How To Watch, Game Preview and Game Thread: UCLA Bruins vs Cal State Fullerton Titans
Another cupcake, but at least this one is locally-sourced.
Writing these early-season previews can be a bit challenging because the teams UCLA is facing are not very good. Case in point: tonight the Bruins face the Cal State Fullerton Titans, a team that beat Idaho State by one point earlier this week.
The Titans are at least a program that might be a little familiar to UCLA fans just due to the proximity of the school. That said, this was not expected to be a good team going into the season, with Fullerton picked to finish 10th in the 11-team Big West (my beloved UC Irvine Anteaters are again the favorites to win the regular season crown, but it would be nice if they could translate that to a postseason tournament win and NCAA Tournament appearance at some point).
The tough part of doing this particular preview is that Fullerton has not really settled on a starting lineup yet, with only two players having started every game. One of those two, John Mikey Square, is an interesting player, a 6’6” forward who essentially acts as Fullerton’s post player. He’s not really an outside threat and isn’t much of a rebounder, but he is a hard worker who will present an interesting defensive challenge. The other full starter, Keith Richard, is a smaller shooting guard who has not shot well to start the season (31.3% from the field, 21.4% from deep). He’s also turnover-prone, averaging 2.2 TPG so far on the young season.
Fullerton’s best player, at least statistically, is Donovan Oday. Oday, a 6’3” guard, leads the Titans in both points (11.2 PPG) and rebounds (5.0 RPG). He’s perhaps their best outside shooter, hitting 50% of his shots beyond the arc, but he’s only shooting 31.6% overall, so I assume a lot of those shots are just not going in. Oday also leads the team in field goal attempts by far with 11.4 per game (the next closest is Richard at 6.4) so expect to see the ball in Oday’s hands a lot. Interestingly enough, Oday did not start the most recent game, so a question will be whether that continues in this one.
Davis Bynum is the third-leading scorer on this team, and at 6’9” offers more size on the interior, but interestingly enough he has not started a game this season. He doesn’t appear to be much of a rebounder for his size, but he is shooting threes at a 40% clip, so take that into consideration. He’s also only playing 14.0 MPG at the moment, so I’m wondering if there was some sort of offseason injury here and he’s being worked back into the lineup slowly. Zach Visentin is the team’s nominal center but, again, has only started two games so far. He’ll be an interesting data point for UCLA’s bigs on the defensive end, as he sits at 6’9” and weighs 280 pounds, so he’ll likely be hard to move around the paint.
Antwan Robinson has started three games so far for the Titans, but has put up miserable shooting numbers (23.1% from the field) so far despite getting over 20 minutes of playing time. He’s almost strictly a three-point specialist, with 4.2 of his 5.2 shots per game coming from behind the arc, but so far he is shooting 14.3% on those shots, so make of that what you will. Freddie Cooper, Kendrick de Luna, and LoLo Rudolph have all started multiple games, but their stats are almost negligible.
This is not a good Fullerton team, as should be obvious from this rundown. They’re not very big and are getting killed on the glass. Collectively, they’re shooting 38.6% from the field and 28.9% from three, which is really not good considering how often they shoot three-pointers. If there is something interesting to watch that Fullerton does, it is the fact that they play a zone defense, which will be UCLA’s first opportunity to face that style of defense.
I wrote down my thoughts on where the team was currently at after the Idaho State game, and if you’re watching this game, those feel like some of the things you should be looking out for. Can some of the players start putting things together? Will Cronin be more judicious with the hook for players like Kobe Johnson or Skyy Clark? Can William Kyle III and Aday Mara get much more playing time to aid their development? Those are the kinds of questions UCLA needs to be answering in these last few tuneup games.
Listen to the Game With TMB
Tonight’s game will be on Big Ten Network with J.B. Long and Don MacLean calling the game. If you prefer, you can listen to Josh Lewin and Tracy Murray. Just be sure to right-click on it so that you can open up another tab and have it going while you chat in the comments below. Listen to today’s game online.
This is your UCLA men’s basketball vs Cal State Fullerton Titans game thread. Here’s how to watch, listen and stream today’s game:
UCLA Men’s Basketball (4-1)
Opponent: Cal State Fullerton Titans (1-4)
Series Record: UCLA leads 10-2
When: 7:07 pm PT, Friday, November 22, 2024
Where: Pauley Pavilion, Westwood, CA
TV: Big Ten Network with J.B. Long and Don MacLean
Live Stream: Fox Sports Live
Radio/Audio
Local Radio: AM 1150 with Josh Lewin and Tracy Murray
Online: uclabruins.com
Live Stats: UCLA StatBroadcast
Game Notes:
UCLA
Go Bruins!!!
Thanks again for supporting The Mighty Bruin. Your paid subscriptions make this site possible. Questions, comments, story ideas, angry missives and more can be sent to @TheMightyBruin on Twitter.
A nice respite before tomorrow! BTW I am missing Big Red...as I'm sure a lot of you are.
Perry getting comfortable