SAME FEDORA-NEW CROWN?

[PointGuard]

UC Santa Barbara Gauchos (4-6, 1-0) @ Cal Poly Mustangs (10-1, 0-0)

Omari Aura (Indiana Pacers SF)

I sprained my wrist so have a couple weeks to recover before I can play again for the Pacers. This has been a tough season for me…this is my second injury that has sidelined me. I came back a too quickly from the last one. I got into games, but my play suffered. That’s resulted in reduced playing time which has been a real bummer.

Since I can’t do much with the team right now, I decided to visit my folks and take in my dad’s first conference game tonight. My pro career hasn’t gone all that well, so while I’m here I plan to discuss things with my parents…whether to stick it out or try something else…like maybe coaching or getting a job in business. Either of those ways the pay will be less, but I really am getting frustrated with how my time in the NBA has gone. Money isn’t an issue anyway, since I’ve been able to invest most of my salary.

UC Santa Barbara played a pretty comparable pre-conference schedule to the Mustangs but played two tough opponents. They took on Alabama and Michigan on the road and lost by just 2 points to each of those teams. So they could give Cal Poly a real run for their money. Four of their starters are averaging in double figures. Their team offense hasn’t been potent but their defense has been strong.

Ugly start by the Mustangs…not looking good at all. And it takes them nearly 4 minutes to score. Fortunately the Gauchos have only scored 2 points during that time. Tough break, SG Nikolo Ivelitsch picks up 2 quick fouls. Dad gets on the refs but they called both fouls on Ivelitsch correctly. SG Bryan Taylor nails a 3 with 12-1/2 minutes to play to give Cal Poly a 12-10 lead. Gauchos making a boatload of turnovers and Cal Poly taking advantage to go up 19-11 with 9 minutes left in the half. It’s taken a while, but the Mustangs have figured out the Gauchos’ 1-3-1 zone. UCSB’s PG Grant Self has scored 11 of the Gauchos first 13 points. The Gaucho’s coach riding his starters…and my Dad is using a deep bench as usual for him…so far advantage to my Dad. 29-20 with 3 minutes til halftime. Mustangs are being out-rebounded and missing their foul shots…my Dad’s not going to like either of those things and likely will be on the guys at halftime. Cal Poly leads 31-20 at the break and 10 of their guys have scored. Good D by the Mustangs…UCSB hit just 28% of their shots and made 10 turnovers.

So much for the D…UCSB hitting their shots and Cal Poly’s lead down to 48-45 with 10 minutes remaining. Mustangs have a lot of difficulty getting the ball in the hoop. Effective D has been re-established. Damn, the Mustangs steal the ball with 3 minutes to go and get a great outlet pass for a driving layup, but they’re called for a charging foul…I don’t agree with the ref on that one. PG Danny Preston hits a big 3 with 2 minutes left that puts the Mustangs ahead by 9. Cal Poly takes it…68-56! Biggest difference in the game was a 21-8 advantage for the Mustangs on turnovers. I doubt my Dad will be very happy with how his guys played though. But a win is a win.

C Dekker Chambers scored 13 points and picked off 7 rebounds. PG Edouard La Touche put in 11 points. SF Trey Small had a strong game with 9 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 steals and a block. PG Danny Preston scored just 7 points but had 3 rebounds, 4 assists, and 4 steals. Preston and Small impressed me the most. UC Santa Barbara’s PG Greg Self scored 20 points and he had 4 rebounds and 7 assists.

[PointGuard]

Cal State Fullerton Titans (3-8, 0-2) @ Cal Poly Mustangs (11-1, 1-0)

Rob Benchley, Athletic Director

Coach Aura came down with a bug and sat this game out, not wanting to infect anyone else. He put the team in the hands of his assistants.

We won the game 67-53. While that sounds like a good win, it wasn’t pretty. We hit just 37% of our FG’s and 20% of our 3’s. Three of the Titans’ starters were in serious foul trouble much of the game and their leading scorer, SG Shaheen Clark fouled out after playing just 13 minutes and scoring 2 points. Cal State Fullerton shot just about as poorly as did we. We were able to control the boards 36-28. We trailed for the first 5 minutes, but then pulled ahead and by the end of the first have had a 35-23 advantage. We maintained lead between 6 and 14 points throughout the 2nd half. Throughout the entire game we were greatly aided by getting to the foul line 33 times where we scored 26 points.

SF Trey Small had 16 points and 7 rebounds to lead the team. PG Danny Preston finished with 11 points, 2 boards, 6 assists, 3 steals and a block and SG Nikolo Ivelitsch had 10 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists, 3 steals and a block.

At the end of the first week of conference play, we’re tied with Cal State Northridge and Long Beach State for 1st place, but Coach Aura is concerned about the team. When we ran off the 9 straight victories to begin the season, our guys were hitting a very high percentage of their shots from all over the floor. Even though we’ve won 3 of our last 4 games since then, the team has shot poorly in each of those. With their next 2 games this coming week being on the road, some way they need to get free for clearer shots and get their shooting eyes back if they want to continue winning.

[PointGuard]

Cal Poly Mustangs (12-1, 2-0) @ UC San Diego Tritons (3-9, 0-3)

PG Danny Preston

Coach Fed returned to the team, shut down practice for a day, and took us all out to the beach to clear away the poor way we’ve been executing recently. We played beach volleyball and body surfed then had a BBQ right there on the beach.

I’d like to say we shot the lights out because of what Coach Fed did by taking us all to the beach. Well, we didn’t. But it was more because both teams were playing rock solid D. The first half was extremely close the entire 20 minutes and ended with us barely on top, 32-30. We held onto a very small lead for the first 10 minutes of the 2nd half. Foul trouble that began in the first half continued to hamper us. Three of our players (SF Trey Small, PF Darcel Aygar, and PG Edouard La Touche) ended up fouling out and 2 others (C Dekker Chambers and SF Ed Tenys) were on the ropes with 4 fouls each. But right after the midpoint of the 2nd half, we totally shut down the Tritons for the next 5 minutes and shot out to a 17 point lead and then hung on to knock off UC San Diego 68-59.

The one area of the game we trounced the Tritons on was control of the glass where we ended up +10 with both Vincent Collins and Dekker Chambers pulling down 11 boards apiece. SG Nikolo Ivelitsch poured in 21 points. I hit for 15 points and SF Trey Small scored 10 in the 22 minutes he played before fouling out.

[Wayne23]

I consider rebounding and lack of turnovers to be the most vital elements for success. Good job on the boards!

[PointGuard]

Cal Poly Mustangs (13-1, 3-0) @ Cal State Northridge Matadors (6-6, 3-0)

C Justin Clausen

This game pitted the two teams tied for 1st place in the conference. Coach Fed had us all sit down in the locker room before the game and spend a few minutes visualizing every shot we took from various points on the court swishing through the net. Then he told us go to out, run out sets flawlessly and work our hardest to find the open man and get free for those swishes we just visualized.

The Matadors have a 5-game win streak that includes 2 OT victories and 1 3-point win and a 4-point win. We intend to break their streak. SG Mike Forrest, who transferred from Lafayette this last summer, is averaging 23.7 ppg so we need to keep him from breaking out.

Horrible start…we fall behind 15-4 after 6 minutes of play. A 9-0 run in the middle of the 1st half got us back into the game. The refs gave the Matadors a reprieve, sending them repeatedly to the foul line and us not at all. That plus some poor shooting by us put us in a 34-20 hole with 2-1/2 minutes left in the half. Our shooting got hot and we went on a 13-0 run and the half ended with Cal State Northridge hanging onto a slim 35-33 lead…and only because they scored 8 more points on free throws. Nikolo (Ivelitsch) popped in 14 points in the half.

Within the first minute of the 2nd half, Danny (Preston) had to leave the game with an injury. With just under 16 minutes left in the game, Bryan (Taylor) knocked down a 3 to put us ahead 40-37. The Matadors reclaimed the lead and held on tenaciously even though we kept nipping at their heels. We finally tied the game at 66-66 when Rodney (Boykin) dropped in 2 foul shots with 3:52 on the clock. But Cal State Northridge hit their shots while we were unable to hit ours. We fell by a final score of 76-69.

Our top scorers were SG Nikolo Ivelitsch with 17 points (and he also had 7 rebounds), PF Rodney Boykin who scored 13 points, and SF Ed Tenys with 11 points. The Matadors SG Mike Forrest had 20 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal and 2 blocks. While I was very disappointed that we lost this game, I was happy that Rodney and Ed, two fellow reserves, had solid games. They work hard in practice every week.

We hit 37% of our 3’s which was pretty good but only knocked down 38% of all our FGA’s. So visioning didn’t work to fix our poor shooting.

[PointGuard]

Long Beach State 49ers (9-6, 4-1) @ Cal Poly Mustangs (13-2, 3-1)

Coach Fred Aura

I’ve tried to rectify our shooting woes a number of different ways, but none have worked. Maybe I just need to let it go and see if the guys can work it out on their own. With UC Davis and Long Beach State ahead of us in the standings, we need to win this home game. If you look at this on paper, we should kick Long Beach State’s ass. But…the 49ers have been playing pretty well this entire season and picked it up a notch once conference play began. I’m not going to do anything special for this game and see if my guys can turn around their recent downturn on their own and get back to playing top-flight basketball. Long Beach State is one of the oldest and largest California state colleges, so they typically have a big fan base even at away games so there’ll be a lot of cheering for both teams tonight.

As was relayed to y’all in our previous game report, starting PG Danny Preston sustained an injury. Subsequent Xrays have shown that he has a broken wrist which will put him on the sidelines for about 7 weeks. Preston’s been a key part of our team. We’ll be using Bryan Taylor, Edouard La Touche and Tim Lepore at PG to take his place. Taylor’s been the best scorer of the 3, La Touche the best playmaker, and Lepore’s developing and has some flashes of excellence.

SF Trey Small got tagged for 2 personal fouls in the first 30 seconds of this game. That got me into the face of the refs, but I avoided getting a technical. C Dekker Chambers picked up his 2nd foul 5 minutes into the game. PF Vincent Collier was assessed his 2nd foul a minute later…making it 3 starters sitting on our bench and put the 49ers into the bonus with 13:50 on the clock. Long Beach State took advantage of that and our inability to put the ball in the hoop to take a 12-0 lead. We finally began hitting some shots but the 49ers were still out-scoring us and led 25-10 before we scored 9 unanswered points. In the final 77 seconds of the half, deep sub SF Benjamin Smith hit a 3 and then 2 free throws to tie the game at 29-29. A nice late comeback given that most of our starters were sitting out the half.

On the first possession of the 2nd half, SF Trey Small dropped in a pair of free throws to give us our first lead of the game at 31-29. We never drew away from Long Beach State in the first 12 minutes of the 2nd half, but our defense was in control and prevented them from regaining the lead. Then in the final 8 minutes we steadily drew away from the 49ers to post a 67-51 victory.

SG Nikolo Ivelitsch with 13 points was our only player to score in double figures. These past few games are solidifying in my mind that I can rely on more than Darcel Aygar and Bryan Taylor to come in off the bench and produce. We’re now getting solid minutes from PG Edouard La Touche, SF Ed Tenys, PF Rodney Boykin, C Justin Clausen, SF Robert Smith, and PG Tim Lepore as well. So that depth bodes well for us even though we’ve lost Danny Preston for the remainder of the regular season and handling games like tonght’s where our players get into early foul trouble.

The win moved us into sole possession of 2nd place, a half-game behind UC Davis but just a half-game ahead of 3 teams and one game ahead of two others. So the conference looks like it’ll be a dog-fight to the very end of the season.

[PointGuard]

Cal State Bakersfield Roadrunners (2-13, 0-6) @ Cal Poly Mustangs (14-2, 4-1)

Carlos and Maria Martinez, local residents

We moved to San Luis Obispo a couple months ago. Carlos played basketball in high school but hasn’t since. Maria played volleyball in high school and college. Carlos works for a tech company here and Maria is a CPA. This was our first chance to get to a Cal Poly basketball game but we hope to get to as many as we can in the future.

The Roadrunners can score (72.7 ppg) but don’t even know how to spell defense (80.8 ppg). They have 3 players averaging in double figures: SG Larry Fields (15.9 ppg), C David Barrett (13.9 ppg), and SF Lane Lewis (12.6 ppg).

The Roadrunners controlled the tip off and knocked down a 3. With the Mustangs having a really difficult time of getting the ball in the hoop, it took them 7-1/2 minutes to get a lead. There were then 6 lead changes with both teams shooting poorly. Finally with 5 minutes remaining in the half, Cal Poly’s offense finally got cooking enabling them to surge to a 37-29 halftime advantage.

Good shooting by the Mustangs continued into and throughout the entire 2nd half. Cal Poly rapidly opened a big lead and slammed the Roadrunners by a final score of 84-61. After starting the game by hitting under 30% of their shots, Cal Poly improved their overall shooting from the field to 51% for the entire game and 44% on 3PA’s. The Mustangs were also +15 on the boards. All 12 Cal Poly’s players scored and 11 got at least 1 rebound.

SF Trey Small shot very well and scored 21 points plus pulled down 8 rebounds. SG Nikolos Ivelitsch had 18 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, 5 steals and a block. PF Victor Collier scored 11, grabbed 10 boards, and had 3 assists.

This was a fun experience and we hope to bring some friends to future games.

Bryan King, 1st Assistant Coach

With 6 minutes to go we had to send Trey Small to the locker room. He was experiencing severe pain in his shoulder. Our athletic trainer indicated the soreness was due to Trey taking a sharp blow under the basket and expects the soreness to last about 5 days.

[PointGuard]

Cal Poly Mustangs (15-2, 5-1) @ UC Riverside Highlanders (5-10, 3-3)

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

Our win against Cal State Bakersfield coupled with a loss by UC Davis moved us back to the top of the Big West standings. But if was to stay there, we have to keep winning because two teams are just ½ game behind us and two more are but 1 game back.

We kept Trey Small out of practice for 3 days but he was recovering from his sore shoulder quickly and then got back to practicing with the team. He’s not experiencing any pain now and is back to 100%. So we come into the game at full-strengtThe Highlanders’ 3 conference losses have all be on the road and were by 2, 4, and 5 points. They’ve won all 3 conference home games thus far this season, including an 81-50 thrashing of a strong UC Santa Barbara team. Our focus is to play solid D and get control of the boards. We’re starting Bryan Taylor at PG tonight instead of Edouard La Touche. I’d sure like to see Victor Collier have a break out game tonight. He’s been strong on the boards but I know he can score better than he has thus far this season.

Good early defense with the Highlanders going 0 for 4 and making a turnover and we’re up 6-0. But then we let them score on their next 3 straight possessions and we fall behind by 2. Then we got sloppy and fell behind 17-10 with 11 minutes to go…mainly because we’ve made 7 turnovers. Yet another night with shooting woes. We hit just 33% of our shots in the first half and make 11 turnovers. We trail 30-22 at the break. I’d give our defense a B, our offense a D, our rebounding a B+, and out ball control an F.

Turnovers on 3 of our first 4 possessions in the 2nd half and we’re down by 18 points. With 15 minutes to go, Coach Fed benches Nikolo Ivelitsch who’s gone 1 for 10 from the field. Tim Lepore replaces him and immediately sinks a 3. Our play doesn’t improve and we get blown out 85-55. Just a horrible game by our team. I think we’re missing Danny Preston more than we thought we would. He’s recovering from his broken wrist but won’t be back until the end of this season.

C Dekker Chambers scored 14 and had 7 rebounds and SF Trey Small had 12 points and 7 boards.

The loss moved us into a virtual 5-way tie for 1st place.

[PointGuard]

Cal Poly Mustangs (15-3, 5-2) @ Hawaii Rainbow Warriors (4-12, 2-5)

C Justin Clausen

Man, I hope we win this game. Coach Fed read us the riot act after our fiasco against UC Riverside. Another dressing down will be tough to take.

We missed 10 of our first 11 shots and fell behind 9-4. I got into the game with about 10 minutes remaining in the first half and hit a 8 foot baseline jumper to give us our first lead at 12-11. Our defense fell apart in the final 3 minutes of the half and Hawaii raced to a 39-31 halftime lead. I hit all 3 of my shots to score 6 points in the 9 minutes I played.

Hawaii scored the first 7 points of the 2nd half to put us down by 15 points. Again I got into the game midway through the half and hit a quick bucket…but that just got us within 13 points of the Rainbow Warriors. We got to within 9 points with 7 minutes to go but then just couldn’t make our shots. We connected on just 33% of our shots and fell hard by a final score of 74-59.

C Derrick Chambers had 9 points and 9 boards and SG Nikolos Ivelitsch and I both scored 8 points.

Our 2nd straight loss dropped us into a tie for 4th place but just a half game out of first place.

[PointGuard]

UC Davis Aggies (12-6, 6-3) @ Cal Poly Mustangs (15-4, 5-3)

Rob Benchley, Athletic Director

It’s time…no it’s past time…for us to get back on track, start hitting our shots, and put other teams on their heals. And no better time than to take down one fo the team just ahead of us in the standings.

Our offense was clicking but our defense was porous early in the half which resulted in a very close game with 13 lead changes in the first 10 minutes. But then a series of turnovers by our team allowed the Aggies to take an 8 point lead with 7 minutes left. They held a solid lead for the next 5 minutes, but we closed strong to recapture the lead at halftime by a 43-42 score. Both teams hit over 50% of their shots. SF Trey Small and PF Victor Collier both scored 10 points for us while UC Davis was led by C Corey Heideman’s 18 points.

The 2nd half was a defensive struggle. The Mustangs defense was better though so that we were able to gradually pull away for a 72-61 victory.

SG Nikolos Ivelitsch had 15 points, 2 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals. SF Trey Small scored 14 plus had 4 rebounds and 3 assists. PF Victor Collier finished with 10 points while C Dekker Chambers had 8 points, 11 boards, 2 assists, 3 steals and 2 blocks. UC Davis’ offense was all Corey Heideman as he scored 25 points.

The top of the Big West standings remains clustered among 6 teams with the Mustangs now tied with 2 other teams for 1st and 3 other teams but a half-game behind.