Cal State Fullerton faces Loyola Marymount of the West Coast Conference in a non-conference match-up on Tuesday night. game time is at 7:05 PM (PST) in Titan gym. The Titans have won four of their last five after opening the season with three losses.
Loyola Marymount has already played four Big West Conference teams, winning the first three and then losing to Big West bottom feeder Long Beach State. The three wins have been at home while the last was on the road. LMU opened the season against UC Riverside winning 59-53 and then played Northridge four days later and beat them by 11 , 81-70. On December 3rd, the Lions then beat a Cal Poly SLO team, who has now defeated two Pac-10 teams, by the score of 68-67 .
LMU has also played some other tough teams including losing at UCLA in overtime and two other losses to Virginia and UNLV , both at home.
Stopping Sherman Gay, a 6-7 scrawny kid with good post moves, will be priority number one for the Titans. According to his coach he is an "explosive front line player with inside-outside abilities" though he has yet to take a three point shot this year. He is hitting 53% of his shots and is second on the team in rebounding at 6.0 per game.
No. 1 on the rebounding list is 6-10 center Chris Ayer who did not play in the game against Long Beach State because of the flu. He will be ready when the Titans and Lions take the floor.
The three-point threats, if you can call them that, are Keith Kincade (35%), Charles Brown (28%) and Wes Wardrop (19%). Expect the Titans to play a 2-3 zone for much of the game or at least until the Lions prove they can hit from the outside.
TitanCentral.com Spin: If the game against Long Beach State is any indication of how good LMU is, then this will be a blowout in the Titans favor. Both teams looked absolutely awful. Loyola was coming off a tough loss at home to a big-time program in Virginia so that may have been part of the problem in addition to losing their only real inside presence in Ayer. Excuses or not, they simply did not look good, especially their outside shooting as they hit only 3 of 16 from behind the arc.
Gay was their only player who looked decent and coach Steve Aggers had him on the bench for much of the first half for some unknown reason so, so it doesn't look like Aggers will be winning any battle of wits with Titans head coach Bob Burton .
Pape Sow should dominate inside and the 2-3 zone, which is what the 49ers played most of the game, should prove effective enough to stop the Lions. This is a game the Titans should win based on talent but if LMU's three-point shooting suddenly picks up and the Titans don't win the battle on the boards, anything can happen.
Game 9: Loyola Marymount
Tuesday, December 30, 2003 @ Titan Gym
Rankings CollegeRPI Massey Sagarin
Cal State Fullerton (4-4, 0-0) 256 205 172
Loyola Marymount (6-4, 0-0) 68 127 129
The Line: Lions by 2
Here are the projected starting lineups:
Pos Cal State Fullerton Loyola Marymount
PG Bobby Brown 6-1, 170 Martin, Damian 6-1, 180
SG Derick Andrew 6-2, 180 Wardrop, Wes 6-3, 185
SF Anthony Bolton 6-7, 190 Kincade, Keith 6-6, 210
PF Hardy Asprilla 6-5, 225 Gay, Sherman 6-7, 195
C Pape Sow 6-10, 250 Ayer, Chris 6-10, 242
First off the Bench
Zakee Smith 6-0, 175 Brown, Charles, G 5-11, 170
Yaphett King 6-4, 235 Dickens, Jason, F 6-8, 230
Babacar Camara 6-10, 250 Haywood, John, F 6-6, 210
David Warsaw 6-4, 200 Brown, Dustin, F 6-7, 225
Brian Pruitt 6-6, 225
Loyola Marymount has already played four Big West Conference teams, winning the first three and then losing to Big West bottom feeder Long Beach State. The three wins have been at home while the last was on the road. LMU opened the season against UC Riverside winning 59-53 and then played Northridge four days later and beat them by 11 , 81-70. On December 3rd, the Lions then beat a Cal Poly SLO team, who has now defeated two Pac-10 teams, by the score of 68-67 .
LMU has also played some other tough teams including losing at UCLA in overtime and two other losses to Virginia and UNLV , both at home.
Stopping Sherman Gay, a 6-7 scrawny kid with good post moves, will be priority number one for the Titans. According to his coach he is an "explosive front line player with inside-outside abilities" though he has yet to take a three point shot this year. He is hitting 53% of his shots and is second on the team in rebounding at 6.0 per game.
No. 1 on the rebounding list is 6-10 center Chris Ayer who did not play in the game against Long Beach State because of the flu. He will be ready when the Titans and Lions take the floor.
The three-point threats, if you can call them that, are Keith Kincade (35%), Charles Brown (28%) and Wes Wardrop (19%). Expect the Titans to play a 2-3 zone for much of the game or at least until the Lions prove they can hit from the outside.
TitanCentral.com Spin: If the game against Long Beach State is any indication of how good LMU is, then this will be a blowout in the Titans favor. Both teams looked absolutely awful. Loyola was coming off a tough loss at home to a big-time program in Virginia so that may have been part of the problem in addition to losing their only real inside presence in Ayer. Excuses or not, they simply did not look good, especially their outside shooting as they hit only 3 of 16 from behind the arc.
Gay was their only player who looked decent and coach Steve Aggers had him on the bench for much of the first half for some unknown reason so, so it doesn't look like Aggers will be winning any battle of wits with Titans head coach Bob Burton .
Pape Sow should dominate inside and the 2-3 zone, which is what the 49ers played most of the game, should prove effective enough to stop the Lions. This is a game the Titans should win based on talent but if LMU's three-point shooting suddenly picks up and the Titans don't win the battle on the boards, anything can happen.
Game 9: Loyola Marymount
Tuesday, December 30, 2003 @ Titan Gym
Rankings CollegeRPI Massey Sagarin
Cal State Fullerton (4-4, 0-0) 256 205 172
Loyola Marymount (6-4, 0-0) 68 127 129
The Line: Lions by 2
Here are the projected starting lineups:
Pos Cal State Fullerton Loyola Marymount
PG Bobby Brown 6-1, 170 Martin, Damian 6-1, 180
SG Derick Andrew 6-2, 180 Wardrop, Wes 6-3, 185
SF Anthony Bolton 6-7, 190 Kincade, Keith 6-6, 210
PF Hardy Asprilla 6-5, 225 Gay, Sherman 6-7, 195
C Pape Sow 6-10, 250 Ayer, Chris 6-10, 242
First off the Bench
Zakee Smith 6-0, 175 Brown, Charles, G 5-11, 170
Yaphett King 6-4, 235 Dickens, Jason, F 6-8, 230
Babacar Camara 6-10, 250 Haywood, John, F 6-6, 210
David Warsaw 6-4, 200 Brown, Dustin, F 6-7, 225
Brian Pruitt 6-6, 225
