Titans Get Victory, but It Isn’t Pretty : College basketball: Cal State Fullerton beats San Francisco, 93-84, in season opener, but nearly lets a big lead get away.

Cal State Fullerton was good, bad and ugly all in one evening but still had enough to defeat a marginal University of San Francisco team, 93-84, in Monday night’s season opener in Titan Gym.

The good: Point guard Aaron Sunderland scored 19 points and had 12 assists, small forward Bruce Bowen had 19 points and 12 rebounds and guard Joe Small added 19 points for Fullerton.

The Titans almost let an 11-point lead slip away in the second half, as the Dons trimmed a 67-56 deficit to 77-72 with 5:25 to go. But Fullerton showed some character in the end.

Sunderland hit a jumper, Small drove the lane and sank a left-handed layup and Sunderland drove for a basket to push the lead to 83-72 with 4:08 left. The Titans then made seven of nine free throws in the final 2:33 and maintained at least a six-point cushion until the final buzzer.

The bad: Fullerton turned the ball over 21 times and committed 26 fouls. Sunderland, a junior playing his first Division I game, was very inconsistent, making a great pass one moment and wondering why he ever made such a poor pass the next.

An extremely forgiving Titan stat crew tabbed him with only four turnovers, but it seemed like more. Small, the Big West Conference’s second-leading scorer last season, also made some lazy passes and one in particular could have cost the Titans dearly.

San Francisco point guard Orlando Smart stole a Small pass, drove the length of the floor and missed a layup, and Don forward Tim Owens was called for goaltending on the tip-in, blowing an opportunity to trim the lead to four with 1:11 left.

Small was fouled and made two free throws on the next possession, and Kim Kemp iced the victory with a fast-break layup with 42 seconds left.

The ugly: Fullerton’s interior defense. Forward Agee Ward fouled out with 8 minutes 11 seconds remaining. Sean Williams, Kemp and Kevin Ahsmuhs, who all shared time at center, each had four fouls.

The smaller Dons, especially 6-foot-6, 230-pound forward Darryl Johnson, dominated the offensive boards in the second half, scoring eight points on follow shots. Johnson finished with 20 points and 12 rebounds.

Williams, who spreads only 210 pounds over his 6-10 frame, twice had the ball ripped out of his hands after coming down with rebounds.

“I was glad we got a win, but it wasn’t the type of win we wanted,” Bowen said. “We gave them a lot of second shots and easy layups, and we can’t do that.”

Fortunately for Fullerton, San Francisco was even worse, turning the ball over 22 times, committing 27 fouls, shooting just 40% from the field and making only six of 12 foul shots in the second half.

Still, that was of little consolation for the Titans.

“Oh, man, we’ve got a long way to go,” Sunderland said. “We’ve got to practice hard, get better and play tougher. We broke down a little in the end.”

Fullerton didn’t look too good in the beginning, either. On San Francisco’s first possession, the Titans were whistled for three fouls in 47 seconds. That seemed to set the tone for a game in which 53 fouls were called.

“As big men, we’re supposed to wrestle inside, hit people, fight a bit and not get a call, but it was ridiculous how tight they called the game,” Ward said. “It made me more tentative than I wanted to be and it showed, especially when it came to rebounding. I didn’t even try to get some rebounds because of the foul situation.”

Owens scored 14 points and Kevin Weeks had 13 for San Francisco. Guard Travis Bice, a transfer from Nevada Las Vegas, didn’t score in the first half but made three three-point shots and scored 11 points in the second half.