Newman's Notes: CP-SLO and UCSB

Cal State Fullerton gains a split on the road with a win over Cal Poly SLO on Thursday night and then losing to UC Santa Barbara two nights later. Assistant coach Andy Newman gives some insight on the season's first Big West Conference road trip.

Disclaimer: These notes are paraphrased from a brief conversation with assistant coach Andy Newman. These are not exact quotes but TitanCentral.com did its best to capture the points being made:

Previous Notes
Dec. 19th, 2006	Bethune-Cookman
Dec. 7th, 2006	UCLA
Nov. 29th, 2006	Eastern Washington
Nov. 25th, 2006	Louisiana-Lafayette
Nov. 21st, 2006	UT-San Antonio
Nov. 14th, 2006	Hope International
Nov. 7th, 2006	SDSU Scrimmage

• Defensively we didn't play real well in either game. At SLO our offense bailed us out and we had some real good stops at the end of the game to build the 10 point lead. For the most part, when our defense breaks down we count on the offense and that didn't happen against UCSB.
• We were really good offensively against Cal Poly SLO. The difference between the two game is we made the tough shots against CP-SLO whereas we didn't against UCSB.
• UCSB, obviously, had a real good game plan.
• We were prepared for the zone. though we didn't expect them to start and end the game with it. We anticipated about 80% zone though.
• They also had a soft press which was designed to slow us down. We needed to be more aggressive but you have to give them credit.
• We knew Scott Cutley was going to have a big game. Their zone leaves the high post and short corner wide open. Justin Burns did not have a good game at all and that hurt us.
• Defensively against UCSB the break-down was that our helpers did not help when needed. When we got beat on penetration our guys needed to come over but they stuck to their man for the most part.
• We also did not go after the loose balls as we should. They were quicker to the ball and just seemed to want it more.
• No real injuries right now but Andrew Green is battling the Flu right now and he's in and out of practice. Justin Burns had a touch of the flu but he was back today.
• Right now we need to get the guys focused on CSUN and I think we are getting there. Northridge's main goal is to try to keep us off-balance. They are going to throw numerous defenses against us and we just need to be aggressive.
• I hope to see everyone at the Chalk Talk on Saturday. (4:00PM start at University Village)