FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 The Fresno State men’s basketball program enters Year 3 of the Vance Walberg era – and for the third straight year, the roster underwent an overhaul.<\/p>\n
Leading scorer Jake Heidbreder graduated, leading rebounder Wilson Jacques transferred to DePaul, talented freshman DeShawn Gory departed for Oregon State, and 3-point specialist David Douglas Jr. transferred to Northern Illinois.<\/p>\n
On the Bulldogs’ current roster, just two players remain from last season – Nathan Zulemie and DJ Stickman, both out with long-term injuries. <\/p>\n
The roster is yet to be finalized, but there are five international additions. Head coach Vance Walberg said 6-foot-6 Romanian guard Dragos Lungu and Spanish point guard Roger Fabrega Urpina will be major contributors in 2026-27.<\/p>\n
But Walberg saved some of his highest praise for BYU transfer point guard KJ Perry, the top junior college recruit in the country who redshirted his lone season as a Cougar.<\/p>\n
“KJ is a heck of an athlete,” said Walberg. “He’s going to do things that make you go ‘Wow.'”<\/p>\n
Lipscomb transfer Ross Candelino – one of two seniors on the team – was recruited to fill Heidbreder’s role as a sharpshooter and team leader. He led Lipscomb with a 42.6% mark from 3-point range (66-of-155).<\/p>\n
“It’s nice when you have a leader who’s a pretty good basketball player, one of your main guys too,” said Walberg.<\/p>\n
There is one familiar face returning to the Bulldogs this season – junior guard Brian Amuneke transferred back from Wichita State after ranking 5th in the Mountain West in 3-point percentage (40.7%) as a freshman.<\/p>\n
“I like the team chemistry right now,” said Walberg, who turned 70 in July. “I think the ball moves a lot better this year than it did last year for us, and we’ve been working on that the whole time.”<\/p>\n
Fresno State improved by seven wins in Walberg’s second season at the helm, but the Bulldogs lost eight of their last 10 games to finish with a 13-19 record.<\/p>\n
Conference play will only be tougher for the ‘Dogs; they are joining the PAC-12, which grabbed the most competitive teams from the Mountain West and added Gonzaga, Washington State, and Oregon State.<\/p>\n
A new season begins on November 2nd against Fresno Pacific at the Save Mart Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) \u2014 The Fresno State men’s basketball program enters Year 3 of the Vance Walberg era…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-486534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}