Fresno State Athletics
Fresno State
8-3
Bakersfield
6-4
Bulldogs Rally to Remain Undefeated at Home
12/16/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By Stephen Trembley
strembley@csufresno.edu
www.GoBulldogs.com
FRESNO, Calif. -- The Fresno State men's basketball team rallied from a second-half deficit to beat the CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners 76-68 on Wednesday night at the Save Mart Center.
Bulldogs' senior guard Marvelle Harris scored 20 points and Fresno State converted five free throws in the final seconds to extend the Mountain West's second-longest home winning streak to nine straight games - four back of Boise State's league-best 13 consecutive home victories.
At 8-3, Fresno State is off to its best start since 2006 and is 7-0 at home -- the best since 2002.
The Bulldogs trailed 61-56 with less than seven minutes to play, but outscored Bakersfield 13-1 over the next five minutes. Harris scored eight points -- including a dunk -- in the go-ahead rally as part of his 17 second-half points.
"We never panicked," Fresno State head coach Rodney Terry said. "You have to keep playing, there's a lot of time left in this game. We had timeouts with seven minutes left to go we had to get some stops together. We can find a way to score, we just need to put some stops together. We're going to be playing games like that all season long. We converted a couple of those stops into points."
Bakersfield (6-4) twice battled back to within three, the last at 71-68 with 39 seconds left after a Damiyne Durham jumper. But Cezar Guerrero, Terrell Carter II and Julien Lewis made 5 of 6 foul shots.
Harris has scored 20-plus in five games this season. Carter added a career-best 13 points and junior forward Karachi Edo had 12 points and 10 boards for his sixth career double-double and third this season.
Durham and Aly Ahmed scored 15 each for Bakersfield, which had its three-game winning streak end.
As a team, Fresno State shot 54.2 percent from the field - its second game this season over 50 percent - with 15 assists and nine blocks. The Bulldogs' defense limited the Roadrunners to just 40.3 percent from the floor, including just 34.3 percent in the first half.
Up Next
Fresno State continues its four-game homestand on Sunday at 1 p.m. PT when the Bulldogs host the Evansville Purple Aces in the Mountain West-Missouri Valley Challenge.
All high school students can get a free ticket to the game by showing their valid high school ID at the Save Mart Center Box Office on gameday. Tickets for the general public start at $10.
Free tickets to the Bulldogs' Dec. 27 home game will be given away to the first 2,000 fans to Coach Rodney Terry's Show on Thursday from 6-7 p.m. PT at Pieology at Campus Pointe, courtesy of 940 AM EPSN Radio and Coach Terry.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
"Be Bold!" --- A limited number of $99 9-Game plans, which includes any nine of Fresno State's remaining home games, are still available by calling 559-278-DOGS.
