Fresno State goes 1-0 in Mountain West play, after surviving 1 of 23 stretch shooting

Fresno State did not play its best basketball through an extended and excruciating stretch in the second half of a 58-53 victory over Wyoming on Wednesday at the Save Mart Center. Even for a team that hit Mountain West play ranked last in the conference scoring, in field goal percentage and assist to turnover ratio, it was rough — and the 4,165 in the building could do little but wince their way through it.

The Bulldogs from the 18-minute mark missed 22 of their next 23 shots and blew an 18-point lead that was built on a surprisingly solid first half at the offensive end. But even after all of that, they made some big-time basketball plays down the stretch, regaining and then holding a lead.

“If you come in our locker room, we have next play attitude and effort and we talk a lot about, you know, human nature is to get down when you miss shots or things happen and you have to be men and fight through human nature, and I expect this team to be able to do that,” coach Justin Hutson said.

“We are starting to. The last couple of weeks, we’ve really starting to defend even when things weren’t going our way. We have to have things go our way a little bit more, like the first half. But, you couldn’t be more proud of the mentality. Everybody, the Red Wave was getting a little frustrated, the players were getting a little frustrated and I had to call a timeout and say, ‘It’s no time to get frustrated, move on to the next play. Let’s go.’”

The Bulldogs (5-7, 1-0 in the MW) found themselves down two with three minutes to go when guard Jemarl Baker, who scored a game-high 20 points with four assists and was on the bench with four fouls through much of that abysmal stretch, worked into the paint to tie the score with a layup.

“He called a play for me to get down there and I just tried to do what I can when I’m down there and get a bucket,” said Baker, who played to a plus/minus of plus-16 in the five-point win.

Wyoming went up again on a drive by guard Noah Reynolds, but guard Jordan Campbell came up with an offensive rebound off a missed 3-pointer and kicked the ball out to Baker, who knocked down a 3 to give the Bulldogs a lead.

Leo Colimerio secured a rebound off a Wyoming miss at the other end, and then an offensive rebound off a missed jumped by point guard Isaiah Hill. Fouled, Colimerio, who hits 76.5% of his foul shots but is not there often, hit them both to put the Bulldogs up three.

Hutson called a timeout to set the defense — they were to foul, up three. Wyoming, curiously, had Ethan Anderson, a 34.8% foul shooter, bring the ball up the floor and the Bulldogs fouled. Anderson predictably missed the front end of a 1-and-1 and Eduardo Andre, who entered prior to the foul shot for his rebounding, came up with the rebound and immediately was fouled.

“The execution at the end was really good,” Hutson said. “You couldn’t be more proud of the guys. We fouled. We let them dribble up and fouled so they couldn’t get a 3. We made our free throws at the end. We did a good job at the end executing what we were doing. Sometimes the ball just goes in or doesn’t but I liked how we executed a few things at the end and it was all them.”

This story was originally published December 29, 2022 at 7:27 AM.