Fresno State has made a tough task — punching a ticket to the NCAA Tournament — seem commonplace.­

The Bulldogs are taking stage at the Big Dance for the sixth-straight season.

But the tempo has always been too fast, the hump too steep for Fresno State — which is 0-5 in tourney play — to scale past.

And when the No. 15 Bulldogs take on second-seeded Cal in Lubbock, Texas in the first round of the Spokane Regional, there is one goal on their mind:

Dancing past the first song.

Fresno State and Cal’s first-game will be televised Saturday at 1:20 p.m. on ESPN2.

Should the Bulldogs advance, they will face the winner of the No. 10 South Florida and No. 7 host Texas Tech game on Monday.

“This is my first year here at Fresno State, and we inherited a program that had talent in it, but also more importantly had players that had high expectations for what we were going to accomplish,” Fresno State coach Raegan Pebley said in a teleconference on Wednesday.

“Our internal leadership and commitment towards going to the NCAA’s was really strong.”

But the odds, again, seem stacked against the Bulldogs, who captured the Mountain West championship in their 76-70 win on Saturday over San Diego State — which was denied an at-large bid after finishing the season 26-6.

The Bulldogs were given the 15th seed in the Spokane Regional despite posting a 2-2 record against Pac-12 teams (of which included an 11-point road loss against top Spokane seed Stanford in the regular-season opener) this season and went 24-8 en route to acquiring the Mountain West’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Said Cal coach Lindsay Gottlieb: “My first impression as I watched film is: this team is a 15-seed? This team is very good. You don’t win 24 games unless you’re very good and have an excellent coach.”

President Barack Obama picked the Lady Bears to finish in the Final Four — past No. 1 Stanford.

“I will say with everything’s that’s happened this year you try not to get too excited, but I come from a political family and that was pretty cool,” Gottlieb said.

“Literally my message to the team was anything you hear, good or bad, block it out, but I didn’t expect that would include from President Obama. We’ll probably give them a pass on that one and laugh about it today. The things this team has done to put California in the public eye, I am proud of.”

The Golden Bears (28-3) won their first regular-season conference championship in school history.

A No. 2 seed has never lost against a 15-seed in the in the women’s tournament history.

The Bulldogs, who have not won an NCAA Tournament game, are hoping to make history.

“The first thing we have to pack in our suitcases is the spirit about us and how we believe we have to win games,” Pebley said. “Whether we play against San Diego State in the conference championship or against Air Force or Stanford in a season opener, that has to be a staple of what Fresno State women’s basketball is about.”

“We have a lot in our arsenal, a lot of tools in our belt.”