3 ppg) led UCSB vs. Fullerton on Jan. 29 with 16 points. SERIES HISTORY: UC Santa Barbara leads it, 31-26, after Fullerton’s 68-59 win in Titan Gym on Jan. 29. UCSB still has won 11 of the past 13 meetings and 8 of the last 10 in Santa Barbara. Fullerton last won in the Thunderdome on Jan. 4, 2003, (57-55 in OT) when Ralphy Holmes hit a long 3-pointer at the regulation buzzer. Last year, Fullerton had the least productive half in school history, trailing at the half, 39-9, on its way to a 77-44 defeat. THE COACHES: Bob Burton is 26-25 in his second year at Fullerton and career. Burton is 1-2 vs. his close friend Bob Williams, who is 105-93 in his seventh year at UCSB and 294-193 career. Williams is 11-2 vs. Fullerton, 5-1 at home. DEFENSE WINS: While the Titans continue to lead the Big West Conference in team scoring at 75.4 points per game, their defense was the glaring strength in the recent 5-game winning streak. They held UCR and UC Davis to back-to-back 55-point games, lowest by an opponent all season. Even Long Beach shot an opponent season-low .367 from the floor in victory on Feb. 12. Beginning with the Jan. 22 game at Idaho, Fullerton is holding opponents to .423 field goal shooting (208-for-492) over 9 games. For the first 14 games of the season opponents were shooting .491. BEST RECORD IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: After 12 years of losing records, the Titans suddenly find themselves with the best overall record among Southern California Div. I schools at 15-8. UCLA is 14-9. Among allCalifornia schools, only Pacific (22-2) and Saint Mary’s (22-7) are better. THREE-PART SEASON: The Titans consider themselves 7-4 in Part III (without Hardy Asprilla) of a disjointed season. In Part I (without Ralphy Holmes and Jamaal Brown) they were 3-2. In Part II (with a full roster) they were 5-2. 4-3 IN CRUNCH TIME: The Titans are 4-3 in games this year that went down to the final shot with three different players being the offensive hero. At Eastern Washington, Jermaine Harper made a 3-pointer with 4 seconds left for a 2-point win. At Cal State Northridge, Yaphett King gave the Titans a 1-point lead with 8 seconds left (Davin White missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer for the Matadors). And vs. UCR, Jamaal Brown made two free throws with less than 5 seconds to play after Hardy Asprilla’s 3-point play with 51 seconds left put CSF ahead to stay. Jamaal Brown again made the plays at UC Irvine last week. His bank shot with 25 seconds to go put Fullerton ahead and he converted a bonus free-throw situation with 6 seconds left for the decisive points in a 1-point win. In each of the three 3-point losses, the Titans had 3-pointers to tie in the closing seconds but missed -- J.Brown at SDSU, Harper & Holmes at Idaho and B.Brown at Long Beach. RALPHY HOLMES: It took until the UCI game on Feb. 10 for him to qualify for Big West Conference statistical rankings (75 percent of team’s games) but now he is prominently positioned at No. 3 in scoring (16.3 ppg), No. 2 in rebounding (7.6 rpg) and No. 10 in field-goal percentage (.475). With the exceptions of his first game back and Jan. 15 vs. UC Irvine, Holmes has looked like his first-team All-Big West Conference (2002-03) self after a one-year hiatus. His 6-point game vs. UCI was only the fifth time as a Titan he failed to score in double figures. On the USU-Idaho road trip he led the Titans in scoring and rebounding in each game including a then career-high 13 rebounds at Idaho. In the homecourt rematches, he posted virtually identical numbers to player of the week Bobby Brown with 37 points (14-for-28 shooting) and 17 rebounds. He also was primarily responsible for holding Dandrick Jones to 6-for-20 shooting. YAPHETT ADDS TO SCORING ‘POWER’: The loss of Hardy Asprilla has turned Yaphett King into the power forward for the past 11 games and he has improved his scoring, averaging 14.8 ppg over that span with three games of 21 or more points. He had a 19-point first half vs. Cal Poly and a 17-point first half vs. UC Riverside. Twice he has been the “go-to” guy down the stretch. Vs. Colgate on Nov. 20, he scored 9 of his 11 points and 9 of the team’s final 13 (in the last 6:39) to hold off a Colgate rally. At Northridge, he scored 8 of the team’s final 12 points in regulation (in final 3:38) and then added 4 more points in overtime including the game-winning bucket with 8 seconds to play. Against Utah State on Saturday, he scored 14 points in the second half and his 3-pointer with 39 seconds to play was the back-breaker for the Aggies .JERMAINE HARPER: The University of Virginia transfer has taken 134 3-point field goals and 63 2-pointers this season. In conference play the breakdown is 74 treys and 26 deuces. His scoring has been all over the board -- he has scored 4 points or less eight times (going scoreless 4 times) this season yet he has had three games of 20 or more points. In the other 12 games he has had between 7 and 16 points. His consecutive games in double figures vs. Cal Poly and UCSB were the first time he had done that since the first three games of the season. His defense on opponents’ top perimeter shooter has been solid. BOBBY BROWN: Garnered Big West Conference Player of the Week honors for his role in the home wins over Idaho and Utah State. He had 37 points (14-for-28 shooting) and 10 assists in the two games. He assisted on the two buckets to put away the Idaho game in the final two minutes and vs. Utah State he made a spectacular 3-point play to put Fullerton ahead for good with 1:31 remaining. Despite a recent shooting slump, he still is the conference’s No. 2 scorer (16.6 ppg) and No. 2 assists man (5.22 apg) and No. 2 in 3-pointers made per game (2.70). He is one free throw made from qualifying for the Big West leaders (2 made per team game) and his .865 percentage (45-of-52) would put him right near the top (David Doubley of Pacific is at .882). With 62 3-point field goals, he has the No. 10 Titan single-season total and is approaching his total of 70 of last season, which ranks No. 4. In career treys, he ranks No. 6 with 132. Mark Murphy (1998-2000) is No. 5 at 133. He has had the two worst scoring games of his career vs. UCSB -- 0 points at UCSB on Jan. 31, 2004, and 3 points vs. UCSB on Jan. 29 of this season. JAMAAL BROWN ON A ROLL: Jamaal Brown’s play the past eight games is probably the biggest reason for the Titans’ 7-1 record. After averaging 8 points (8-for-23 FGs) in the 3-game losing streak, he’s had 103 points (46-of-78 FGs, .590) in the last eight games with 59 rebounds. His double-double (13 points, 14 rebounds) vs. UCSB was his fourth of the season. He made 10-of-11 shots at UC Irvine on Feb. 10 including the game-turning field goal with 25 seconds left and two clinching free throws with 6 seconds left. His defense on Spencer Nelson in the second half on Saturday was critical in the Titans’ rally from an 8-point deficit at the intermission. DOUBLE FIGURES: With five players averaging 9.5 ppg or more, it’s not surprising to see the Titans spreading the scoring load around.All five of the “current” starters have led the team in a game -- B.Brown 10 times, Holmes (5), King (4), Harper (2), J. Brown (2) and four times at least five players have been in double figures. Six Titans (B. Brown 21, Asprilla 16, Harper 16, King 15, Burns 14 and Quinet 10) did it vs. Hope International. Prior to that performance, the last time the Titans had six players in double figures was Feb. 4, 1999, in an 88-78 home win over Utah State (Cunningham 23, Caldwell 12, Jarrett 12, Murphy 12, Fischer 11, Harmon 10). NOT MUCH SCORING FROM BENCH: Conversely, the Titans’ bench is not much of an offensive threat. In the last 6 games, the bench has produced only 33 TOTAL points -- in reverse order: 6, 4, 3, 9, 7, 4. Of course, the starters don’t leave the floor much. In the nine games (current streak) the starters are averaging 32.6 minutes per man (Holmes = 34.9; B. Brown = 34.2; J. Brown = 31.6; Harper = 31.3; & King = 30.9). STUDENTS GET FIRST LOOK: Remarkably, Cal State Fullerton last week played its first home games of the season with students in session. A crowd of 2,076 showed up for the Idaho game on Feb. 17, making it the largest home gathering since 4,128 saw a win over UNLV on March 6, 1993. The Nov. 27 Hope game came during Thanksgiving Holiday and the Dec. 23 game vs. Denver came during the Christmas recess. The balance came during intersession. 3-BOMBS AWAY: Fullerton is averaging 7.7 makes and 21.9 attempts per game. Those numbers project over a 27-game regular season to 207 makes and 590 attempts and both of those numbers would be school single-season records (196 makes last season and 551 attempts in 1996-97). As goes perimeter shooting, the results have seldom been “average.” They shot a season’s worst 3-for-18 vs. UC Riverside on Jan. 6 and two nights later a season’s best 10-for-18 vs. UC Davis. The 14 3-pointers vs. UC Irvine on Jan. 15 tied the school single-game record originally set on Dec. 9, 2003, vs. USC. The 29 attempts vs. UCSB on Jan. 29 equalled a season high and were only two shy of the school record. The Titans made 10 in the second half of the UCI game and 9 in the first half at UCR on Feb. 3. HOME MAGIC BACK?: Titan Gym used to be a “pit” to opponents. Between the 1981-82 and 1992-93 seasons, Fullerton had a winning home record every year with a total of 118 wins vs. 43 losses (.733). Under Bob Hawking (39-37) and Donny Daniels (13-26), the record fell to 52-63 for the 1994-95 thru 2002-03 seasons. But Fullerton is 9-1 this season and has won 14 of the last 16 at home. Last year’s team was 8-6 at home after a 3-5 start. ABOUT TIME: Fullerton has shot more free throws than its opponent only four times all season -- in wins vs. UC Santa Barbara, at UC Davis, at UC Irvine and vs. Idaho. Both Utah State and CSF shot 12 on Saturday. The season disparity is 470 attempts by opponents to 306 by Fullerton. But in the 5-game winning streak, CSF was 53-of-75 compared to 50-of-68 by opponents. FLYING HIGH: Barring post-season play, the Titans are done with airplanes this season. They flew home after a win three times -- vs. Colgate at Central Connecticut, at Eastern Washington and at UC Davis. Those three “air” wins match the PAST SEVEN SEASONS COMBINED, to wit: 1-6 in 1997-98; 0-8 in 1998-99; 0-7 in 1999-2000; 1-6 in 2000-01; 0-6 in 2001-02; 1-6 in 2002-03 and 0-5 in 2003-04 for a total of 3-44. Compare that to this year’s 3-4 mark (also lost to Samford in Connecticut, at Denver, at Utah St. and at Idaho). NUMBER SWITCH: Jamaal Brown was going to wear No. 4 this season for the Titans in honor of his former Western Kentucky teammate Nathan Eisert, who committed suicide. Jamaal gave up that jersey at the TV taping and opted for No. 32, a number his dad wore. NETWORK EXPOSURE: ABC's highly rated Extreme Makeover: Home Edition came to Titan Gym on Dec. 8 to tape a tribute to Rodney Anderson, the former Titan player whose family received the full treatment from the show between Dec. 4 and 14, getting TWO new homes to replace their 1911-built residence in South Central L.A. The taping featured the retirement of his jersey (No. 4) and was included in a special two-hour episode that aired on Jan. 16 and a one-hour segment on Jan. 17. Rodney was shot in a mistaken-identity gang shooting near his home on Mar. 2, 2000, and is paralyzed and in a wheelchair. He is scheduled to graduate in June with a degree in human services. He and his girlfriend, Monique, were married on Dec. 13 in their new yard as part of the show.
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