WAC player of the year Melvin Ely is in control for Fresno in its first-round victory.(AP)

"Fresno is a very special place for me. It's my alma mater and my wife's alma mater. It's where my daughter was born and where I started my coaching career at a Catholic high school," said the 70-year-old Tarkanian, who started coaching at Fresno State in 1995-96, three seasons after he left UNLV.

"I thought we could do this before now but it's taken us a little longer. But I'm happy we got in the tournament and happy we got a win and let's see what happens from here. There's a lot of upsets. Who knows? Maybe St. Jude will come in and help us because we need it."

The victory, the 759th of Tarkanian's career, set up a second-round matchup with top-seeded Michigan State on Sunday. The defending national champions beat Alabama State 69-35.

"What a great reward," Tarkanian said. "They're all bodybuilders. That's the problem of being an eight or a nine seed, win and you play number one."

It was the second NCAA win ever for Fresno State (26-6). The Bulldogs lost in the first round last year, ending Tarkanian's perfect opening-round run. He won four first-round games at Long Beach State and 12 at UNLV, including the championship season of 1990. His last NCAA win before Friday night was in the regional final in 1991, before the Runnin' Rebels lost to Duke in the Final Four.

Demetrius Porter scored a career-high 27 points for the Bulldogs and helped stem three second-half comebacks by California (20-11).

Porter, a senior guard whose previous best was 26 points against Rice as a junior, hit a 3-pointer to start an 8-0 run when the Bears closed within 46-43 with 13:54 to play. He ended the run with a nice high-arching shot on a long drive.

Cal, which was making its first tournament appearance since 1997, closed within 56-51 but Porter hit the last of his five 3-pointers with 7:34 left to give Fresno State a 61-51 lead. He finished 5-for-10 from 3-point range.

The last run by the Bears had them within six at 68-62 with 3:38 to play when Porter made two free throws to start Fresno State's closing run of 14-8 with all the points coming from the free-throw line.

"I was just trying to get us a win," said Porter, who averages 15.1 points. "I wasn't thinking about points. The only thing that matters to me is how the team does."

Melvin Ely, the Western Athletic Conference player of the year, added 21 points and 13 rebounds for Fresno State, while Chris Jeffries had 15 points.

Shantay Legans had 15 points to lead the Bears, while Pac-10 player of the year Sean Lampley had 13, six below his average. He had just four points in the first half on 2-for-8 shooting and was 6-for-18 for the game, well off his season mark of 51 percent.

"This is not how I wanted my career to end," Lampley said. "I did not put my best effort out and that cost us this game. With me being the leader of this team and these guys looking up to me, and I didn't come to play. I'm not taking anything away from Fresno State but if I played better we could have won this game."

Tarkanian was impressed with his team's effort against Lampley.

"The job our guys did on Lampley was incredible," he said.

California coach Ben Braun agreed.

"They did a great job of maintaining the pressure and we didn't get into our offense and that limited the times Sean touched the ball," he said. "He wound up catching it a lot of times out of the scoring area and they did a tremendous job of helping when he did get there."

California lost four of its last five games.