UPCOMING:
Sat., Feb. 19 -- Utah State, Titan Gym (4,000), 2:05 p.m.
Thur., Feb. 24 -- at UC Santa Barbara, Thunderdome (6,000), 7 p.m.
Sat., Feb. 26 -- at Cal Poly SLO, Mott Gym (3,032), 7 p.m.
THE QUICK SCENARIO: The Titans (14-8, 8-5) are three games ahead in the
loss column with five to play in the battle for fourth place in the Big
West Conference standings, which earns a first-round post-season tournament
bye. They have three home games remaining, all against the three teams
ahead of them in the standings, beginning with Utah State on Saturday
afternoon. The Titans need one more win to clinch their first winning
season since 1992-93, but they have lost 7 in a row, 11 of 12 and 21 of
23 to the Aggies including an 84-60 loss in Logan on Jan. 20. Utah State
moves to the Western Athletic Conference next season.
“RADIO”: All games can be heard live on the internet on computers
with sound cards. Listeners may access the CSF Athletics home page at
www.titansports.org and follow the links. Justin Alderson is the play-by-play
announcer this week.
PROBABLE STARTERS:
No. Name Ht. Yr. ppg rpg Quick Notes
PF 2 Yaphett King 6-4 Sr. 13.1 6.0 No. 6 scorer in Big West games only
at 13.9 ppg
SF 15 Ralphy Holmes 6-4 Sr. 16.3 7.7 No. 3 scorer & No. 3 rebounder
in Big West Conference; 4 double-doubles
C 32 Jamaal Brown 6-7 Jr. 12.9 7.6 43-for-70 FGs (.614) during last 7
games
SG 14 Jermaine Harper 6-3 Jr. 9.9 3.1 5-for-10 treys last two games; 0-for-1
from 2-point land
PG 3 Bobby Brown 6-1 So. 16.5 2.3 19 points, 6 assists, 1 turnover vs.
Idaho
OFF THE BENCH:
G 23 Vershan Cottrell 6-2 Jr. 1.9 1.2 Played season-high 23 minutes vs.
Cal Poly, 21 at UCR
PG 22 John Clemmons 6-0 Jr. 2.0 1.0 January transfer from El Camino College
who didn’t play last year
F 5 Justin Burns 6-6 So. 3.4 2.8 Had “game” of year in first
half at UCI with 6 points, 10 boards in 11 minutes
C 42 Derek Quinet 6-9 So. 3.5 2.3 Started first five games of the season;
hasn’t played in 5 of the last 6 games
F 21 Danny Lambert 6-6 Jr. 0.7 1.0 Transfer from Irvine Valley College
has played only 17 minutes
SIDELINED:
F 24 Hardy Asprilla 6-5 Sr. 8.5 8.8 Out for the season; tore ACL in his
right knee vs. Long Beach St. on Jan. 13
F 12 Drew Awad 6-3 Sr. 1.7 1.0 Leukemia survivor sidelined by foot injury
has suffered cancer re-occurrence
C 43 Lloyd Walls 6-9 Sr. -- -- Transfer from Wright State sidelined all
season after multiple concussions
ABOUT THE AGGIES: Utah State (19-6, 10-4) has won 8 of its last 9 games
including five consecutive road wins by an average of 27 points (all between
24 and 31 points). The scoring comes up front from Spencer Nelson (15.8
ppg) and Nate Harris (13.2 ppg) and from the perimeter from freshman Jaycee
Carroll (14.8 pg, .496 shoooter from 3-oint land). Utah State leads the
nation with a .538 team FG percentage.
DEFENSE WINS: While the Titans continue to lead the Big West Conference
in team scoring at 75.9 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. And
Long Beach shot an opponent season-low .367 from the floor in victory
last Saturday. Beginning with the Jan. 22 game at Idaho, Fullerton is
holding opponents to .412 field goal shooting (186-for-451) over 8 games.
For the first 14 games of the season opponents were shooting .491.
SERIES HISTORY: Utah State leads the series, 38-16, but is only 13-9 in
Titan Gym. Utah State has won on only 3 of its last 5 trips to Fullerton,
losing here in 2001-02 and 1998-99 (no game at Fullerton in 1999-2000).
THE COACHES: Bob Burton is 25-25 in his second year at Fullerton and career.
Burton is 0-3 vs. Utah State. Stew Morrill is 162-52 in hs seventh year
at Utah State and 380-190 career. He is 11-2 vs. Fullerton at Utah State
and 13-2 career.
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).
THREE-PART SEASON: The Titans consider themselves 6-4 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: Finally qualified last week for Big West Conference statistical
rankings (75 percent of team’s games) and jumped in as No. 3 scorer
and rebounder prior to his double-double (21 points, 11 rebounds) vs.
Idaho. 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 recent 5-game winning
streak he averaged 17.8 points and 8.0 rebounds while shooting 58 percent
(36-for-62) from the floor. He has shot better than 50 percent from the
floor in each of the last four games and 6 of the last 7.
YAPHETT ADDS TO SCORING ‘POWER’: The loss of Hardy Asprilla
has turned Yaphett King into the power forward for the past 10 games and
he has improved his scoring, averaging 14.7 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. In the five games prior to
Cal Poly, he had been a second-half scoring machine with 56 of his 76
points coming after intermission. 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.
JERMAINE HARPER: The University of Virginia transfer has taken 127 3-point
field goals and 62 2-pointers this season. In conference play the breakdown
is 67 treys and 25 deuces. His scoring has been all over the board --
he has scored 4 points or less seven 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.
BOBBY BROWN : After missing his first thre shots vs. Idaho, he came back
to make 7 of the last 10 on his way to 19 points, his best effort in Big
West play since a 24-point game vs. UC Irvine on Jan. 15. Over the previous
8 games, he was 33-for-96 (.344) from the floor and 17-for-55 from the
3-point line (.309). He still is the conference’s No. 2 scorer (16.5
ppg) and No. 2 assists man (5.27 apg) and No. 2 in 3-pointers made per
game (2.73). He is one free throw made from qualifying for the Big West
leaders (2 made per team game) and his .878 percentage (43 of 49) would
put him right at the top (David Doubley of Pacific is at .880). Bobby
was 14-for-14 last weekand 2-for-3 vs. Idaho.
JAMAAL BROWN ON A ROLL: Jamaal Brown’s play the past seven games
is probably the biggest reason for the Titans’ 6-1 record. After
averaging 8 points (8-for-23 FGs) in the 3-game losing streak, he’s
had 96 points (43-of-70 FGs, .614) in the last seven games with 53 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 last week including the
game-turning field goal with 25 seconds left and two clinching free throws
with 6 seconds left.
DOUBLE FIGURES: With five players averaging double figures, 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 9 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 5 games, the bench has produced
only 27 TOTAL points -- in reverse order: 4, 3, 9, 7 and 4.
STUDENTS GET FIRST LOOK: Remarkably, Cal State Fullerton this week is
playing its first home games of the season with students in session. The
Nov. 27 Hope game came during Thanksgiving Holiday. The Dec. 23 game vs.
Denver came during the Christmas recess. The balance came during intersession
until Thursday night, when students contributed to significantly to the
crowd of 2,076, largest since 4,218 saw a win over UNLV on March 6, 1993.
3-BOMBS AWAY: Fullerton is averaging 7.8 makes and 21.9 attempts per game.
Those numbers project over a 27-game regular season to 209 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. They went 0-for-5
in the first half and 7-for-12 in the second half vs. Long Beach State.
On the USU-Idaho road trip they made only 12 of 48 (.250) and then hit
18 of 53 (.340) at home. The 14 3-pointers vs. UCI tied the school single-game
record originally set on Dec. 9, 2003, vs. USC. The 29 attempts vs. UCSB
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. At UC Davis last week they were 0-for-9 in the first
half and 6-for-9 in the second half. At UCI 4-of-21 to win, at Long Beach
8-of-22 to lose and 7-of-19 vs. Idaho to win.
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. Since Utah State was last here,
Fullerton is 13-2 at home including 8-1 this season. 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. The season disparity is 458 attempts by opponents
to 294 by Fullerton. But in the 5-game winning streak, CSF was 53-of-75
compared to 50-of-68 by opponents.
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.
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.
