Fresno State women’s basketball season ends with no postseason invite

The Fresno State women’s basketball season officially has come to an end.

The Bulldogs, runners-up in the Mountain West Tournament, were not selected Monday for the 64-team Women’s National Invitation Tournament.

Fresno State also is not expected to accept an invitation to the third-tier postseason tournament Women’s Basketball Invitational – meaning the Bulldogs will not participate in the postseason following a conference tournament for the first time since the 2006-07 season.

Fresno State played in the NCAA Tournament from 2008-14 and in the WNIT the past two seasons.

The Bulldogs finished this season 18-15 overall, 8-10 in conference play and won three straight to begin the Mountain West Tournament before falling to Boise State 66-53 in the final.

The Bulldogs’ tournament run was led by junior Bego Faz Davalos, who had a stellar season. Named the Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year for the second consecutive season, Faz Davalos amassed 114 blocks for the third most in the country and averaged 3.45 per game, which is fifth in the nation.

Her 21 double-doubles also ranked fourth in the country and her 370 total rebounds was fourth also (at 11.2 per game, she ranked seventh nationally).

In addition, Faz Davalos averaged 14.6 points on 53.8 percent shooting (36th in the nation).

Faz Davalos and sophomore point guard Candice White, who averaged a team-best 15.1 points, will try to get the Bulldogs back on track next season.

Fresno State will lose senior starters Emilie Volk and Kendra Martin and reserve Anais Kirvan.

The WNIT was filled with 31 automatic qualifiers, including Mountain West regular season champ Colorado State (24-8), and 33 at-large bids, which included two teams that the Bulldogs eliminated in the conference tournament.

Except, UNLV (22-10) and Wyoming (21-9) both had better regular seasons than Fresno State.

The 16-team field of the WBI, meanwhile, usually is filled with some of the smaller schools in Division I. In last year’s WBI final, Louisiana defeated Weber State for the championship.

This story was originally published March 13, 2017 at 7:03 PM with the headline "Fresno State women’s basketball season ends with no postseason invite."