THE QUICK SCENARIO: Fullerton (5-4, 1-1) has a golden
opportunity to extend one of its best starts in recent seasons with four
consecutive home games to start the new calendar year. The Titans have
won their only two home games this season and have won seven out of eight
in Titan Gym dating to last season. They host UC Riverside in a Big West
Conference game, UC Davis in a non-conference affair, and then neighborhood
rivals Long Beach State and UC Irvine in two more Big West contests.
“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. Todd Reeves handles
the play-by-play vs. the three UC schools with assistance from Patrick
Alog vs. UC Davis. Justin Alderson and Troy Bardy are at the microphones
for the Long Beach State contest.
PROBABLE STARTERS:
No. Name Ht. Yr. ppg rpg Quick Notes
F 2 Yaphett King * 6-4 Sr. 11.6 5.6 Keyed rally at CSU Northridge with
12 points in final 8 1/2 minutes
F 24 Hardy Asprilla * 6-5 Sr. 7.6 8.0 Leading the Titans at the foul line,
making 28-of-31
C 32 Jamaal Brown 6-7 Jr. 16.0 6.2 Posted a double-double (29 pts., 10
boards) in Titan Gym debut vs. Denver
G 15 Ralphy Holmes* 6-4 Sr. 15.0 7.0 Averaging 20 points over last three
games
G 3 Bobby Brown * 6-1 So. 19.1 2.2 Leading the Big West Conference in
scoring and 3-point field goals OFF THE BENCH:
G 14 Jermaine Harper 6-3 Jr. 11.8 4.2 Erupted from 3-game scoring slump
with 25 points at Pacific
G 23 Vershan Cottrell 6-2 Jr. 2.8 0.5 Transfer from Ohlone College who
led state of Washington in scoring as prep
G 22 John Clemmons 6-0 Jr. 2.3 1.0 January transfer from El Camino College
who didn’t play last year
C 42 Derek Quinet 6-9 So. 5.3 2.8 Underwent surgery on Dec. 23 to re-set
nose broken in practice
F 5 Justin Burns 6-6 So. 5.1 2.1 Transfer from Cypress Community College;
father “Spider” played at UNLV F 21 Danny Lambert 6-6 Jr.
0.0 3.0 Transfer from Irvine Valley College has played only 4 minutes
SIDELINED:
F 12 Drew Awad 6-3 Sr. 1.7 1.0 Leukemia survivor sidelined by foot injury
has now suffered re-occurrence
C 43 Lloyd Walls 6-9 Sr. -- -- Transfer from Wright State sidelined after
multiple concussions
*letters earned
ABOUT THE HIGHLANDERS: UC Riverside (4-6, 0-2) is 3-1
at home and 1-0 on a neutral floor but 0-5 in hostile environments. The
Highlanders are shooting 42 percent from the floor and only 65 percent
at the foul line. Vili Morton leads the way in both scoring (15.3 ppg)
and rebounding (9.2 rpg). Rickey Porter (12.9 ppg) and Steve Williams
(10.3) also are in double figures.
ABOUT THE AGGIES: UC Davis (5-7 going into a Jan. 5 home
game vs. Menlo) is playing a round-robin Big West Conference schedule
but won’t formally be a conference member until the 2007-08 season.
The Aggies have a pair of overtime wins and have lost to the likes of
Utah State, Stanford, Pacific and Nevada. Guard Fowzi Abdelsamad (14.7
ppg), forward Ryan moore (14.5 ppg) and guard Rommel Marentez (13.6 ppg)
are the double-figures scorers. The team is shooting 40 percent from 3-point
range.
THE COACHES: Bob Burton is 16-21 in his second year at
Fullerton and career. He is 1-1 vs. UCR. John Masi is in his 26th year
at UCR with a school and career record of 457-256. He is 5-4 vs. CSF.
Gary Stewart is 23-16 in his second year at UC Davis and 165-134 career.
SERIES HISTORIES: UC Riverside holds an all-time edge
of 12-11 and a 5-3 advantage since moving up to the Div. I level. Fullerton
has won two of the last three meetings. Fullerton and Davis have played
only once -- way back inn 1961-62 when the Titans logged an 85-56 win.
GOOD START: Fullerton’s 5-4 start to the 2004-05
season is its best since the 1998-99 team opened 6-3 (after a 5-1 start).
GREAT SIGN: The Titans have gotten a much-needed inside
scoring presence from Jamaal Brown (64 points over his four games to date).
In the Fullerton win at Eastern Washington on Dec. 10, the interior players
scored only one basket and that was on an inbounds play.
HOME, SWEET HOME: Fullerton is 2-0 this season and was
8-6 last year in Titan Gym for its first winning season at home since
1998-99. The Titans have won 7 of their last 8 home games going to back
to last season and the loss came in double OT to UCSB. Christened vs.
Denver on Dec. 23, 2004, was a new state-of-the art sound system, installed
by the same company that did the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim and will be
doing USC’s new arena. That addition about completes the upgrades
possible for 40-year old Titan Gym. In the past five years, it has welcomed
new chair-back seats, new portable basket supports, new south balony bleachers,
new lights and a new scoreboard as well as updates of 12 national championship
banners and a jersey Wall of Honor.
THE OLD RALPHY: Holmes has looked like his first-team
All-Big West Conference (2002-03) self the past three games after a humbling
debut at San Diego State, where he went scoreless on 0-for-9 shooting.
Against Denver he led all first-half scorers with 16 points on 7-for-8
shooting. He scored about a point a minute -- 16 points in 14 first-half
minutes and 9 points in 13 second-half minutes -- and finished 11 of 14
from the floor. He has followed that up with 12 points at CSU Northridge
and 23 at Pacific to average 20.
YAPHETT DOWN THE STRETCH: King has been the Titans’
“go-to” guy down the stretch in two victories. 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.
HARPER FINDS THE RANGE AGAIN: After scoring 24 points
including the game-winning bucket at Eastern Washington on Dec. 10, Jermaine
Harper lost his shooting touch. In the next three games he scored a TOTAL
of 6 points on 2-for-19 shooting overall and 0-for-11 from 3-point range.
But 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. He now has three games of 20 or more points and four games
of 4 or less points.
B. BROWN LEADING THE WAY: Bobby Brown is the early scoring
leader in the Big West Conference. His seven 3-point field goals at San
Diego State (in 11 attempts) tied his career best (he also had 7 vs. UCSB
last season). He’s averaging 19.1 points per game. The last Titan
to break the 20-point barrier for a season was guard Joe Small in 1990-91
at 21.8 ppg.
PROGNOSTICATION vs. REALITY: In the pre-season polls,
Pacific and Utah State shared first place in the Big West media poll and
the Tigers edged the Aggies for the top spot in the coaches’ poll.
CSUN and UCSB were consensus Nos. 3 and 4, respectively. Fullerton and
Idaho were No. 5 and No. 6 in the media poll and the reverse in the coaches
list. UC Irvine, Cal Poly, Long Beach and UC Riverside filled out both
lists in that order. Looking at the non-conference standings, UCI (5-2)
and UCR (4-4) are the positive surprise teams while Northridge (2-6) and
UCSB (2-5) have won less than a third of their non-conference games to
date.
BOMBS AWAY: Fullerton is averaging 21.7 3-point field
goal attempts per game and is making an average of 7.9. That projects
to 585 attempts and 213 makes over a 27-game regular season and both of
those numbers would be school single-season records (196 makes last season
and 551 attempts in 1996-97). Bobby Brown is 32-for-73. After nine games
last year he was 26-for-54.
DOUBLE FIGURES: Six Titans scored in double figures (B.
Brown 21, Asprilla 16, Harper 16, King 15, Burns 14 and Quinet 10) 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).
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 5-51 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; 2-2 so far in 2004-05).
NEW OVERTIME STRING STARTING?: Fullerton snapped a 5-game
losing streak in games that ran more than 40 minutes with its win in Cheney,
Washington, and the Titans made it 2-for-2 this year with the Dec. 28
OT win at Northridge. The Titans WON five OT games in a row in the 2002-03
season before losing in that fashion in the season finale and the swan
song for Coach Donny Daniels. Bob Burton was 0-4 last season including
one double overtime defeat.
AWAD LEAVES SCHOOL: Senior forward Drew Awad withdrew
from the University on Dec. 6 when he learned of a reoccurrence of his
acute lymphocytic leukemia. He was informed at the end of practice that
day of the results of a morning blood test. He had been sidelined with
a nagging foot injury and felt tired as he had when originally diagnosed
in August of 2002. He immediately went home to Fresno where he faces another
six months of treatment and hospitalization.
TITAN GYM GOES HOLLYWOOD: ABC's Top Ten Nielsen TV show
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition came to Titan Gym on Dec. 8 to tape a tribute
to Rodney Anderson, the former Titan basketball player, whose family received
the full treatment from the show between Dec. 4 and 14. The taping featured
the retirement of his jersey No. 4 and will be included in an episode
scheduled to be aired either Jan. 30 or Feb. 13. Anderson was shot in
a mistaken identity gang shooting near his Los Angeles 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.
