SAME FEDORA-NEW CROWN?

[PointGuard]

Coach Aura

When I decided to take Donald Brown out of the starting lineup, I sat down with him to let him know what I was doing.
Donald played 2 years of JC ball and did very well. He transferred to us as a junior and started all but one game for us last season. He had some very good games last year and was overall a solid performer. He averaged 6.7 ppg and 5.1 rpg…and shot well, hitting 43% of FG’s, 47% of his 3’s and 81% of his FT’s. We were counting on him to have an even stronger season for us during his senior year.

This past summer, even though Donald wasn’t willing to go into any details, I understood he was having family problems. With fall practice about to begin, he was still extremely stressed but said he wanted to play ball. After discussing it with him, I told him to step away and focus on resolving the family issues. Reluctantly he left the team for a month and came back just a little while before we were to kick off our season. I was surprised at how difficult it was for him to work back into the team and play with confidence. Instead of shooting as well as he did last season, he was tentative and when he did shoot that translated into his missed shots and the more he missed, the worse things got.

During our meeting, I told him that my decision to replace him in the starting lineup with Richard Lawson wasn’t that I felt he couldn’t do the job. But it was to take the pressure off of him and let him reestablish his confidence. I was still going to play him about 20 minutes a game because I know he will be an asset for us. But to just come into games off the bench and play good defense, attack the boards, make good moves and handle the ball well…and let his offensive game redevelop at whatever rate it takes…we’d not be counting on him pouring in points, but being the solid performer he is elsewise.

[PointGuard]

Cal Poly Mustangs (5-6, 2-0) @ Hawaii Rainbow Warriors (0-12, 0-3)

Justin Traore, 2nd Assistant Coach (Player development/Practice)

Following some a series of really good seasons and post-season tournament participations, Hawaii’s fortunes have been on the downturn the past 5 years. And looking at Hawaii’s record (0 and 12) and their offensive output thus far (58.1 ppg and sinking just 38% of their FG’s) this season, you’d think this would be a walk-over for us. But they didn’t lose by much to Notre Dame and #19 ranked Wisconsin while playing on them on the road. We’ve been continually stressing to our team to not overlook Hawaii, especially since we’re taking them in Stan Sheriff Center in Honolulu and knowing how rabid the Rainbow Warrior fans are. And the team has to be super hungry to get a win.

With Donald Brown still not in sync after missing so many of our practices, we’re starting Richard Lawson again at SF. But we’ll likely split time at the 3 between the two of them. I’d sure like to see Brown break out of his season-long slump and get back to how well he produced for us last season.

We started rather slowly, but led by Don Seals, who scored 14 points in the half, we carved out a 39-33 lead at the break. We out-played Hawaii but they were hitting some 3’s and we weren’t, so that kept them in the game.

Hawaii scored the first 4 points in the 2nd half to get within 2 of us, but we came back quickly to open a 9 point lead and looked to be cruising. Hawaii continued to drop in 3’s (they hit 12 of 23 for the entire game) and overtook us midway through the half. Our bench was scoring OK but giving up far too many points. We kept it close but the Rainbow Warriors looked intent on sticking an upset on us. In the final 3 minutes our defense solidified and we came back to regain the lead and push to an 83-77 victory. We hit 58% of our shots from the field and needed that to get the win.

Our top scorers were: C Don Seals—20 points, 7 rebounds; PG Aki Mosley—13 points, 9 assists; SF Richard Lawson—13 points; PF Curtis Pearson—11 points, 6 rebounds; C Victor Collier—10 points. SF Donald Brown again was absent offensively (just 2 points) but did pull down 5 boards and generally played well.

We’re tied with UC Davis for 1st place but there are 3 teams just a game behind us in the standings.

Coach Aura and I are pretty much aligned on our game tendencies, but one area where we differ is on usage of the bench. While I think our subs are pretty strong, I think we’d do better by playing our starters (PG Mosley, SG Alexander, SF Lawson, PF Pearson, and C Seals) more. Coach Aura likes to use a deep bench, reasoning that having fresh legs on the court offsets the talent differences and wanting to get our younger players more experience. But I think this game showed how our reserves can be outplayed when they are in against our opponents’ starters. Coach Aura is the boss, though. All I can do is to encourage keeping our starting 5 on the court more…and working in 1 or 2 subs at a time to play together with 3 or 4 starters rather than mass substitution where most or all our players on the court at one time are subs. As an assistant coach at Little Rock in Arkansas, we HAD to do that since our subs were distinctly less talented than our starters…but we had pretty good success by giving our starters a lot of minutes.

[PointGuard]

UC San Diego Tritons (9-3, 2-1) @ Cal Poly Mustangs (6-6, 3-0)

Trent Pollock, HS senior at Arroyo Grande High School

I’m a junior at Arroyo Grande and a starter on our high school team. Coach Belton, my HS coach, tries to get our team to a couple of Cal Poly’s home games to help us develop our game. I like it. Some of the guys on our team spend the time looking at their phones rather than closely watching the game, though.

The Tritons are doing well this season, so this should be a good game. Four of their starters are averaging between 11 and 13 ppg and their interior players have a height advantage over the Mustangs’ big men. UC San Diego has a good defense, giving up just 65 ppg and on offense they hit a high percentage of their shots (49%). Last season they were the champs of the CBI Tournament.

5 of the Mustangs’ first 6 shots are 3-point attempts, but only one goes in and they trail 7-3 at the first media time out. Seals picks up 2 fouls in the first 5 minutes. Bummer, I like watching him. The Mustangs are using a full court press a lot…maybe they want to tire out the Tritons. The Mustangs take a 10-9 lead with 11 minutes left in the half. The Mustangs aren’t shooting well, but there’s some good ball movement out there. La Touche drives into the key and finds and shoots a pinpoint pass out to Lawson, who is free and who nails a 3 making it 26-16 in favor of Cal Poly with just under 4 minutes to go in the half. That’s Lawson’s second 3-pointer. The refs are working the Mustangs over, but the Tritons are missing half of their free throws. The half ends with Cal Poly on top 35-30.

The refs continue to overwork their whistles in the 2nd half. Mosley puts the ball on the floor, great fake and dribble to beat his defender and drive down the lane, kicks it over to LaLane who goes to the rim…and blows it! On the Mustangs next possession, Mosley makes a good pass over to Brown who drains the triple to make it 53-41 with 13 minutes to go. Cal Poly’s defense is causing the Tritons to make a lot of turnovers. The Mustangs are starting to pull away. With 5-1/2 minutes they lead by 17 points. They’ve got to the line about 2/3 as many times as the Tritons but have hit 19 of 20 of their free throws. Cal Poly wins big…84-64…to remain undefeated in conference play.

SF Richard Lawson topped all scorers with 15 points, PF Curtis Pearson and PG Aki Mosley both scored 11, and C Don Seals played just 15 minutes but scored 10.

[PointGuard]

Coach Aura (Followup on situation with SF Donald Brown)

It's now been 5 games since that previous conference with him. In our game against UC San Diego earlier this week Donald came in off the bench to play 20 minutes, hit 3 of 4 of his FG’s and knocked down his only 3-point attempts, scoring 7 points, pulling down 6 boards, dishing out 2 assists, and getting a steal. In the 5 games since he left the starting lineup, he’s hit 50% of his FG’s. That’s a positive sign. And Richard Lawson has performed very well in the starting role. Lawson’s scored 46 points and Brown has put in 23 points in those 5 games. We’ve also got sophomore Ed Tenys into 4 of those games, playing a total of 11 minutes and scoring 4 points. So that’s an average production between the three of them of 14.6 ppg from the SF position during those 5 games. I’ll take it!

[PointGuard]

UC Santa Barbara Gauchos (5-9, 2-2) @ Cal Poly Mustangs (7-6, 4-0)

Rob Benchley, Athletic Director

Good defense by our team and good scoring by our starting guards developed an 18-5 lead with 10-1/2 minutes remaining in the first half. But the next 5 minutes were torture as we simply played lousy and the Gauchos closed to within 2 points of us. We got back on track at that point, though, and finished the half with a 33-24 lead. PG Aki Mosley scored 12 points in the half.

We got off to another good start in the 2nd half and were up 52-31 with 13:11 to go. UC Santa Barbara then cut the lead to 13 before we went on a run that continued all the way to the end of the game. We crushed the Gauchos 81-52.

We outshot UC Santa Barbara 59% to 32%. PG Aki Mosley poured in 22 points plus had 5 assists. SG Terrell Alexander had 11 points, 7 rebounds, and 3 assists. C Victor Collier scored 10 points and had 4 rebounds and 3 assists.

After a slow start this season by our guards, all 4 are now playing well on both ends of the court. And we’re continuing to get excellent play by our interior players.

[PointGuard]

Cal Poly Mustangs (8-6, 5-0) @ Cal State Fullerton Titans (6-7, 2-2)

Rashon Richardson, 3rd Assistant Coach

We turned early turnovers by the Titans into points and led 13-4 after 4 minutes of play. The Titans came back to take a 28-27 lead with just over 4 minutes remaining in the half. The half ended with us on the short end of a 39-36 score.

We didn’t do anything right for the first 5 minutes of the 2nd half and were lucky to be behind by just 9 points at that point. We made a few runs to cut into their lead but turnovers doomed our efforts. We lost 69-65.

We made 21 turnovers. We also got to the free throw line 9 less times and scored 8 less points on foul shots.

Only two of our players did much scoring: C Don Seals with 18 points and SG Terrell Alexander with 14.

[PointGuard]

Bryan King, 1st Assistant Coach

Richard Lawson has finally become a starter, but his attitude leaves a lot to be desired. He’s been complaining that he should be starting at PF rather than SF and is also unhappy that he’s only playing a little over 20 minutes a game. But he tires quickly, so he should realize that Coach Aura is doing him a favor by giving him breathers so that when he’s on the court, his performance can remain strong. His shooting at mid-range is so-so, but inside and beyond the arc, he’s one of our best shooters. He’s not really strong on the boards, so he’s better suited to playing the 3 than the 4 (plus we have 4 strong interior players, so he’d be playing even fewer minutes if we had him at PF).

Coach Aura had to counsel him and Richard took it well. But the guy is a head case, so I’d not be surprised if he continues to make waves. He’s a senior so we’ll just need to nurse him through the last couple months of the season and keep him from infecting other players. Thus far his animus is mainly directed at us coaches rather than his teammates, so that’s good. But I’m sure there are players who are getting tired of his whining. I sure am.

[PointGuard]

Cal Poly Mustangs (8-7, 5-1) @ Long Beach State 49ers (4-10, 2-3)

Mustang News

MUSTANGS AND 49ERS IN NAIL-BITER

The Mustangs and 49ers bludgeoned each other throughout the first half. Neither team could get ahead by much but Long Beach State came away with a 39-36 advantage at halftime.

The 2nd half was nearly a replay as the teams continually swapped the lead. With 5 minutes to go though, the Mustangs took a 6 point lead, their longest lead of the game for either team, and looked to be gaining control. But that was short-lived as the 49ers stormed back to regain the lead.

Cal Poly again tied the game with 2 minutes remaining and then went ahead 76-75 thirty seconds later. Neither team was able to put the ball into the hoop and Long Beach State was forced to foul. With 25 seconds on the clock Aki Mosley hit the first and missed the 2nd shot of a 1-and-1, but Don Seals grabbed the rebound and was fouled. Seals was immediately fouled and went to the line for another 1-and-1. Seals sank both shots to make it 79-75 with 23 seconds to go. The 49ers rushed to try to get a shot off but they were called for travelling. Mosley was fouled on the inbounds pass but missed the front end of a 1-and-1 and the 49ers rebounded. Following a time out, they sank a 3. But Long Beach State couldn’t gain a steal and time expired to give Cal Poly a very hard-earned 79-78 victory after 21 lead changes and 10 ties.

Team stats were as close as the final score. Cal Poly was led by C Don Seal’s 22 points with Richard Lawson, dropping in all 4 of his 3-point attempts, scoring 14 and Aki Mosley adding 10. Top scorer in the game was Long Beach State’PG Donnell Murray with 27 points.

After the game Coach Fred Aura said, “Long Beach State gave us a real run for our money. The game was in doubt the entire way. It was nerve-wracking, but I think both teams gave the fans a great show and a lot of thrills.”

Elsewhere in Big West play, Hawaii finally won their first game of the season, defeating Cal State Northridge, 63-54. Hawaii is now 1-16 and Cal State Northridge is 3-12 this season.

[PointGuard]

UC Irvine Anteaters (7-10, 5-3) @ Cal Poly Mustangs (9-7, 6-1)

Tom Poole, Cal Poly alum

Hey, I’m back to let you know about one of the Mustangs’ games. As I’ve told you before, I graduated from Cal Poly a little over 50 years ago and had a successful engineering career. Retirement has allowed me to get to most of the Mustangs’ games.

UC Irvine’s season record is unimpressive, but they’re a talented team and tough most every season. So the Mustangs are going to have to play a strong game to come away with a victory even if this game is on our court.

I’m pleased that our guards really picked up their game once conference play began. All four are now hitting a pretty good percentage of their shots. The strength of our team still comes from our interior players, though.

As I’ve seen him do a number of times, C Don Seals drilled a 3 to open the scoring. On the next possession he was fouled and put in both free throws making it 5-0 after just over a minute of play. I’m really going to miss him after he graduates. During the first media timeout, I noticed that Coach Aura was intently talking to SF Donald Brown, whom I understand has been having a tough time getting untracked this season. Brown didn’t respond to the motivation with any noticeable positive play, though. 5 minutes before the end of the half UCI took their first lead of the game at 22-20. Cal Poly’s offense has been in hibernation that past 10 minutes. After falling behind by 7 points, the Mustangs hit a couple late buckets to close to within 2 at the break, 33-31.

Damn, if Seals didn’t sink another 3 to begin the 2nd half and get Cal Poly back on top. The Anteaters came right back to go up by 7 again, but the Mustangs stormed back to go ahead 51-45 with 12-1/2 minutes to play. Three minutes later, Seals took a pass inside and kicked it out quickly to Edouard La Touche, who put it on the floor and drove the lane to put in a sweet underhand layup giving Cal Poly a 10 point lead. The Mustangs then extended their advantage and came away with a solid 76-60 triumph over the Anteaters. Cal Poly’s powerful offensive over the last 15 minutes of the game raised their FG shooting to 50% for the entire game, but a 35-26 advantage on the boards was even more responsible for their conquest.

SG/PG Bryan Taylor came off the bench to pop in 15 points plus grab 4 rebounds, dish out 5 assists, and get 2 steals. C Don Seals had 12 points, 5 boards, and 5 assists. SF Richard Lawson and PG Aki Mosley scored 11 and 10 points, respectively.

UC Davis remained unbeaten in the Big West and thus a half-game ahead of the Mustangs.

[PointGuard]

Cal Poly Mustangs (10-7, 7-1) @ UC San Diego Tritons (12-5, 5-3)

Rashon Richardson, 3rd Assistant Coach (scouting)

The Tritons are unbeaten on their home court this season. They’ve been strong defensively with a tight man-to-man that’s forced opponents to take bad shots. And they regularly come up with more than their share of steals. On offense, they have 3 players (C Orlando Marshall, SG Denny McCoy, and SF Tony Hutson) who are averaging in double figures, each hitting a high percentage of their FG’s. Last season UC San Diego won 24 games and were champions of the CBI Tournament. They’ve been picked to finish above us in the Big West standings this year. We need to speed up the tempo of the game which could throw off the Tritons, who prefer a slower pace. The Tritons have no real holes in their lineup, although our bench is a bit better than theirs. So we’re going with a pressure defense in hopes we can tire out their starters
The Tritons burn us by hitting their first 5 three-pointers to go ahead 18-11. We struggled to catch up and finally with 7-1/2 minutes remaining in the first half, when Aki Mosley worked the ball inside to Don Seals who got by his defender with a nice crossover dribble and got to the rim and scored to put us ahead 22-21. But UC San Diego struck right back and went up by 7 before we reeled them back in at the end of the half to trail by a single point 38-37 at the break. The Tritons hit 9 of 15 from beyond the arc in the first half with SF Tony Hutson clipping us for 15 points. Don Seals led us with 17 points.

UC San Diego came out in the 2nd half and scored the first 6 points. We fought back to go up 48-46 when Aki Mosley knocked down a long 3 with 15 minutes left in the game. Terrell Alexander followed up with another 3 on our next possession to put us ahead by 5. Coach Aura was working players in and out of the game to keep fresher legs on the court than the Tritons. UC San Diego came back with some 3’s to go ahead 60-57 with 9-1/2 minutes remaining. Don Seals got us the lead back at 64-62 with 8 minutes to go, but was injured on the play and had to leave the game. That was a big blow. Curtis Pearson and Brian Taylor knocked down back-to-back 3’s to put us on top 74-65. With both teams scoring regularly, the Tritons were forced to foul repeatedly at the end of the game. We converted most of our free throws to come away with a well-earned 90-77 road victory.

A major factor for our winning was that we controlled the boards, 39-28. C Don Seals scored 24 points and pulled down 5 rebounds before he was injured. SG Terrell Alexander scored 13, PG Aki Mosley hit for 12 points plus had 7 assists, and PF Dominick LaLane had 11 points and 6 boards. SF Don Brown came in off the bench to score 8 points and grab 7 rebounds and while he was on the court, our team was a +29 points…a welcome infusion for us from Don.

This was a well-played game by both teams. But as I said, our bench was better than theirs. In this game our reserves scored 33 points and pulled down 22 rebounds compared to 15 points and 4 rebounds by the UC San Diego bench.

So what was the injury to Don Seals? It was later diagnosed as a badly bruised bicep and it’s likely to take almost 2 weeks for him to be back to 100%. We have 4 tough games, including games against UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara, during those 2 weeks.

So that was the bad news. But there also was good news. It turns out the Long Beach State did us a big favor. They travelled to Davis and overtook UC Davis in the final 2 minutes to post an 84-78 loss on the Aggies. So our win and the Aggies’ loss catapulted us into a half-game lead for 1st place in the Big West.