Fullerton’s Brown has unfinished business

Some of Bobby Brown’s best sports memories happened when he was a kid, and that bothers him a little.

He’s a senior at Cal State Fullerton, a 6-foot-1 point guard who went from bench rider in his junior year of high school to NBA prospect his junior year of college, but still cites a recreational league game as a 10-year-old as his career highlight.

That, he said, is one of the reasons he’s still in a Fullerton uniform. He declared himself an early-entry candidate for the NBA draft and received some interest as a possible second-round pick, but he returned to Fullerton, in part to try to fill a void on his resume.

“I’ve got some unfinished business here,” Brown said. “I’ve got some things I want to do.”

Getting to the NCAA tournament is first on that list. In fact, it very well could be the only thing on that list, even though Brown is 74 points from becoming Fullerton’s career scoring leader and is among Big West Conference player-of-the-year candidates.

“Right now, getting to the NCAAs is all I think about,” said Brown, who played in the NIT two years ago but has no other postseason experience.

He has the Titans in position. Fullerton (18-5 overall, 8-3 in conference) is half a game behind Big West leader Long Beach State (17-6, 8-2) as the teams head into their first-place showdown tonight at Fullerton.

The Titans have matched the best 11-game conference record in school history, giving the team hopes of making an appearance in the NCAA tournament, something Fullerton hasn’t done since the 1978 team came within three points of making the Final Four.

“Not just getting there, but doing some damage in there and winning some games. Getting under the bright lights and getting the crowd crazy,” Brown said.

Brown, 22, from Inglewood, could have moved on to the bright lights of the NBA after last season. He worked out for the Phoenix Suns twice as well as the Lakers and Clippers.

He also went to a pre-draft camp in Orlando, Fla., where he learned he would be a second-round pick at best. To him, that wasn’t worth sacrificing his senior year.

“As soon as you hear something like that you automatically say, ‘I’m not about to settle for second round when I can go back to school and enjoy my senior year,’ ” Brown said. “No regrets. I’m having the best time of my life.”

He’s also wreaking havoc on opponents. He’s averaging 19.4 points and 5.5 assists a game -- second and first, respectively, in the Big West -- and is floor general for a team that’s fourth in the nation in scoring at 84 points per game.

Coach Bob Burton said the NBA tryouts made Brown a better player because he was given a detailed blueprint of his weaknesses -- defense and developing a point guard’s (as opposed to a shooter’s) mentality -- and has worked to improve upon them.

“If I could, I would send every one of my players to the NBA stuff,” Burton said. “When these NBA teams brought him in, the light really went on for him. He came back energized to do those things and become a better player.”

Hard work is nothing new to Brown, who was “the 15th man on the bench” during his junior year at Westchester High and couldn’t dunk until he was a senior, according to Scott Cutley, a teammate then and now.

Brown finished his senior season in high school without a scholarship offer, then got one from Fullerton only after assistant Jason Levy saw him in a summer league and thought he’d make a nice backup point guard.

But Brown wasn’t only starting, he was rising to star status and was selected conference freshman of the year. The news of Brown’s improving play reached Cutley, who attended Kent State before transferring to Fullerton.

“When I came back and saw how much better he got as a player ... it was just amazing to me,” Cutley said.

If the NBA doesn’t work out, Brown said, he’ll explore other opportunities. Right now, he said, he has no idea about his draft prospects or which teams have sent scouts to watch him.

“I’m not paying attention to any of that stuff right now,” Brown said. “When we’re done with whatever we have to do here at Fullerton, then I’ll start thinking about that stuff.”

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peter.yoon@latimes.com