Fresno State women’s basketball: Bulldogs already had stars, now add depth

Fresno State opened women’s basketball practice without returning starter Wytalla Motta and incoming JC center Maria Guimaraes, who are home in Brazil and have been unable to make it back to the United States due to coronavirus-related travel restrictions.

But both are expected on campus at some point before the start of the season, which would make the Bulldogs one of just six 20-win teams in the nation with five returning starters, extremely deep, and seemingly set them up for another run in the Mountain West Conference.

“It’s all we talk about,” said coach Jaime White, whose Bulldogs were 25-7 overall and 16-2 in the Mountain West a year ago. “We’re definitely excited about what the possibilities are.

“Clearly, the hard work has to come. I think in this situation where we’ve had a little bit of a late start, we were cut short in the postseason, it’s nice having so much experience back, nice to have our starters in line, nice to have seniors along with our sophomore class, I would say, having the twins (Haley and Hanna Cavinder) back and all the experience they had, I think really lends itself to a positive future.”

Returning double-digit scorers

That experience will play well, particularly at the offensive end of the floor where Haley Cavinder, Maddi Utti and Hanna Cavinder last season led the highest-scoring team in the Mountain West with 76.1 points per game.

Haley Cavinder, the freshman of the year in the Mountain West a year ago, averaged 16.0 points per game. Utti, the player of the year in the conference, scored 15.9. Hanna Cavinder averaged 15.7 and led Fresno State with 3.7 assists per game.

Fresno State was one of two teams with three players scoring 15 or more points per game – the other, No. 2 Oregon.

The Bulldogs also return senior guard Aly Gamez, who averaged 11.4 points per game, Motta and a deep bench. White has three reserves who played in 25 or more games and averaged 10 or more minutes – Kendyll Kinzer, Genna Ogier and Brooke Walling.

And the Bulldogs expect to be better at the defensive end, as well.

“We have a couple of junior college kids coming in who I’m really excited about – Yanina (Todorova) and Charisse (Fairley),” White said. “They come in as juniors, but just the experience and their athleticism and their speed is really going to help us, especially defensively.

“Dayley Dunn, whose dad (David Dunn) played football here, and Keely Brown from Georgia, her coach (LaToya Brown) actually played for Fresno State back in the day. Really excited about them. Again, athletic and quick, and we felt like that athleticism and speed would really help us defensively and create a little bit more rotation in our press stuff.”

That experience and the ability to ratchet up the pressure on opponents could help the Bulldogs navigate some harrowing stretches of basketball ahead including five games in 11 days between byes in January with the first three of those games on the road.

Fresno State continues to work on a non-conference schedule, but will open Mountain West play on Dec. 29 against Boise State, the team that beat the Bulldogs in overtime in the championship game of the Mountain West Tournament following a controversial timeout call.

Mountain West championship loss

Down by five with 10.4 seconds remaining in overtime, Hanna Cavinder scored off a missed three and offensive rebound.

Boise State turned over the ball when trying to get it inbounds off the made shot, fouling Haley Cavinder as she came up with the basketball.

Down three, she made the first foul shot, intentionally missed the second, and Gamez, at 5-foot-6 one of the shortest players on the floor, came up with the rebound. Gamez turned in traffic and made a tying basket that was waved off by the officials, who ruled there had been a timeout called.

The Bulldogs had no timeouts remaining, were assessed a technical foul and Boise State ended up with an 80-76 victory and the conference’s automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament.

Fresno State was headed to the NIT, before the college basketball season was shut down by the coronavirus.

“Our kids were really excited,” White said. “Obviously, we felt a little shortchanged from the tournament. I feel like our kids were pretty hungry …

“I feel like we definitely would have been able to move forward. Administratively, we had a couple of home games – those are always nice. And then we’ve had a lot of experience in the NIT. All of those things I think equal the wins, plus we had a pretty good team.”