UPCOMING:
Thur., Feb. 3 -- at UC Riverside, Student Recreation Center (3,168), 7:10
p.m. - KVMD television
Mon., Feb. 7 -- at UC Davis, The Pavillion (7,600), 7 p.m.
THE QUICK SCENARIO: The Titans (10-7, 5-4) launch the second-half of the
Big West Conference round-robin schedule at UC Riverside in their only
game of the week, the first of four consecutive road contests. They are
coming off a pair of home wins over Cal Poly and UCSB and now try to find
a way to win away from Titan Gym without leading rebounder Hardy Asprilla,
out for the season with a knee injury.
TELEVISION: Thursday’s game will be televised live on KVMD television,
Ch. 23, and available on many cable outlets.
“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. Mel Franks is the announcer
at UC Riverside and UC Davis.
PROBABLE STARTERS:
No. Name Ht. Yr. ppg rpg Quick Notes
F 2 Yaphett King 6-4 Sr. 13.1 4.9 Career high 26 points vs. Cal Poly,
19 in the first half on 7-of-8 shooting
F 15 Ralphy Holmes 6-4 Sr. 16.1 7.0 Needs to play 3 more games to qualify
for Big West stats leaderboards
C 32 Jamaal Brown 6-7 Jr. 12.2 8.0 In Big West games only is the BWC leader
in rebounding at 9.1 rpg
G 14 Jermaine Harper 6-3 Jr. 10.4 3.4 Go figure? -- three games with 20+
points, six games with 4 points or less
G 3 Bobby Brown 6-1 So. 16.6 2.1 Averaging only 9.8 points over last four
games
OFF THE BENCH:
C 42 Derek Quinet 6-9 So. 3.5 2.3 Started first five games of the season
G 23 Vershan Cottrell 6-2 Jr. 1.9 1.1 Played season-high 23 minutes vs.
Cal Poly
G 22 John Clemmons 6-0 Jr. 2.5 1.3 January transfer from El Camino College
who didn’t play last year
F 5 Justin Burns 6-6 So. 3.4 2.5 Got first start of the season at Utah
State and blocked 3 early shots
F 21 Danny Lambert 6-6 Jr. 0.7 1.0 Transfer from Irvine Valley College
has played only 15 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 State
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 HIGHLANDERS: UC Riverside is 7-11 overall and 3-6 in the Big
West Conference. The Highlanders are coming off a 90-81 home loss to Cal
Poly. They had won three in a row at home since the loss to UC Davis on
Jan. 10 when leading scorer and rebounder Vili Morton went down with a
season-ending knee injury.
THE COACHES: Bob Burton is 21-24 in his second year at Fullerton and career.
Burton is 2-1 vs. UC Riverside. John Masi is 460-261 in his 26th year
at UCR and overall. He is 1-2 vs. Burton and 5-5 vs. Cal State Fullerton.
SERIES HISTORY: Cal State Fullerton tied the series at 12 wins each on
Jan. 6 with a74-71 win in Titan Gym. Fullerton led most of the game but
Morton gave UCR a 1-point lead in the final two minutes. A 3-point play
by Hardy Asprilla with just under a minute to play put Fullerton back
ahead to stay and both Bobby and Jamaal Brown made a pair of free throws
in the final 15 seconds to hold off the Highlanders. The teams have split
their season series in each of the past two seasons. Fullerton is 1-3
in the Student Recreation Center, winning two seasons ago.
GOOD START: Fullerton’s 10-7 overall record is its best 17-game
mark since the 1996-97 team also was 10-7. It would lose game No. 18.
With a win at UCR, CSF would improve to 11-7 and that would be the best
start since the 1992-93 team was 12-6 after 18 games.
FLYING HIGH: With two wins this year on trips requiring air travel, the
Titans have almost as many “airplane” victories this season
as in the past seven seasons COMBINED. Fullerton is 5-53 since winning
at BYU and Montana in the first two road games of the 1996-97 season (0-5
in 1996-97 after the first two road games; 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; 2-4 so far in 2004-05 with only a game at UC Davis on the
“flying” schedule.
LATE FIRST-HALF MELTDOWN: In the final 4:00 of the first half this year,
the Titans have been outscored a combined 136-91 in all games and 81-36
in conference games, even after a 10-5 CSF advantage Thursday night vs.
Cal Poly and a 6-6 draw with UCSB on Saturday. In the previous four games
the tally read: Long Beach, 14-4; UC Irvine, 13-5; Utah State, 11-0; and
Idaho, 6-3, for a total of 44-12. Possible reasons? Foul trouble for starters,
only the opponent in bonus situation and fatigue. Only vs. Colgate, second
game vs. Denver, vs. UC Davis and vs. Cal Poly have the Titans “won”
the last four minutes before the half.
3-2 IN CRUNCH TIME: The Titans are 3-2 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 when EWU couldn’t get off a last shot. At
Cal State Northridge, Yaphett King gave the Titans a 1-point lead with
8 seconds left and Davin White missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer for the
Matadors. And vs. UCR, Justin Bell missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer after
Jamaal Brown had made two free throws with less than 5 seconds to play.
Hardy Asprilla’s 3-point play with 51 seconds left was the key.
RALPHY IS BACK: With the exceptions of his first game back and Jan. 15
vs. UC Irvine, Ralphy Holmes has looked like his first-team All-Big West
Conference (2002-03) self after a one-year hiatus. After a humbling debut
at San Diego State, where he went scoreless on 0-for-9 shooting, he averaged
19.5 points over the next six games including 25 points in 27 minutes
off the bench vs. Denver. His 6-point game vs. UCI was only the fifth
time as a Titan he failed to score in double figures. On the last road
trip he led the Titans in scoring and rebounding in each game including
a career-high 13 rebounds at Idaho. Vs. Cal Poly he had his second-best
shooting night (9-of-12) of the season on his way to 19 points and he
led the win vs. UCSB with 20 points (7 of 13 FGs) and 8 rebounds. He needs
to play three more games to qualify for the Big West leader board (75
percent of his team’s games).
YAPHETT DOWN THE STRETCH: King has been the Titans’ “go-to”
guy down the stretch in two victories and had become a second-half scoring
machine prior to his 19-point FIRST half vs. Cal Poly. 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. In the five games prior to Cal Poly he had totaled
76 points with 56 of them coming after intermission. Vs. UCSB he had 7
points in each half.
JEKYLL-HYDE ACT?: Junior guard Jermaine Harper basically scored his “average”
(now 10.4 ppg) vs. Cal Poly with 13 points and 14 vs. UCSB last week,
but the term is misleading for the University of Virginia transfer. He
has scored 4 points or less six times this season yet he has had three
games of 20 or more points. After scoring 24 including the game-winning
bucket at Eastern Washington on Dec. 10, he scored a TOTAL of 6 points
on 2-for-19 shooting overall and 0-for-11 from 3-point range over the
next three games. Coming off the bench at Pacific on Dec. 30, he made
9 of 15 shots including 5 of 10 attempts from behind the arc to post a
new career high of 25 points. But then he failed to score vs. UCR, missing
all 4 shots in 19 minutes. His consecutive games in double figures vs.
Cal Poly and UCSB was the first time he had done that since the first
three games of the season.
BOBBY BROWN IN A SLUMP: Bobby Brown’s scoring is down of late, a
combination of a lower shooting percentage and more focus on getting teammates
involved. He made only 9-of-29 shots on the last road trip and then went
only 5-for-17 (3-for-11 treys) at home last week. He is averaging only
9.8 points over the last four games along with 4.0 assists. And in the
five games since a 12-assist, zero-turnover effort vs. Long Beach State
on Jan. 13, he has 25 assists and 19 turnovers. He’s averaging 16.6
points per game but only 14.6 in Big West games. Brown’s 12 assists
vs. Long Beach were only one shy of his career-high of 13 vs. Hope. His
3 points vs. UCSB were the second lowest of his Titan career. He failed
to score (0-for-4 FGs) in 26 minutes last year at UCSB.
JAMAAL BROWN ON A ROLL: Jamaal Brown’s play the past two games was
probably the biggest reason for the Titans’ turnaround. After averaging
8 points (8-for-23 FGs) in the 3-game losing streak, he had 24 points
(10-of-18 FGs) in the 2 home wins with 20 rebounds. His double-double
(13 points, 14 rebounds) vs. UCSB was his fourth of the season.
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 8 times, Holmes (4), King (2), Harper (2), J. Brown (1) 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).
3-BOMBS AWAY: Fullerton is averaging 7.9 makes and 22.0 attempts per game.
Those numbers project over a 27-game regular season to 214 makes and 594
attempts and both of those numbers would be school single-season records
(196 makes last season and 551 attempts in 1996-97). 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 last road trip they made
only 12 of 48 (.250) and then hit 18 of 53 (.340) last week at home. The
14 3-pointers vs. UCI tied the school single-game record originally set
on Dec. 9, 2003, vs. USC. 12. The 29 attempts vs. UCSB equalled a season
high and were only two shy of the school record.
ABOUT TIME: Vs. UCSB, the Titans were 15-of-24 (season-high attempts)
at the foul line compared to 3-for-9 by the Gauchos. In the previous 3
games, the Titans had shot 29 free throws to 69 by their opponents. The
seasonal disparity is 224 vs. 388.
OPPONENTS FARING WELL IN CONFERENCE: Fullerton’s non-conference
schedule didn’t feature a lineup boasting a powerful RPI, but the
Titans’ opponent are doing reasonably well in conference play. Through
games of Jan. 30, Denver is tied for the lead in the Western Divison of
the Sun Belt Conference with Louisiana-Lafayette at 6-1 (9-7 overall).
Samford is tied for second in the Ohio Valley Conference at 6-2 (11-8
overall) behind 7-1 Tennessee Tech. San Diego State (3-2, 9-9) is in third
place in the Mountain West. Eastern Washington (4-3, 6-13) is tied for
third in the Big Sky Conference. Colgate (3-4, 8-12) is in fifth place
in the Patriot League. UC Davis is 8-11 overall including 3-5 vs. Big
West opponents. Hope is struggling at 4-14.
HELLO, CAMERAS: This will be Fullerton’s thid appearance on television
this year. The first was on a local station at San Diego State on Dec.
21 and the second was Saturday’s FOX Sports Net West 2 telecast
of the UCSB game. The Titans are scheduled three more times (on FOX Sports
Net West 2 at Long Beach on Feb. 12 and two more times on KVMD) and hope
to add to that total with a run at the Big West Conference post-season
tournament.
TITAN GYM GOES HOLLYWOOD: 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.
BIG VICTORY MARGINS: With a 34-point win (107-73) over Hope International
and a 28-point win (89-61) over UC Davis, the Titans have a pair of 28-points
or more wins in the same season for the first time since the 1986-87 season
when George McQuarn’s Titans beat Cal State Bakersfield (83-46)
and Southern Utah (100-58) in back-to-back games on Dec. 5 and Dec. 8.
