SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO — Tournament MVP Orlando Robinson had 22 points, 8 rebounds and 4 blocked shots to assistance Fresno State bushed Santa Clara, 59-52, successful the title crippled of the SoCal Challenge connected Wednesday nighttime astatine JSerra High.
Jordan Campbell added 12 points and respective momentum-changing plays for Fresno, including a blocked changeable that helium followed with an emphatic windmill dunk successful transition.
Fresno (5-0), which led for much than 33 minutes, locked down connected defense, had a sizeable vantage astatine the free-throw enactment and held Santa Clara (5-1) to a season-low 36 percent from the tract to assistance offset its ain shooting woes.
The Broncos, who changeable 55% during their 5-0 start, made 4 of their archetypal 5 shots but conscionable 14 of 45 the remainder of the night. Fresno changeable conscionable 32.7% wide (16 for 49), but its defence and free-throw shooting (22 for 25) were capable to flooded that.
“We maintained our antiaircraft intensity,” Fresno manager Justin Hutson said. “All our guys would’ve liked to marque a fewer much shots, we were susceptible of making a fewer much shots. Gotta springiness Santa Clara immoderate recognition for that also, but we didn’t bent our caput erstwhile we didn’t marque shots, we inactive got down and made stops.”
Fresno outscored Santa Clara 32-27 successful the 2nd fractional with 17 of those points coming via escaped throws. The Broncos were conscionable 9 for 12 from the enactment for the night, and Fresno besides outscored them 16-7 successful points disconnected turnovers, committing conscionable 8 turnovers portion forcing Santa Clara into 15.
Isaiah Hill’s 3-pointer with little than 8 minutes into the crippled (his lone handbasket connected 10 attempts) gave the Bulldogs a 16-13 pb and they ne'er trailed again. Robinson’s layup with 13:36 near successful the 2nd fractional gave Fresno its archetypal double-digit pb astatine 40-29.
Keshawn Justice made back-to-back 3-pointers to get Santa Clara wrong 53-49 with 1:22 left, but Fresno iced the triumph astatine the free-throw line.
Fresno is disconnected to its champion commencement since the 2015-16 play erstwhile the Bulldogs besides opened 5-0, aboriginal won the Mountain West Conference Tournament and reached the NCAA Tournament.
PJ Pipes and Justice paced the Broncos with 12 points each portion Jalen Williams added 10. Parker Braun pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds.
In different games …
TCU 73, Pepperdine 64: Mike Miles (16 points) continued his streak of scoring successful treble figures successful each crippled this play to pb TCU past Pepperdine.
Emanuel Miller added 15 points and 10 rebounds and scored connected a hook changeable and a leap changeable wrapped astir a missed Pepperdine handbasket to assistance squelch the Waves’ precocious rally. His burst of 4 points successful 23 seconds was portion of an 8-3 tally arsenic TCU (4-1) kept immoderate region connected Pepperdine aft the Waves had closed to 56-53.
The triumph was No. 100 for Coach Jamie Dixon since helium took implicit the Horned Frogs program. Dixon became the 5th caput manager with 100 wins astatine TCU.
Charles O’Bannon added 12 points arsenic 9 of 11 Horned Frogs scored. TCU was conscionable 3 for 18 from 3-point scope but changeable 50% wide (27 for 54) and dominated the boards, outrebounding Pepperdine 38-22.
Jan Zidek scored 17 points to pb 4 Waves (2-5) successful treble figures. Houston Mallette added 15 with 3 3-pointers. Mike Mitchell had 10 points and 8 assists and Jadé Smith added 10 points.
TCU went connected a 10-2 tally implicit 4 minutes precocious successful the archetypal fractional to instrumentality a 32-27 halftime pb aft 8 pb changes and a tie, holding the Waves to 2 escaped throws successful the last 4:48 of the half.
Utah Valley 74, Nicholls State 63: Connor Harding and Blaze Nield each scored 13 points arsenic Utah Valley had six players people successful treble figures.
The Wolverines (5-1) built a 16-0 pb and extended the borderline to 22 points (44-22) by halftime. Utah Valley had 13 assists connected 24 tract goals.
Devante Carter scored 17 points successful reserve for the Colonels (4-3) and Emmanuel Little grabbed 10 rebounds.
Cal Poly (SLO) 67, Idaho 63: Kyle Colvin recorded a double-double with a career-high 28 points and 10 rebounds and Cal Poly edged Idaho 67-63.
Brantly Stevenson had 10 points and 8 rebounds for Cal Poly (2-4), which snapped its four-game losing streak. Kobe Sanders added 7 rebounds.
Mikey Dixon had 18 points for the Vandals (1-5), present owners of a four-game skid. Trevante Anderson added 11 points and Philip Pepple Jr. blocked 4 shots.