Even Without Neal, Titans Have Enough to Top 49ers

Cal State Fullerton’s basketball team defeated Cal State Long Beach, 69-60, Saturday night at Titan Gym.

That much was expected, considering the Titans (7-3, 11-8) have won six of their last seven Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. games, while the 49ers (0-10, 2-16) have yet to win one.

But the Titans were not expecting to compete without Tony Neal, the 6-6 senior forward who is the heart of the team.

Neal, averaging 17.9 points and 12.4 rebounds per game, failed to arrive at Titan Gym Saturday night and attempts by the coaching staff to reach hit at home were fruitless.

Titan Coach George McQuarn said Neal had never before missed a game.

“That’s what makes me nervous,” he said.

Neal was present for a 1 p.m. team meal, and McQuarn said he didn’t realize until just before the Titans went on the floor to warm up that his leading scorer and the No. 5 Division 1 rebounder in the nation was apparently AWOL.

“I don’t know where Tony is,” McQuarn said. “I just hope he’s OK. I certainly hope his car just broke down, or it’s just something along those lines.”

Neal missed the Titans’ game against Long Beach last season at the Long Beach Arena because of a bruised knee. The 49ers won that game, 52-50 in four overtimes.

McQuarn was forced to make some early adjustment because of Neal’s absence. The Titans had planned to play man-to-man defense against the 49ers, but when 6-8 forward Kerry Boagni picked up two fouls in the first two minutes of the game, Fullerton switched back into a more conservative zone.

“We found ourselves short on depth across the front line,” McQuarn said. “When Kerry got the two quick fouls, we had a very serious depth problem because if Tony’s not there, every substitution I can make is a freshman.”

And the best thing about freshman, McQuarn added, is that they become sophomores. That’s easy for him to say. Freshmen are really no subject for joking around 49er Coach Ron Palmer, who is blessed--or at this point saddled--with eight of them.

The 49ers are so young that some of them still where braces, and all of them, despite talent, are still making the errors of inexperience.

In fact, they made 15 of those in the form of turnovers during the first half Saturday, while the veteran Titans committed only three on their way to a 33-19, halftime lead.

Titan guard Kevin Henderson, the game’s top scorer with 24 points, opened the game with a jump shot. Boagni hit a pair of jumpers from the corner, Gary Davis scored twice on the fast break and center DeWayne Shepard scored on a follow shot to build the Titans a 14-4 lead at the 12:38 mark of the first half.

But a few minutes later, with an 18-8 lead, the Titans shooting began to desert them. They went 5 1/2 minutes without another point until Shepard rebounded an errant shot by Boagni for a 20-16 lead with 4:02 left in the first half.

That triggered a flurry of Titan scoring, six quick baskets in a row, while the 49ers were occupied with bad passes and their third traveling call.

With Fullerton coming off its largest margin of victory in school history, 31 points against New Mexico State on Wednesday, some had speculated that the Titans might beat the struggling 49ers by a similar margin.

Fullerton’s biggest win against the 49ers was 90-60 in 1893. The Titans were on a pace to equal that Saturday, but a 40-23 advantage on Henderson’s three-point shot early in the second half proved to be as large a lead as the Titans would enjoy.

“I don’t think our dead spots were as long in the second half as in the first,” McQuarn said. “But I thought we played flat, without any emotion.

“We needed someone to pick us up. And when Tony’s here, he gives us the interior game. His absence probably affected all of the kids a little. We’re a close-knit team and I’m sure it was discomfitting to know he wasn’t here and not know where he was.”

Statistically, the 49ers shot a dismal 23.5% (4 of 17) from the floor in the first half, but an improved second half raised the overall shooting to 45.8 (22 of 48). Fullerton shot 27 of 61 for 44.4%.

Rebounding was fairly even, with the Titans holding a 35-31 advantage against the shorter 49ers. Turnovers again proved to be the most telling statistic as Long Beach committed 21 to Fullerton’s 12. Boagni was the Titans’ second-leading scorer with 16 points while Darryl Adams, one of Long Beach’s two seniors, finished with a team-high 13 points.

The loss was Long Beach’s 11th straight in a demanding first season for Palmer. The 49ers worst season previously was 1951, the first year they competed in basketball, when they managed only three wins.

Palmer, the former Long Beach Poly High School coach who has never experienced a losing season, was pleased with his team’s play in the second half.

“We played better in the second half than in the first, and that was very encouraging,” he said. “We played hard in the first half, but we didn’t make the decisions. We would like to carry the intensity into the Utah State game (Wednesday at Logan).”