For the second straight year, Head Coach Vance Walberg and the Fresno State men’s basketball team are first-round exits from the Mountain West Tournament. 

The No. 10 Bulldogs fell at the hands of the No. 7 Colorado State Rams 67-63.

Similar to last season, Walberg had just seven players to utilize in the first round. For the most part, Walberg used just six, as Aram Soqui-Urbano played just over one minute. 

Unlike last year’s matchup against the Nevada Wolf Pack, the ‘Dogs had a real chance at winning this game. 

Walberg’s Bulldogs found themselves with a five-point lead entering halftime. This was the third time this season the ‘Dogs had a halftime lead against the Rams, and ended up being the second time that the Bulldogs couldn’t convert their lead into a victory. 

While last season’s end could be chalked up to a lack of size caused by the injuries and extra-curricular activities off the court, losses like this are a real head scratcher. 

The ‘Dogs held a lead for 25 minutes of action, only lost the rebounding battle by four, had a better field goal percentage and also limited one of the best 3-point shooters in the conference, Brandon Rechsteiner, to just seven points. 

But similar to the regular season loss to the Rams, the ‘Dogs fell apart late in crunch time. 

“You go back and take a look, I think this is like seven or eight games, seven games that we lost by five or less,” Walberg said. “You know, we won a couple, but we lost too many of those.”

Injuries crept up once again late in the season with the losses to David Douglas Jr., D.J. Stickman and Zaon Collins, but Walberg found a way to compete. The problem is that he couldn’t find a way to win. 

Jake Heidbreder had one of his best games of the season, carrying the team in the most crucial time. A 26-point performance on 8-of-15 shooting from the field wasn’t enough in what ended up being his final collegiate game. 

“I think that’s what the coaches were saying,” Heidbreder said. “I’m going to probably have to score quite a bit if we want to win.”

It may be a compliment to how good of a player he is, but it is sad that it got to the point where the team knew if their number one option wasn’t on, they would have no chance to compete. 

The ‘Dogs will now be without their leading scorer and still on the search for a true closer. 

This season is an improvement as the team came back from a record-breaking low season and added a lot of young talent.

The Bulldogs’ seven conference wins this season surpassed their overall win total from last year.

But now, with the offseason officially underway and with all of the strings attached to recruiting, this program has a lot of decisions to make and not a lot of resources to do it. 

They have a young, explosive talent in DeShawn Gory that has proven to be able to play at a high level in year one. He is constantly getting to his spots and finding ways to get to the rim.  

The downside is that he sometimes doesn’t seem interested on the defensive end or on offense when things aren’t going well. Another year with Walberg and assistant coaches, like Tyler Johnson, can build Gory into a superstar in the Pac-12. 

But there is no guarantee that he will be a Bulldog come next season. 

Last season, freshman Elijah Price burst onto the scene, becoming one of the team’s most trusted players by the end of the year. Freshman Brian Amuneke led the team in 3-point percentage last season. 

Both of those players then entered the portal and had success with new schools this season.

The question that remains — where does the team go from here?

If there wasn’t money involved with college basketball now, I would say get healthy and continue to build on both the roster and coaching staff. 

Sadly, if Walberg isn’t bought out of his contract, he will likely be forced to coach another wildly different roster. 

The Red Wave has seen a true Walberg playstyle for only a handful of games. 

Constant pressure on the defensive end, mixed with constant rotations of players, was only available for a limited amount of time.

He coached the last two years with his hands tied behind his back and found a way to improve.

Walberg lost one of his best rebounders, Nathan Zulemie, before the season even started. He lost a great defender in Stickman and once again lost a solid third option in Douglas Jr. Collins’ late-season injury was the nail in the coffin. 

I find it hard to believe that a full roster with these players doesn’t make it out of the first round.

Of course, fans have the right to be disappointed. The team was super close to being a true middle-of-the-pack conference team if they could just close out some of these games. 

But it gets to a point when fans are just looking for perfection. The win total was doubled and the conference record was more than tripled.

I’m not pleading the case for Walberg to be rewarded with a huge contract by any means. I just think he should be able to play out the rest of his contract before anything major happens, similar to a “prove it deal” situation.

The bottom line is that Vance Walberg should be the head coach come next season.