Titans Run Over Long Beach State

Cal State Fullerton came up with its best effort of the season Saturday night in its final home game.

The Titans shot 51.6% from the floor, held 7-foot-1 Andrew Betts to eight points and overwhelmed Long Beach State, 92-70, in front of 1,420 in Titan Gym. It was Fullerton’s most decisive Big West basketball victory of the season and the most points the Titans have scored in a conference game this year.

The Titans scrambled into a tie for second place in the Big West’s Western Division with two games to play. Fullerton (10-14) is tied with Long Beach (10-16) and UC Irvine, each with 5-9 conference records in a division in which Pacific has already run away with first place.

The Titans, however, won twice this season over both Long Beach and Irvine for the first time since the 1985-86 season, and emerged with the tiebreaker advantage over the teams in their bid to make the postseason tournament.

This was Fullerton’s most one-sided victory over Long Beach since the 1987-88 season.

“We told our players before the game that our destiny is in our own hands, and we took care of business,” Titan Coach Bob Hawking said.

The Titans outscored the 49ers by 23 points in the first half and coasted behind the scoring of sophomore Ike Harmon and strong floor play from point guard Chris St. Clair.

Harmon tied his career high with 27 points and St. Clair had a career-high 12 assists, several of them on perfect lob passes that Harmon stuffed on the fly. Senior Craig Whitehead had 14 points and St. Clair and backup guard Kenroy Jarrett each had 10.

Long Beach guard D’Cean Bryant led all scorers with 31 points, but 21 of those came in the second half. Bryant was 12 of 25 from the field for a team that shot only 38.8%.

Fullerton’s defense against Betts was a big factor for the second time this season. Betts, who scored only two points against Fullerton in the first game, made only three of 13 shots this time. Betts is averaging 21 points in other conference games this season.

It was a sharp contrast to Thursday when Pacific’s 7-foot Michael Olowokandi overpowered the Titans inside.

“We’ve been able to neutralize Betts pretty well in both games,” Hawking said. “But Olowokandi is an oak tree, and Betts is a maple.”

Said Harmon: “We did the same thing against Betts we did against Olowokandi, but we turned it around against Betts,” Harmon said. “I thought [Mark] Richardson did a great job on him.”

Hawking thought the key to his team’s success on offense was the transition game, thanks to a 46-36 rebounding advantage. Harmon had four dunks in the first half alone, and made 10 of 14 shots for the game.

Harmon gave a lot of the credit to St. Clair.

“We had a lot of points on the fast break,” Harmon said. “St. Clair’s passes were awesome. He was really looking up the floor well every time we got the break.”

The Titans dominated the first half, shooting 58% from the floor and building a 47-24 lead at the break. Fullerton’s first-half point total was second only to the 48 the Titans scored in the first half of a one-sided loss at UCLA in December.

Long Beach shot only 29% in the first half, and Betts was held scoreless, missing all six shots he took in the first half and his first nine of the game.

Betts didn’t score his first point until he made a free throw four minutes into the second half, and didn’t get his first field goal until 12 1/2 minutes remained in the game.

Fullerton led by 29 at one point early in the second half, but then went more than four minutes without a point and more than six minutes without a field goal. Despite that, the Titans still led by 20.

Two consecutive dunks by Harmon got Fullerton rolling again, and Long Beach was never able to get any closer than 17 points in the second half.