BIG WEST BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT : Titans Go Down Bickering : Big West: Cal State Fullerton players question coach’s play-calling after 74-67 loss to Pacific.

Had Cal State Fullerton players filled baskets during the game the way they filled reporters’ notebooks afterward, perhaps they wouldn’t have lost to Pacific, 74-67, Friday in the first round of the Big West Conference Tournament in the Long Beach Arena.

It seemed the Titans couldn’t buy a basket in the second half, when they made seven of 33 shots (21%) and blew a seven-point halftime lead. But you could get their thoughts for less than a penny after the loss, in which they were shut down by the Tigers’ box-and-one and zone defenses in the second half.

Pacific center Don Lyttle scored a game-high 25 points, and guard Dell Demps added 23, including a six-for-10 performance from the three-point range, to pace the Tigers (14-14), who will play Fresno State, an 88-82 winner over New Mexico State, in tonight’s semifinals.

Fullerton point guard Wayne Williams scored 17 points but made only six of 18 shots, Agee Ward (four for 12) and Bruce Bowen (three for 9) each scored 12, and Aaron Wilhite had 10 for the Titans (14-14).

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

Afterward, several Titan players, frustrated by their second-half collapse, second-guessed some of Coach John Sneed’s personnel and play-calling decisions.

Gripe No. 1: 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 best three-point shooter by percentage (.463), 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 that’s irrelevant. All we’re trying to do is win the game. You take care of those things (discipline) afterward.”

Sneed stuck by his decision to keep Bowen, a 23% three-point shooter, in the game. “Bruce is a better outside shooter,” Sneed said, “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.”

Gripe No. 2: Fullerton 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. Small and Williams said 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 out and inserted freshman Marcus Bell, who has played only 16 minutes this season. Bell missed a three-pointer, his only shot attempt, in his two minutes.

“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.”

In Sneed’s defense, the Titans, who hadn’t lost a conference tournament first-round game since 1984, did get plenty of open shots in the second half but couldn’t make them. They also had the wrong players shooting them.

Woods took Small out of the offense with the box-and-one, but the Tigers used a straight zone for the final 10 minutes. Instead of getting the ball to Small, the Titans’ best outside shooter, Williams and Bowen continued to fire 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. It was the same offense we’ve used all year, but we just stood around. We didn’t rotate, we just passed the ball from point to wing and back.”

The game was similar to Fullerton’s 75-73 overtime loss to Pacific in January. The Titans shot 58% in the first half at Stockton and 20% in the second half.

Fullerton took a 10-point lead late in the first half Friday, but Demps hit a three-pointer from the top of the key four seconds before halftime to trim the Titan lead to 43-36. Pacific then outscored Fullerton, 11-2, in the first five minutes of the second half to take a 47-45 lead.

A few minutes later, Lyttle, a 6-foot-10 senior, scored nine points during a 10-2 run that gave Pacific a 63-56 lead with 9 minutes 35 seconds remaining. The Tigers went almost six minutes without scoring but were still able to maintain a seven-point lead after Randy Lavender broke the spell with a jumper at the 2:45 mark, making it 66-59.

The Titans pulled within four twice in the last two minutes, but the Tigers made five of eight foul shots in the last 39 seconds.

“We ended the season in frustration,” Small said of the team’s 10-3 start and 4-11 finish. “This was just a culmination of how the second part of the year went for us.”