Fresno State Athletics
March Madness Arrives for the Dogs
3/19/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
March 19, 2010
BERKELEY, Calif. - - In any NCAA championship match-up, there's always a tremendous amount of excitement.
NCAA First/Second Round Information
For the Bulldog women's basketball team, they are hoping the third time is a charm.
The Dogs have been eliminated from the tournament in the first round of each of the last two seasons, by Baylor in Albuquerque in 2008 and by Cal in Los Angeles last season.
This season the Dogs get the Baylor Bears a little closer to home when they take on Baylor at Cal's Haas Pavilion. The game is scheduled for Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. and will be available in the Valley on ESPN2 and worldwide on the internet on ESPN.com via ESPN360.
As WAC regular season champions, Fresno State enters the NCAA tournament winners of 19 of its last 20 games. The Bulldogs raced through the WAC regular season with a perfect 16-0 record and reached the finals of the WAC tournament.
The Bulldogs are the 13th seed in the Memphis Regional and play No. 4-seed Baylor. The other two teams at the Cal site are No. 5 Georgetown and No. 12 Marist, who play prior to the Fresno State vs. Baylor game.
The winners of the two games will play Monday at 6:30 p.m. PT, with the winner of that game advancing to Memphis for the regional championships.
In Baylor, the Dogs get an elite program with one of the most high-profile players in the nation. In nine NCAA appearances under Mulkey, the Bears have only lost in the first round of the tournament once, her first season (2001). Baylor has been ranked as high as No. 4 in the nation this season and never fell below 19th in the polls. Entering the tournament, BU ranks No. 14 in the AP poll.
The Bears, which won the 2005 NCAA title, are perennially one of the top teams from the Big 12. Under head coach Kim Mulkey, they have become the most successful program in the Big 12. And speaking of "big", the Bears have freshman Brittney Griner, how at 6-feet, 8-inches tall is one of the most remarkable players in the nation. She's dunked on several games and is among the best shot blockers in the nation. Griner has a wing-span of 88-inches and has the ability to play above the rim unlike any women's basketball player ever.
This season, the Bears own a 23-9 record and have won six of their last eight games coming into the tournament. On Mulkey's bench as an assistant coach is former La Tech coaching legend Leon Barmore, a Hall of Fame coach. Barmore coached Mulkey when she played at La Tech and she was an assistant on his staff until getting the Baylor head job in 2001.
All four teams in Berkeley spent the day attending meeting, held a media news conference and practiced at Haas Pavilion.
"We will have our hands full," said Mulkey of the Bulldog team. "They have had great success and won 19 games in a row. They do what they do well. At this time of year teams can't change what they do. We won't. We will keep doing what we do well, play good, tough man-to-man defense. The teams that are going to be able to advance in the NCAA tournament have to be able to maintain that."
The majority of Fresno State questions were about Griner and how coach Adrian Wiggins plans to defend her. He joked he'd asked Bulldog assistant men's coach Jeff Reinert, who's 6-9, to come and workout with the team.
"We've played some teams with size this year," said Wiggins. "Not 6-8 size, but we played Stanford and they are big at every position. And that length gave us some problems, especially getting shots off. So we've seen it. We'll see how we respond to it tomorrow night."
The team went through a spirited workout at Haas Pavilion, more intense than walk throughs some teams have on the day before a game. Afterward, the Bulldogs took a walk around the Cal campus for an hour to unwind and enjoy a beautiful sunny day.
All of the team's hard work this season has brought them to Berkeley. On Saturday night, the Dogs will return to the floor for the first time in a week. They have a new set of goals ahead. It's simple: "win and advance".
Bulldog Watch Party
The Fresno State Alumni Association is hosting a Fresno watch party for Red Wavers who can't attend the Bulldogs women's basketball game Saturday, March 20, in Berkeley during the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The watch party begins at 6:30 p.m. at Me-N-Ed's Victory Grill (4010 N. Cedar Ave.) Guests at the watch party will be eligible to win prizes, including a basketball autographed by Coach Adrian Wiggins.
"We Are Your Team!" The Bulldog women's basketball team will play Baylor in the first round of the NCAA tournament in Berkeley at 7:30 p.m. PT. The game will live on 790ESPN Radio, on ESPN2 and available on ESPN360.
