Bulldogs open season at Northern Arizona

Tuesday, November 6

Flagstaff, Ariz.

11:30 a.m. PT

Fresno State

Northern Arizona

Photo by: Keith Kountz/Fresno St

Bulldogs open season at Northern Arizona

11/5/2018 1:37:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Tuesday's meeting will be the first between the 'Dogs and 'Jacks since 2001.

By: Josh Mitchell / Assistant Director of Communications

Game 1: Fresno State (0-0) at Northern Arizona (0-0)
Nov. 6, 2018 – 11:30 a.m. PT – Flagstaff, Ariz. (Rolle Activity Center)
Live Stream: Pluto.TV
Live Stats: Statbroadcast.com
Series History: Tied 2-2
Last Meeting: Fresno State won 73-68 on Dec. 8, 2001
Up Next: vs. Cal Poly on Nov. 14 at 7 p.m. PT

Bulldog Bones
• Fresno State begins its fifth season under head coach Jaime White on Tuesday.
• The Bulldogs have averaged 20 wins per season under White.
• The 'Dogs are coming off of a 17-15 season in which they finished tied for fourth in the Mountain West at 11-7 and picked up a win in the Women's Basketball Invitational.
• Fresno State was one of the youngest team's in the country last year, a roster which featured no seniors. The 'Dogs started three true freshmen in a NCAA-high 24 games in 2017-18.
• With so much youth last year, the Bulldogs return 98.4 percent of its scoring production.
• The 'Dogs will be led by Mountain West preseason all-conference selection Candice White who led the league in scoring a season ago at 18.9 points per game along with leading the team in rebounds, assists, steals, made 3's, free-throw percentage and minutes.
• White's young running mates in Aly Gamez and Maddi Utti return for their sophomore seasons after earning MW All-Freshman Team honors, ranking in the top three on the team in points, rebounds, assists and steals.

Revisiting Friday's exhibition
• Hosting CSU Dominguez Hills in their lone exhibition game ahead of Tuesday's opener, Fresno State topped the century mark with a 102-49 win. The game saw sophomores Bree Delaney, Aly Gamez and Maddi Utti each put up 20 points and seven assists.
• Kristina Cavey added a double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds to go with four assists and two steals.
• The 'Dogs had 27 assists on their 38 made shots, connecting at a 55.9 percent clip from the field (38-of-68).
• Fresno State shot 10-of-26 behind the arc (38.5 percent).

Let's get this started
• Fresno State is 3-1 in season openers under fifth-year head coach Jaime White. The Bulldogs one loss in a season opener though was on the road at UC Riverside as the 'Dogs are 3-0 at home in openers under White.
• The 'Dogs have averaged 71.6 points in their last four openers, scoring 81 points in last year's 25-point win over Eastern Washington from the Big Sky.

Picked third
• When the Mountain West preseason poll was released on Nov. 1, Fresno State was selected to finish third in the conference behind 2018 co-regular season champions Boise State (1) and UNLV (2).
• The predicted finish for the 'Dogs is one spot higher than their 2017-18 finish after being picked to place seventh prior to that season.

One of the best two guards around
• Coming off of her second season in which she has averaged over 15 points per game, senior Candice White was named to the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award watch list as one of the Top 20 shooting guards in the country last month.
• A week later, White was tabbed to the Mountain West preseason all-conference team for the second straight year.
• White was the only player in the league during the 2017-18 conference season to rank in the top 15 in points, rebounds, assists, steals, free-throw percentage, 3-point field goal percentage, 3-point field goals made per game, defensive rebounds and minutes.
• For the Bulldogs, she was a Swiss-army knife, doing a bit of everything for the young pups, as she led Fresno State in scoring (18.9 ppg), rebounding (6.3 rbg), assists (2.7 apg), steals (1.5) per game, and free-throw percentage (91.9) and made 3-pointers (74).

They're almost all back
• Fresno State was one of the youngest team's in the country last year, a roster which featured no seniors, the squad ranked as the 11th-youngest team in the NCAA in relation to percentage of underclassmen, with four juniors, five sophomores and four freshmen. The 2018-19 version of the Bulldogs will be much more veteran laden with three seniors, five juniors, four sophomores and one freshman. The returners account for 98.4 percent of the team's scoring output from a season ago.
• While the sophomores make-up nearly a third of the team's roster, they are well seasoned. Each averaged more than 14 minutes per game while the trio of Aly Gamez (27), Genna Ogier (26) and Maddi Utti (29) all started more than 20 games.
• The only departure from last year's roster was then-sophomore Megan Nilsson. Medically retired, Tory Jacobs, who did not play during the 2017-18 season, made the move during the summer to the coaching staff as a student assistant for her senior season but will remain a captain.

Seasoned sophomores
• With their freshman season behind them, Fresno State's sophomore quartet combined for 2,824 minutes, more than a third of the team's total minutes last season. Maddi Utti (1,011) and Aly Gamez (957) collected the majority of the minutes combining for nearly 2,000.
• The high number of minutes for Gamez and Utti were due to the amount of production the two were able to put together in year one. The two ranked in the top three for the Bulldogs in points, rebounds, assists and steals.

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