Fresno State Athletics
The Fifth Day of Christmas
12/18/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 18, 2009
FRESNO, Calif. - On the fifth day of Christmas Timeout brought the Red Wave five years with Coach Cleveland. The Fresno native is entering his five year as the head coach of the Fresno State men's basketball team. The Bulldogs have grown academically and athletically under Cleveland's reign.
Under Cleveland, the Bulldogs have had the nation's largest Academic Progress Improvement rate. Junior Nedeljko Golubovic was named to the Academic All-District team last season. He has a cumulative GPA of 3.76 and is the first Bulldog to be honored with this award. Also, Golubovic and Brandon Sperling earned Academic All-WAC honors last season.
From May of 2007 to May of 2008, 10 Bulldog men's basketball players will have earned their degrees. This marks the first time in school history that ten Bulldogs graduated in a similar span of time.
The Bulldogs have made great strides in the classroom. The team GPA jumped to a 2.86, up from a 2.296 in the fall of 2007. Eight Bulldog student-athletes had a GPA of 3.0 or better, five more than accomplished that in the fall of 2007.
In each season at Fresno State, Cleveland and the Bulldogs led the Western Athletic Conference in attendance. After 32 regular season games in 2008-09, Fresno State topped the WAC in home attendance (8,969 per game). The largest crowd last year was 10,434 on Feb. 28, 2009 against Idaho.
After just one season with Fresno State, forward Dominic McGuire was selected in the NBA draft. He is the first Bulldog under Cleveland to be taken in the draft. McGuire was selected in the second round of the 2007 draft by the Washington Wizards. He averaged 13.5 points, 9.8 rebounds, 3.5 blocks and 3.2 assists.
In 2007, Cleveland guided the Bulldogs to the National Invitational tournament. It was the first time in five years the Bulldogs made it to the post season. The `Dogs finished the season 22-10 and reached the first round of the NIT for the first time since 2001-02. The 22 wins also marked the highest win total for a Bulldog team since the 1995-96 season. In the 88-year history, the 22 wins mark the 16th time a team has won at least 20 games.
Fresno State earned a first round matchup with the Georgia Bulldogs in Athens, Ga. The `Dogs fell, 88-78, but the experience was a huge step under head coach Steve Cleveland.
The future continues to shine for Cleveland and the Bulldogs with addition of young players like, Paul George, Greg Smith and Steven Shepp.
