'Dogs drop second straight

Staff Report / The Collegian

Another hot-shooting opponent meant a second straight road loss for the Fresno State men’s basketball team on Saturday night.

This time the loss came to a Boise State team in a five-game losing slump and in last place in the Western Athletic Conference before the game.

But Boise State’s 82-68 win over the Bulldogs changed all that, knocking Fresno State from a third-place tie into fifth place and boosting the Broncos (10-14, 4-9 WAC) into eighth.

Boise State shot 55 percent from the field just two days after Texas-El Paso shot almost 57 percent against the Bulldogs. The Broncos were led by Jermaine Blackburn, who had a career-high 26 points on 10-of-17 shooting. Coby Karl added 15 points and eight assists.

Fresno State (13-9, 7-6) was led by Ja’Vance Coleman’s 21 points on 5-of-20 shooting, including 2 of 14 from 3-point range. Chris Berry added 14 for the Bulldogs, his fourth straight game scoring in double figures. Mustafa Al-Sayyad had a game-high nine rebounds.

Though the Bulldogs lost, the highlight of the day was an alley-oop dunk by Coleman off a Kevin Bell pass that was No. 1 on ESPN SportsCenter’s top 10 plays Saturday night.

Boise State had a nine-point halftime lead, but the Bulldogs fought back to within four, at 69-65, with four minutes and 43 seconds to go. But the Broncos outscored the Bulldogs 13-3 the rest of the way.

Fresno State shot 39.7 percent in the game.

The Bulldogs return to the Save Mart Center for four straight home games, with Tulsa visiting on Wednesday at 7 p.m. and Buffalo coming in for Saturday’s Bracket Buster game at 4 p.m.