COLLEGE BASKETBALL / BIG WEST MEN : Titans Get Cold, Fall to Pacific

Cal State Fullerton shot only 21% in the second half and lost to Pacific, 74-67, Friday in the first round of the Big West Conference Tournament in the Long Beach Arena.

The Titans made only seven of 33 shots in wasting a seven-point halftime lead. They simply couldn’t handle the Tigers’ box-and-one and zone defenses in the second half.

Pacific center Don Lyttle scored a game-high 25 points. Guard Dell Demps added 23, including six of 10 from three-point range, as the Tigers improved to 14-14. They will play either New Mexico State or Fresno State in tonight’s semifinals.

Fullerton point guard Wayne Williams scored 17 points but made only six of 18 shots, Agee Ward (four of 12) and Bruce Bowen (three of nine) each scored 12 points, and Aaron Wilhite had 10.

Joe Small, the focus of Pacific’s defensive efforts and the Titans’ leading scorer with a 22.3-point average, scored a season-low nine points, making three of 13 shots--including one of nine three-pointers. He made one of eight attempts in the second half.

Afterward, several Titan players openly questioned some of Coach John Sneed’s personnel and play-calling decisions:

--Sneed didn’t start J.D. Green and Wilhite because they missed bed check at the team’s hotel Thursday night. Wilhite entered the game early and played 37 minutes; Green, who has averaged 16.3 points since becoming a starter three games ago and is Fullerton’s most accurate three-point shooter (46%) played only eight minutes.

“He could have contributed more to the offense if he was out there, but he wasn’t out there,” Williams said of Green. “J.D. did miss curfew, but all we’re trying to do is win the game. That’s irrelevant. You take care of those things afterward.”

Sneed stuck by his decision to keep Bowen, a 23% three-point shooter, in the game, saying, “Bruce is a better outside shooter, and as long as they stayed in the zone, he was going to stay in. He had the open shots. They were giving them to him. If he was hot, maybe it’s a different game.”

--Fullerton (14-14) stuck with its normal zone offense, with Williams at the point and Small at the shooting guard position, throughout the second half. But the Tigers used a box-and-one defense, with Anthony Woods covering Small, for the first 10 minutes of the second half, and both Small and Williams thought an offensive adjustment was needed.

“I could have started at the point and tried to penetrate and kick the ball back out,” Small said. “On some plays, I was trying to go where Wayne was going and we were confused.”

Small said that when Williams suggested the switch to Sneed midway through the second half, the coach pulled Williams from the game and inserted freshman Marcus Bell, who has played only 16 minutes this season. Bell missed a three-pointer, his only shot in two minutes of action.

“Marcus hasn’t played all year,” Small said. “To put him in in that situation, you know he wasn’t that comfortable.”

Sneed said he took Williams out “to try to explain to Wayne what we were doing on offense.”

The Titans had plenty of open shots in the second half, but simply didn’t make them. Woods took Small out of the offense with a box-and-one for 10 minutes of the second half, but the Tigers used a straight zone for the remainder of the game. Instead of getting the ball to Small, the Titans’ best outside shooter, Williams and Bowen continued to try long-range shots. Fullerton made six of 25 three-pointers (24%) in the game.

“What surprised me the most is the best thing we’ve been doing the past few weeks is running our zone offense,” Sneed said.

“But our offense was nonexistent in the second half. We didn’t execute and became our own worst enemy on the floor. We became frustrated with the defense they threw at us, and that showed on the other end of the floor.”