SAME FEDORA-NEW CROWN?

[PointGuard]

Cal Poly Mustangs (0-1) @ Presbyterian Blue Hose (0-1)

We trailed 9-0 before finally scoring 5 minutes into the game. Presbyterian hit 55% of their shots and took a 40-28 lead to the locker room. We again had 9 turnovers in the half.

We trimmed the lead in the 2nd half and with 9 minutes to go, we tied the Blue Hose at 48-48. But we could never take the lead and fell apart in the final 2 minutes. A 16-6 turnover deficit was the difference in the game.

Final Score: Presbyterian—66, Cal Poly—55.

Top players: C Roland Holland-11 pts; PF Denny Grove-9 pts, 7 reb.

[PointGuard]

Zahara Carter

Hi. I’m now the resident go-fer for Coach Aura. I got hired last week. It was a surprise because I expected them to hire a Cal Poly graduate, but I’m sure not that. I grew up in Oakland and attended Merritt Community College there before getting a scholarship and then obtaining my BA from Howard University. I wanted to get back to California and liked the Central Coast area because of the great climate and fantastic beaches, so am really happy to be here. My goal is to get a good position in sports administration. So this is a chance to get some ground-level experience and make some contacts. To my surprise, Coach Aura has already given me some interesting projects to work on. Since the basketball season has just begun, he’s got me working on putting together stats that will help him and his assistants make decisions. Coach Aura has said he also plans to include me in as many meetings and planning sessions as possible. Of course, I also am here to do a lot of the grunt work, fetching this and that, handling a lot of small details, etc.

Janeka, his wife, had me over for dinner last night. She’s great and treated me like a member of the family. I also met their daughter and heard a ton about their two sons. Looks like I need to follow what Malik and Omari are doing in their basketball careers so I can respond intelligently. I played high school basketball but wasn’t good enough and didn’t have the time to play in college.

[PointGuard]

Cal Poly Mustangs (0-2) @ Charleston Southern Buccaneers (1-2)

We’re only averaging 53 ppg. Need to figure out some way to jack up our offense. So far we’re hitting just 39% of our FG’s and 22% of our 3’s…so it’s going to be tough.

Bad start…turnovers and poor shooting…we fell behind 14-2. The remainder of the half was just as ugly. We trailed 32-14 at the break. We hit 27% of our FGA’s, 20% of our 3PA’s, 63% of our FTA’s…and worst of all, we turned the ball over 18 times in the 20 minutes of play…and we didn’t have anyone who had scored more than 3 points.

Although we played better, the 2nd half was pretty much a replay of the first half a we dropped further and further behind, losing by a final score of 62-40. So now our anemic offense is averaging less than 50 ppg so far this season. In this game we hit 30% of our FG’s and just 8% of our 3’s for the entire game. SF Jason Fleming scored 9 to lead what little scoring we did.

[PointGuard]

Realtor Benny Tumago

Looks like the Mustangs basketball team is going to lose most of their games again. I had high hopes that a miracle might occur since we got this new coach who’s worked wonders at other colleges. But of course, you have to have some good players to win games and Cal Poly has been lacking in that resource for a while now. Too bad, though, since I like college basketball. I’ll still go to the games, but watching the Mustangs get their butts kicked regularly is kind of depressing.

[PointGuard]

Cal Poly Mustangs (0-3) @ Bethune-Cookman Wildcats (3-1)

We’re starting 3 freshmen…Jason Fleming at SF, Aki Mosley at PG, and Donald Blackmon at C. Fleming’s started all 3 previous games, but Mosley and Blackmon have thus far out-played the more experienced players who we’ve previously started at PG and C. Might as well see how the young guys fare starting plus give them as much experience as possible. This will probably be a tough game for us no matter who plays.

The first possessions gave an indication of how this game would go. The Wildcats hit a bucket, we turned the ball over. We fell into a 6-0 hole before we finally scored (on free throws). The first half was a display of 14 turnovers by us and letting the Wildcats hit 60% of their shots. We were behind by 23 at one point but a small run by us late cut our deficit to 43-29 at the break. Blackmon didn’t look good at C but neither did Roland Holland, our previous starter. But we have known all along that the 5 position is going to be one of our biggest weaknesses this season.

We started out the 2nd half with back-to-back 3’s to get within 8 points. Then we made back-to-back turnovers and Bethune-Cookman scored. We hit yet another 3 and it was 45-38. We continued to play with confidence and with 10 minutes to go only trailed by 5. But we could get no closer and fell by a final score of 69-56.

Positives: (a) hitting 12 of 23 from 3-point land; (b) Grove (15 points, 10 rebounds), Fleming (12 points and hitting 5 of his 7 shots), and Mosley (11 points, 5 assists, and 3 of 6 on his 3’s) playing well. Negatives: (a) 20 turnovers; (b) Blackmon unable to perform well at C.

[PointGuard]

Coach Aura’s Early Assessment

After 4 games we’re now averaging 50.5 ppg (pretty pitiful) while giving up 64.8 ppg. We’re hitting just 38% of our FG’s and a miserable 29% of our 3’s (even after a good showing in the last game). Our NET ranking is 356th out of 358 games. But all 4 games we’ve played have been on the road and 3 of our remaining 5 preconference games are at home. I think most everyone will be surprised by any win we get this season…we’ll get some, although probably not all that many.

PG: It’s becoming obvious that freshman Aki Mosley is our PG. he’s our top scoring player averaging 9.5 ppg but needs to hit a higher percentage of his shots. He’s averaging 4.3 apg and 3.5 topg. Sophomore John Gibbs does OK directing the team. But in the 60 minutes he’s played during the 4 games, he’s 0 for 17 from the field (including 0 for 11 from 3 point distance) and has sunk just 3 of 8 FT’s. He’s not really that bad, but we may have to try walk-on senior Jay Rush as Mosley’s back up.

SG: Senior Dean Plowman has this position locked down but he really needs to pick up his game. He’s hitting just 37% of his shots (and 30% of his 3’s) and is averaging just 6.3 ppg but on a positive note he’s averaging 4.8 rpg. None of his backups have done very well.

SF: Freshman Jason Fleming has shot better than anyone on our team, hitting 52% of his FG’s and 60% of his 3’s. He’s averaging 8.8 ppg. He needs to get free for more shooting opportunities. He’s averaging 3.5 rpg. We haven’t found anyone who has been productive at SF when we need to rest him.

PF: Senior Denny Grove is our only option here who’s played well. He’s averaging just 6.0 ppg but has picked off 5.5 rpg. He needs to be more aggressive offensively.

C: It’s still pretty much a toss-up between freshman Donald Blackmon and senior walk-on Ronald Holland with just a slight advantage by Holland thus far. Blackmon’s averaging 4.8 ppg and 2.5 rpg and Holland’s averaging 5.8 ppg and 4.8 rpg. But it would be good for us in the long run if Blackmon can get it together.

[Wayne23]

The "Mustangs" or the "Mustnots?"

[PointGuard]

Yeah, gonna be a long couple of years.

[PointGuard]

Janeka Aura

Malik has started all 4 games for Georgetown this season and his attitude has improved and he’s almost back to being the kid we knew before he left for college. He’s played pretty well although Fred thinks he’s still acclimating to the PG position. Fred feels that the Hoyas would be stronger if they played Malik at the 2 and moved Jason Chappel to the 1. But Fred says that’s Coach Ike Long’s decision and the Hoyas have won all 4 games and are ranked #11 so who’s to say Ike doesn’t really have things right. Thus far (even though Malik had one game where he got into foul trouble and only played 9 minutes), he’s averaging 7.0 ppg. He needs to improve at the Point though since he’s only averaging 2.8 apg. He’s shooting better than last season but Fred says he’s not yet getting clear often enough for good shots.

Fred is spending quite a bit of time with the team since there are so many players that need development. But with no recruiting going on that’s freed him up for more home time and being able to get to Devany’s games. Because of watching and playing with her brothers, she has a lot of natural affinity for basketball even though this is the first year she’s ever played on a team. I think she’s going to do very well.

[PointGuard]

Grambling Tigers (0-5) @ Cal Poly Mustangs (0-4)

Well, at least one of these teams will no longer be winless after this game! Poor attendance at the game, but that’s not surprising.

We got off to a good start going ahead 10-3 in the first couple minutes and with 13 minutes to go in the half we were up 19-9. We continued to have our way with the Tigers and by the end of the half we led 44-21 and we had 10 players who were in the scoring column, led by SG Dean Plowman’s 10 points.

We gradually extended our lead throughout the 2nd half and came away with win #1…a solid 77-43 victory. We outshot Grambling 51% to 31% and held advantages in rebounding (38-21) and turnovers (18-13).

Topping our scoring was SG Dean Plowman with 14 points (he also had 5 rebounds, 6 assists, and 4 steals) while PG Aki Mosley had 11 points and 7 assists and PF Denny Grove also scored 11 points. Our two centers, Roland Holland and Donald Blackmon, each scored 6 points and pulled down 7 boards so that was the first game where we got good productivity from the 5 position.