FULLERTON — Not even its defense could bail out the Cal State Fullerton basketball team on Thursday night.
The Titans came into their game against Hawaii with the third stingiest defense in the Big West Conference, an element that might buy them some time when shots aren’t falling, but Fullerton couldn’t make up a large early deficit and lost, 76-68, at Titan Gym to spoil their three-game winning streak.
Fullerton (11-11 overall, 4-6 Big West) was outrebounded 38-21, including 12-5 on the offensive end.
“I thought their level of aggression was greater than ours,” Fullerton coach Dedrique Taylor said of Hawaii. “I thought they played with a different level of desperation.”
D.J. Brewton scored 19 points to lead the Titans, Tory San Antonio finished with 13 points and Grayson Carper contributed 11 points off the bench, but leading scorer Max Jones was limited to five points, nine below his season average.
Noel Coleman scored 21 points to lead four players in double figures for Hawaii (12-10, 4-6), which snapped a five-game losing streak against Fullerton.
The Titans missed nine of their first 11 shots, allowing the Rainbow Warriors to build a double-digit lead seven minutes into the game. The Titans trailed by as many as 20 in the opening half before an 11-0 run briefly brought them back to within single digits.
Fullerton trailed by 12 at halftime and then fell behind by 17 before a 9-0 run pulled the Titans back within single digits at 59-51 with 7:04 left.
The Titans were still trailing by seven when a foul was called on John Mikey Square, followed by a technical foul on Taylor. The Warriors converted all four free throws to push the lead back to 70-59 with 2:59 left and that proved too large a deficit to overcome.
“I thought we’d come out with a little more fire and a little more energy,” Taylor said. “I thought Hawaii was really comfortable, got themselves into a rhythm shooting the basketball and rebounding the basketball and set the tone for the rest of the game. We just dug ourselves a little bit too big of a hole to be able to come back.”
Hawaii dominated most of the first half, holding Fullerton to 32% shooting from the field while owning a 25-10 rebounding edge, including 7-1 on the offensive end. That helped the Warriors to a 9-0 advantage in second-chance points.
“I don’t care who you are, if you’re getting outrebounded at halftime by 15, it’s hard to win,” Taylor said.
The Warriors built a 16-4 lead as Fullerton missed nine of its first 11 shots.
Akira Jacobs checked into the game for Hawaii and immediately swished a 3-pointer to make it 19-6, and Juan Munoz followed with another basket from behind the arc to make it 22-8 with 9:14 left in the half.
Munoz sank his second 3-pointer of the opening half to give the visitors their biggest lead at 31-11 with 4:44 remaining.
“With the type of shots we were creating for ourselves, I thought they were out-of-rhythm shots,” Taylor said. “They were getting in-rhythm shots for themselves.”
The Titans, meanwhile, missed their first seven 3-point attempts before making two straight as part of the 11-0 run that cut the lead to 31-22 with 2:09 left in the half.
The Warriors eventually took a 36-24 lead into the break.
The Titans came in giving up an average of 67.3 points per game and had limited their past two opponents, Cal State Bakersfield and Cal Poly, to 50 and 51 points, respectively. Bakersfield and Cal Poly were also a combined 6 for 37 from 3-point range (16.2%).
Hawaii shot 6 for 18 from behind the arc.
