In their two losses last week, Cal State Fullerton men\u2019s basketball lacked what has helped them most in their victories this season \u2013 a loud defensive start that translated to a firing offense.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thanks to six turnovers within the first six minutes of the game, CSUF ensured that the same mistake did not repeat itself against Long Beach State on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
The Titans never trailed in the game, as they were energized by a packed Titan Gym and took down their rival for the first time at home in five years, 71-61.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir energy, their effort, and probably most importantly, their intent was clear from the start,\u201d said Head Coach Dedrique Taylor. \u201cThey were not going to let whomever come in here and have their way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fresh off of a three-game win streak, the Beach saw their recent offensive heat stroke silenced. Their 37% shooting tally was their lowest since their season-opening loss against San Diego State.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In their recent run, the Beach were spearheaded offensively by freshman Gavin Sykes, who was just named the Big West Player of the Week on Monday and was fresh off a 34-point performance against Cal State Northridge last Saturday.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Sykes put up 20 points on 6-of-12 shooting \u2014 the Titans limiting further damage against one of the top scoring freshmen in the country. They also held the Beach to just six bench points, a season-low for the Titans\u2019 defense, along with 17 forced turnovers.<\/p>\n
Senior Joshua Ward backed those totals. In an all-around effort, the guard had 21 points on 7-of-11 shooting, nine rebounds and four steals to his name, crediting the Titan faithful for energizing the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cMan, we needed that \u2014 we fed off that energy,\u201d Ward said. \u201cThey gave us what we needed tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
The crowd of over 2,400 people fueled the Titans to an early double-digit lead that held for the majority of the contest. The Beach did not reach 50 points until the 5:44 mark.<\/p>\n
Graduate student Jaden Henderson ignited the Titans crowd early with 10 first-half points, where he went perfect from the field with two threes. Senior Jefferson De La Cruz Monegro scored 16, with a 5-for-6 night from the charity stripe adding on to his elite season free-throw percentage of 87%, which ranks second in the conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no way you can\u2019t feed off of that,\u201d De La Cruz Monegro said. \u201cWe want them to come back, so we just wanted to get the job done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Going forward, the Titans will hit the road once again to face Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. While CSUF holds a road record of 2-7, they will be facing the Mustang\u2019s team that has lost four of their last five.<\/p>\n
Coach Taylor emphasized the Titans\u2019 ability to translate their defensive energy into a fluent offensive rhythm as the key going forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we\u2019re that purposeful and that intentional with what we\u2019re wanting to do from start to finish, I like our chances,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n
The Titans will look to avenge a tight loss to the Mustangs in their conference opener on Dec. 4.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In their two losses last week, Cal State Fullerton men\u2019s basketball lacked what has helped them most in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[73955,4365,3005,29643,73957,73956,131,133,132],"class_list":["post-149175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-beat-the-beach","tag-big-west","tag-csuf","tag-gavin-sykes","tag-jefferson-de-la-cruz-monegro","tag-joshua-ward","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}