Furious late rally falls short, ’Dogs edged by Falcons

Wednesday, February 20

Fresno, Calif.

7 p.m. PT

Fresno State

19-7, 10-4MW

Air Force

11-15, 6-8MW

Air Force

Fresno State

Photo by: Keith Kountz

Furious late rally falls short, ’Dogs edged by Falcons

2/20/2019 10:40:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Photo Gallery (Keith Kountz)

Fresno State senior guard Deshon Taylor scored a game-high 23 points with eight rebounds and five assists in the Bulldogs’ 64-61 loss to Air Force on Wednesday. Fresno State next plays at No. 6 Nevada on Saturday at 5 p.m. PT and then returns home to face Wyoming on Feb. 27.

By: Stephen Trembley / Director of New Media

FRESNO, Calif. --- The Fresno State men's basketball team nearly pulled off another miraculous comeback against the Air Force Falcons, but the Bulldogs kept competing until the final buzzer before falling 64-61 to the Falcons on Wednesday night at the Save Mart Center.

The loss drops Fresno State (19-7, 10-4 Mountain West) into sole possession of third-place in the conference standings as the Bulldogs head to next play at No. 6 and league-leader Nevada (24-2, 11-2 MW) on Saturday at 5 p.m. PT. Meanwhile, Air Force (11-15, 6-8 MW) has climbed into seventh-place in the MW race with four games remaining until the 2019 MW Basketball Championships, which will be held in Las Vegas at the Thomas & Mack Center from March 13-16.

Fresno State senior guard Deshon Taylor scored a game-high 23 points, including a perfect 8-for-8 clip at the free throw line, and also had eight rebounds, five assist and a steal. Braxton Huggins, the reigning MW Player of the Week, added 17 points, six rebounds, three steals and two blocks for the Bulldogs.

Air Force was led by Caleb Morris, who had 17 points, which included five 3-pointers, to lead the Falcons to their second road MW victory this season.

How it happened: Fresno State raced out to a 9-3 lead over Air Force as Huggins made his first three 3-point attempts in the first four minutes of the game.

The Falcons answered with a 10-0 run, which AFA extended to a 17-3 stretch to take a 20-12 lead on the Bulldogs. Fresno State closed to within 23-20 at halftime by limiting the Falcons to just three points in the final four minutes before the break.

With the Falcons leading 27-25 early in the second half, Air Force went on a 15-2 run over the course of a nearly five-minute span. The Falcons led by 15 with under 11 minutes to play and later by 17 down the stretch.

With the Bulldogs trailing 55-38 with 3:40 to play, New Williams made a 3-pointer, and then Sam Bittner hit a 3-pointer on the next possession. Taylor converted a lay-up, which was followed by one of his three triples moments later. The Bulldogs scored 11 consecutive points to start a 21-5 run, which trimmed a 17-point deficit into a single point when Taylor made two more free throws to cut it to 60-59.

Air Force made four free throws in the final six seconds to give the Falcons what they needed to hold off the late rally that ended when Huggins missed a potentially game-tying 3-pointer from near the top of the key after fending off having his jersey pulled in the waning seconds on the home-run play.

Fresno State shot just 35.1 percent (20-for-57) from the field - its lowest field goal percentage in MW play and second-lowest efficiency of the season. The Bulldogs were also outrebounded 39-38 and committed 11 of their 15 turnovers in the first half.

Quotes
Justin Hutson, Fresno State head coach
On the game…
"The definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. When we have six turnovers at New Mexico and the ball moves and everybody plays good, you feel good and you get wins. When you come out and force it in the first half, have 11 turnovers against a half-court team that's not pressing, led by our seniors and our starters, you dig yourself a hole and you give a team confidence that can play offense for 35 and 40 seconds."

"I thought the defensive energy was really good. I thought we did a great job of guarding their Princeton offense early and our energy was way too high on the offensive end. We needed to slow down, made silly mistakes, we took bad shots, we didn't make the extra pass, we dribbled into gaps and we had 11 turnovers in the first half after we just had six in New Mexico at The Pit for the whole game. It wasn't about energy or lackadaisical, except for a couple of those catches in side that we should have caught and finished, I didn't like that energy level, but I did like how our defense kept us in the game.

On the first half…
"We had our worst offensive half, 20 points in the first half and 11 turnovers and that's not even counting the awful shots that we took in the first half, and held them to 23. That's a team that has scored 106 in a game. I was excited about our energy. I didn't like our offense.

On Saturday's game against Nevada…
"It will be a different game. Nevada is big and strong and they'll switch, so they'll make you play one on one. Air Force didn't make us play one on one tonight, we played one on one on our own. Nevada will switch every screen and make you play one on one in the post, make you play one on one, so now we'll see if we can still get in the paint and make extra passes. But we're going to need some one on one plays when they switch every screen one through five. But tonight I was disappointed because Air Force did not make us play one on one. We did that on our own."

Player Notes
Deshon Taylor – 23 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists, 1 steal

Led all scorers with 23 points.
Scored in double-figures for the 18th time this season.
Scored 20+ points for the ninth time this season.
Tied his season-high with eight rebounds.
Was a perfect 8-for-8 from the free throw line.
Was 3-for-7 from beyond the arch.
Dished out a team-high five assists.

Braxton Huggins – 17 points, 6 rebounds, 3 steals, 2 blocks, 1 assist

Scored in double-figures for the 22nd time this season, sixth consecutive game with 10+ points.
Converted five three-point shots.
Seventh game this season with 5+ three-pointers.
Swiped three steals to tie his career-high.
Posted two blocks to tie his career-high.

Team Notes

Fresno State dropped to 63-16 overall at home since the start of the 2014-15 season, including a 32-10 record against Mountain West opponents in that stretch.
Fresno State dropped to 5-5 when trailing at halftime this season.
Fresno State went scoreless for nine minutes and 32 seconds in the first half, which was its longest scoring drought since not scoring for the first nine minutes and 51 seconds of a 76-39 loss at Utah State in 2010.
With a season-low 20 points in the first half, this was the first time Fresno State scored 20 points or fewer in a half since scoring 19 points in the first half at Boise State on March 7, 2015.
This was Air Force's first win in Fresno since 1995. The Bulldogs had won the previous nine home games when playing the Falcons.
Fresno State can clinch a first-round bye for the 2019 MW Tournament with a win in any of its final four MW games. Fresno State is one of two MW teams (Boise State) to have earned a first-round bye in each of the past four seasons.

Up Next: Fresno State travels to play at No. 6 Nevada on Saturday at 5 p.m. PT on CBS Sports Network and 940 AM ESPN Radio. The Bulldogs' next home game is versus Wyoming on Feb. 27 at 7 p.m. PT. Tickets start at $15.

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