Franklin leads San Diego St. past Fresno St., 75-53

SAN DIEGO - Jamaal Franklin scored his 1,000th career point on a layup in a blowout win against cold-shooting Fresno State.

Both were nice, particularly the 75-53 victory for an Aztecs team that has been inconsistent.

Franklin scored 14 points and had 11 rebounds to reach 500 in his three-year career, and James Rahon also scored 14 for the Aztecs.

"It is a good accomplishment but I'm just glad we won," Franklin said. "A lot of people have done it. At the end of the day the accomplishment would have been bad if we lost, but we won so that is the biggest accomplishment to me."

The Aztecs (18-5, 6-3 Mountain West) used a 13-0 run in the second half to win for the fourth time in five games. They fell out of The Associated Press Top 25 for the second time this season on Monday after a three-point loss at Air Force the previous Saturday. SDSU rebounded by beating Boise State 63-62 at home on Wednesday night, rallying after blowing a 17-point, first-half lead.

"Like I said before, playing college basketball you can't always keep the big point spread, but we got the win," Franklin said. "If we would have won by two points, the same thing would have been accomplished if we won by 20."

Franklin, last season's Mountain West Conference Player of the Year, reached the 1,000-point milestone with a layup with 6:17 left that gave SDSU a 59-32 lead.

Although he played in 22 games as a freshman, he scored only 64 points that season. He scored 557 points last year and has 384 this season for 1,005 total. He has 501 rebounds.

"He's got some pretty good numbers that back up the quality of player he is," coach Steve Fisher said.

"Jamaal just wills himself into stuff," Fisher said. "The ball finds him, especially on the defensive glass. He just has a knack for being around the ball and he can score in a lot of different ways. He gets a lot of free throws. He's a talented player that is becoming much more in charge of his emotions, and not allowing that to override his play and not get caught up in the fouls that he says aren't called and that sort of thing. I think that's a sign of maturity."

Freshman Winston Shepard scored 10 for SDSU, which has a tough week with games at Colorado State on Wednesday night and at UNLV next Saturday.

Tyler Johnson scored 14, Braeden Anderson 12 and Marvelle Harris 11 for Fresno State (8-14, 2-7), which was coming off a 64-55 home victory over UNLV on Wednesday night. The Bulldogs shot only 29.3 percent against the Aztecs and trailed by 29 points with 9:01 left.

"We had bad misses tonight," Bulldogs coach Rodney Terry said. "For whatever reason, we let them speed us up a little bit tonight. We rushed some things, especially early, almost to the point where it looked like we pushed the panic button. There was no reason to panic.

"It's always tough playing on the road, especially here," Terry said. "I think that's what it was. Guys were rattled for some reason, and it was hard. We took a couple punches in the mouth early."

SDSU opened MWC play with a 65-62 win at Fresno State on Jan. 9. This one was hardly as close. SDSU outscored the Bulldogs 10-2 in the opening four minutes, including 3-pointers by Rahon and Chase Tapley, and were never threatened.

SDSU led 25-17 at halftime. After Fresno State's Kevin Foster made a layup to open the second half, SDSU went on a 13-0 run to take control at 38-19, with Franklin and Rahon making 3-pointers.

Shepard scored six straight points to help the Aztecs take a 44-23 lead with 12:56 to go.

Both teams struggled through the first half. Fresno State shot just 24.1 percent while the Aztecs shot 39.1 percent. The Aztecs made only 4 of 11 free throws.

Rahon scored six straight points late in the first half to give the Aztecs a 22-11 lead.

Tapley landed hard on his troublesome right wrist late in the first half but stayed in the game.

Point guard Xavier Thames, who missed the previous two games and four of the first eight conference games with a back injury, returned to action, although he didn't start.

SDSU ran its streak to 33 straight victories against teams from California.