Fresno State Athletics
Fresno State
Utah State
Bulldogs Get Defensive Against USU in Victory
1/16/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 16, 2010
FRESNO, Calif. - One of coach Adrian Wiggin's keys to victory over Utah State was pressuring the ball on defense. The Bulldogs did just that as they caused 26 turnovers and turned in a season-high 19 steals en route to a 73-46 victory at the Save Mart Center on Saturday afternoon.
Fresno State remains in first place in the WAC with a 13-5 record and 4-0 conference mark while Utah State dropped to 10-7 and 2-2 in league.
"We wanted a lot of pressure on the ball," Wiggins said. "They are a very good half court set team. They run great sets, are very physical and like to pound the ball inside. We had to try and eliminate that to keep the ball from getting into their post players. It started with our ball pressure."
Emma Andrews had a season-high four steals while Joh-Teena Filipe and a career-high four steals. Every Bulldog played at least 10 minutes and nobody played more than 25 minutes. Jaleesa Ross led three Dogs in double figures with 17 points on eight of 11 shooting from the field. Ross added six rebounds and three steals. Filipe had 14 points and five rebounds while Hayley Munro had 11 points.
The Bulldogs shot 44 percent from the field and held Utah State to 33 percent shooting.
"I thought we had a great defensive effort," Wiggins said. "We knew Utah State would be a tough team. They have been playing really well. We started a little sluggish but we were playing at the right speed so I was very comfortable with where we were at. We got a lot of rebounds and a lot of steals which jumpstarted some easy buckets for us."
One area of the game that Wiggins was extremely pleased with was the play of his players off the bench. Andrews, Marnique Arnold and Taja Edwards all gave the Dogs a big lift. Edwards had six points and four rebounds while Arnold had seven points, five steals and a team-high four steals.
"I liked our substitutions a lot," Wiggins said. "The starters played well but Taja Edwards, Emma Andrews and Marnique Arnold came in and really gave us a spark a couple of different times. That was nice. When you can sub in and keep getting stronger as the game goes on is a good thing.
After Utah State scored the opening basket, the Bulldogs scored 11 of the next 13 points to lead 11-4 and the Aggies would get no closer than four points in the first half. Fresno State led 31-23 at halftime.
The Dogs started the second half on a 17-5 run to lead 48-28 six minutes into the final period. Fresno State's biggest lead was 29 at 60-31 with 10:28 left in the game. The Bulldog defense forced 14 second-half Aggie turnovers in the final 20 minutes.
"I thought we did a good job in the second half of taking uncontested shots," Wiggins said. "In the first half we rushed a little bit. We were so excited that we were kind of playing fast."
"We Are Your Team" - The `Dogs hit the road for a conference game at Nevada Thursday night at 7 p.m. Listen to the game live on 790 ESPN Radio. The `Dogs return to the Save Mart Center Saturday night at 5 p.m. as they host the Louisiana Tech Lady Techsters. Celebrate National Girls and Women in Sports Day with the `Dogs as a group of former student-athletes from the 1960's will be honored at half-time. Tickets can be purchased through the Save Mart Center Box Office, by calling 559-485-TIXS or through Ticketmaster.com.
Game notes: Jaleesa Ross moved into 11th place on the Fresno State all-time scoring list. She currently has 1,177 points and needs 11 points to move into 10th place, passing Careana Clay, who played for the Bulldogs from 1981-84. The 19 steals was a season-high. Ross needs 34 3-pointers to become the Bulldogs all-time 3-pointer leader. This is the third time since joining the WAC that the Dogs have started conference 4-0. The other two years were in 2005-06 and 2007-08 when Fresno State started WAC play 6-0. Fresno State has hit a 3-pointer in 82 straight games.
