Things are going to heat up in the winter as both Fresno State basketball programs will begin their conference play the last week of December.
On Friday, the Mountain West (MW) Conference released the conference schedule for both Fresno State women’s and men’s basketball in a press release. Fresno State men’s basketball will start on Dec. 29 against the Wyoming Cowboys and women’s basketball starts on Dec. 31 against the Boise State Broncos.
Both programs will play a total of 18 in-conference games against MW opponents and non-conference matchups will be announced at a later date. Teams in the MW will play nine home games and nine away games during conference play.
League standings will determine the seeding for the 2021 MW championship tournament for both women’s and men’s basketball. The tournament will once again take place at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The women’s basketball tournament will be held on March 7-10 and the men’s basketball tournament will be held on March 10-13.
To see the full schedules for both women’s and men’s basketball, check out the tweets below.
MW television partners CBS Sports and Fox Sports will now begin their game selection procedure, which probably will include the shifting of several men’s basketball games from their current Saturday and Tuesday dates.
However, just like Fresno State football, the entire schedule is subject to approval from state, county and local officials.
The defending regular-season MW women’s basketball champions will get their rematch against the Boise State Broncos in the very first game of conference play. Both Fresno State and Boise State faced off last season in the finals of the MW tournament.
The Bulldogs kept it close throughout the game and managed to take the Broncos to overtime. Within the final four seconds, the Bulldogs trailed 78-75.
After getting fouled on the inbound, then-freshman Hanna Cavinder went to the line to shoot two free throws. She nailed the first one but intentionally missed the second to give the Bulldogs a chance for another shot.
Then-junior Aly Gamez came up with the rebound and managed to get a shot off. But before the shot went in, the referee ruled that the Bulldogs had called a timeout when they had zero timeouts remaining. Giving the Broncos two technical free throws to beat the Bulldogs 8-76 for the MW championship.
After the Boise State conference opener, the Save Mart Center will see women’s basketball for two more home games as the Bulldogs will also host Utah State on Jan. 2 and Nevada on Jan. 6.
Fresno State women’s basketball last year opened their conference play by winning 15 straight games and ended with a program-best 16-2 MW record.
Last season, the Fresno State men’s basketball team ended with a losing overall record (11-19) and a losing conference record (7-11). The year before, the Bulldogs had gone 23-9 overall and 13-5 in conference play.
That year would earn head coach Justin Hutson the Joe B. Hall National Coach of the Year award. The award is presented annually to the top first-year coach in NCAA Division I college basketball.
This year, the Bulldogs have been completely overhauled as they added eight new members after losing six players from the 2019 roster