FULLERTON — When push came to shove Saturday, the UC Irvine men’s basketball team had the heavier hand.

The Anteaters withstood an early jolt from Cal State Fullerton in their Big West Conference matchup, but came back with several blows of their own in an 86-64 win at Titan Gym.

“I’m really pleased with my team, with the way that we played and the level that we sustained against a Fullerton team that is really impressive to this point,” UCI coach Russell Turner said.

Derin Saran had 16 points, 11 rebounds and 6 assists to lead UCI in all three categories.

“Before the game, I was talking to the coaches, and they said I should be more aggressive and that’s what I did,” Saran said. “I looked to attack a lot, found my open teammates and got a couple shots to fall.”

Elijah Chol, Jurian Dixon and Andre Henry contributed 15 points apiece, and Kyle Evans chipped in 11 points and eight rebounds for the Anteaters (11-5, 4-0 Big West), who shot 56.1% from the floor and 11 for 24 from 3-point range.

The Titans (6-10, 1-3), who were picked to finish last in the 11-team Big West in the conference’s preseason poll, were feeling confident coming off a 95-84 home win on Thursday against UC Santa Barbara, which was picked to finish second.

Fullerton entered the game sixth in the nation in fast-break points per game (19.4) and 17th in bench scoring (36.8), but the Titans were up against a UCI team that came in 15th in the nation in field-goal percentage defense (37.8) and seventh in the nation in blocked shots (6.4).

KJ Garris scored 19 points off the bench to lead the Titans and Landon Seaman scored 15 in a reserve role.

Joshua Ward, who came in averaging a team-high 14.9 points, was a focal point of the UCI defense and he was held to 10 points on 3-of-16 shooting from the field.

“We weren’t as sharp as we needed to be and as sharp as we can be and as sharp as we’re capable of,” Fullerton coach Dedrique Taylor said. “We didn’t have it the last 8 minutes of the first half and the last 20 minutes of the second half.”

The Anteaters finished the first half on an 11-2 run to take their biggest lead of the half at 47-37.

UCI shot 19 for 28 from the floor in the opening half (67.9%) while holding the Titans to 13 for 35 (37.1%). Fullerton helped keep it close by shooting 7 for 15 from 3-point range.

Christian Williams hit a high-arcing 3-pointer to give Fullerton its biggest lead of the first half at 16-9 with 13:34 left.

“We felt that the way they put the game on us early,” Turner said. “They established a lead because they probably surprised my guys a little bit with the level that they played at, but we raised our level because of the competition and I thought we wore them out with the defensive intent that we showed.”

UCI moved ahead 24-22 on a tip-in by Evans.

Seaman sank a 3-pointer off an inbounds play to pull the Titans within one at 36-35, but the Anteaters closed with the 11-2 run for their first double-digit lead.

UCI, which outscored Fullerton 40-12 in the paint for the night, didn’t let up coming out of halftime.

Chol hit his third 3-pointer of the game without a miss to expand the lead to 56-41 with 17:47 left, Dixon stretched the lead to 18 with another 3-pointer, and Jovan Jester Jr. made it 61-41 with a fast-break layup off a turnover with 15:44 to play.