SAME FEDORA-NEW CROWN?

[PointGuard]

2033-2034 SEASON

Rob Benchley, Athletic Director

RECRUITING CLASS RANKINGS:

Not only did we fill all 8 available scholarships with new recruits last season, but our recruiting class has been ranked as the 54th best in Division 1 (right below Indiana and above UCONN)! The next best ranked recruiting class within the Big West Conference was Cal State Fullerton at 138th and the no other Big West teams were above #200.

“IT AIN’T FAIR”:

Big West Conference basketball coaches and athletic directors are sayin’ “it ain’t fair”. So what are they talkin’ about? They say it’s about being tops…tops in the standings…tops in the conference tournament…tops at getting to the Big Dance.

The Big West used to be like a lottery. Being first in the standings changed most every year. Winning the conference tourney and gaining a trip to March Madness changed nearly every season.

But now? There’s a fear among the coaches and AD's at the other Big West schools. They’re envisioning a dynasty. A dynasty that will eliminate the unofficial “parity” that existed and which provided all with a chance for the top spot, a conference tourney championship, a chance to make some surprising noise in March.

And what's causing that fear? It’s because there’s a new dynamic in the conference. And that new dynamic is endangering long-standing conference parity.

What’s producing this new dynamic? It’s due to one change. One single change.

That change occurred in May of 2031. In that month one thing happened that changed everything for the Big West. And that was Coach Frederick Aura surprising everyone in collegiate basketball by moving from cream of the crop and National Champion, Boston College to long-suffering and bottom of the barrel within the Big West, Cal Poly.

Aura had taken lowly Towson of the Colonial Athletic Association from being a perennial sub .500 team to a team that got to the NCAA Tournament regularly and became an upset danger to favorite teams in the big Dance. He then moved on to Boston College, a program that dwelled in the depths of the Atlantic Coast Conference and built them into a powerhouse in the ACC. And also to an eventual National Championship. But inexplicably he’d jumped ship after winning that national championship and moved all the way across the country and into the opposite spectrum of college basketball. To Cal Poly. To a program that was in probation and unable to recruit. And coaching a program composed of more walk-ons that scholarship players, he’d surprisingly immediately moved them way up in the conference standings.

Then when the reins were removed and he was able to go after scholarship players here at Cal Poly, his reputation had brought players to the Mustangs that heretofore would never have considered playing for the Mustangs. And with that, the fortunes of all the other coaches in the Big West descended. Transfer players and recruits looked at coming to Cal Poly as an opportunity to play for a man who had produced wonders at both low power and high power programs, making them highly successful and regular participants in the NCAA tournament, who had helped a number of his players prepare for the NBA, and whose own sons had starred in college with one now playing in the NBA and the second likely to do the same once he graduates from Georgetown. How could the other Big West coaches compete with that? How could their programs be anything but second-class? What more could be said than “It ain’t fair”?

So we may not be up at the very top this season, but if not, we’ll be nipping at the heels of whoever is. And as our group of players matures and improves and new talented players arrive, it won’t be long until we’re the Top Dog.

[PointGuard]

Malik Aura

After the spring academic term ended, I began weighing my options for this coming season. Since I’ll be a senior, it’s my final collegiate season. I talked with my Dad and Mom a lot. They didn’t try to sway me but were great about letting me bounce thoughts off them. I also talked with my brother Omari and got his perspective. Georgetown fired Ike Long as head coach and hired a new head coach. It turned out to be the guy who replaced my Dad at Boston College. His name is Lee Rowe. He took BC to the 2nd round of the NCAA tourney in his first season there, but the team played a little under .500 ball this last season. Before coaching at BC, Coach Rowe was head coach at San Diego State and then Syracuse. So he has a lot of experience. He sat down with me and let me know he hoped I would stay, but said it was totally up to me. He explained how he planned to handle the team and his goals and expectations.

I swayed back and forth between transferring away and staying, but finally decided since I just have one year to go, I’d hang in with the Hoyas. While we won’t be going to any post-season tournaments because of the NCAA’s probation, my effort will be to help us win as many regular season games as we can…and think of each game as our own personal tournament game. I’m going to develop my game in ways that hopefully will get NBA teams interested in me. I think most everyone was surprised that I stayed at Georgetown. If I had another couple seasons to play college ball, I probably would have made a different decision. In reality I was much closer to deciding to transfer away from Georgetown after my freshman season when I didn’t get to play much.

Ultimately just two of the Hoyas players decided to transfer and both were seldom used subs last season. We have 4 new freshmen players…two PG’s and two big men. All four look like they could be strong players for us. Overall we’re strong at the guard positions, but lack depth up front.

Devany Aura

As soon as school was over and I was promoted to the 8th grade, we decided to take a driving trip up the California coast. When I say “we” I mean my Mom, Dad, me and my best friend. Even though Omari’s team didn’t make the playoffs, he is going to attend the NBA playoff games so can’t go with us. And Malik is attending a basketball camp plus preparing for some kind of internship later this summer. We went to a lot of beaches and state parks, through the coastal redwoods, did a lot of hiking, went out on a fishing trip in the Pacific Ocean, went whale watching, and learned about some of California’s history. It was a really fun trip.

Omari Aura

Not much to say. A tough losing season with the Indiana Pacers. Watching other teams enjoy the playoffs. Not much hope for improvement this coming season for the Pacers. No expectations that I’ll crack into the starting lineup. I’ve let them know I’d like to be traded…although I prefer it be to a team with playoff expectations. They’ve given me no indication that they’re actively shopping me. It’s gonna be a long hot summer.

[PointGuard]

SUMMER COMMENTS FROM THE 3 ASSISTANT COACHES

1st Assistant Coach Eugene Wallace

Time for the Transfer Portal and lo and behold, none of our players opted to transfer away from Cal Poly. Not even Terrell Alexander. So we have 13 scholarship players on our roster and no room for anyone else, so we’ll be sitting out all Transfer Portal activities. While there are some highly coveted players who will be transferring and that we’d really like to have on our team, we certainly won’t cut any of the 5 players who are returning from last season’s team. And we want to see how the 8 we recruited do. I can’t deny, though, that we hope that none of our Big West competitors get any big stars to transfer to their programs.

We also have NO seniors on our roster, so we will have no scholarships to offer this year. We’ll do some things related to recruiting…mainly to make contacts and keep our toes in the water so that come next year we’re set to do some damage when we have scholarships to offer.

Because this means my recruiting responsibilities will be extremely light, I’ll be helping out on player development and practice. I’ll be more involved in working with Coach Aura on developing game plans. A somewhat less-demanding coaching schedule is also allowing me to take some classes to get my Master’s degree. That’ll give me some options in the event a head coaching job never materializes for me.

Rashon Richardson, 3rd Assistant Coach (scouting)

As soon as our schedule is finalized and I get a look at the schedules of our opponents, I can then draw up my travel schedule for this coming year. Then a lot of game video review of opponents plus getting to some of their games so I can see their teams in person. In the meantime I’m reviewing video of our Big West opponents to continue to improve our review of their players, sets, and game play.

This summer I’m checking up on OUR players to see how they’re developing at the camps they’re attending. Plus I’m going to run some camps to make some extra money since my salary here at Cal Poly isn’t all that great. You really have to like coaching to take on a 3rd assistant job.

Since we aren’t having to do any recruiting this year, that’s cutting down on my review of high school seniors, but I’ll still be checking out younger high school players to help with future recruiting…lots of summer camps all over the place. Nowadays with all the social media out there, it’s a chore to check up on players’ online activity to see what we can find out about high school players we may be interested in…for the most part that is tiresome since most have a bunch of crap on their social media, but at times there is a plum bit of info that helps us decide if a guy may worth our going after (or rule out bozos).

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

Coach Aura and all of we assistant coaches think we have some good players on our roster. But with 8 new guys we know it’s going to take time for them to work well together as a team. That’s our goal to accomplish during the pre-conference schedule. There probably will be some rough patches.

Fall practices are concluding and we’re about to begin playing the games on our schedule, so here’s the lineup as it will be to begin our season:

Here’s Our Starting 5:

PG—Aki Mosley, 6-5 Jr, Averaged 10.4 ppg and 4.0 apg last season

SG—Terrell Alexander, 6-3 Jr, Averaged 10.3 ppg and 3.0 rpg last season

SF—Donald Brown, 6-7 Jr, Played JC ball last season

PF—Don Seals, 6-9 Jr, Averaged 16.5 ppg and 5.5 rpg last season

C—Curtis Pearson, 6-8 Jr, Averaged 8.9 ppg and 5.6 rpg last season

So we have 4 returning starters. Donald Brown is the 5th starter position after starting 2 years at a community college.

Our Subs:

PG—Bryan Taylor, 6-0 Fr, Played HS ball last season; Michael Turner, 6-5 Sr walkon, Averaged 1.3 ppg last season

SG—Ryan Jackson, 6-5 Fr, Played HS ball last season; Roderick Chatman, 6-0 Fr, Played HS ball last season

SF—Lamont Silva, 6-6 Jr, Played JC ball last season; Ed Tenys, 6-6 Fr, Played HS ball last season; Kerry Hayes, 6-7 Sr walkon, Averaged 1.9 ppg and 1.8 rpg last season

PF—Richard Lawson, 6-7 Jr, Played JC ball last season

C—Derrick La Lane, 6-9 Jr, Averaged 7.9 ppg and 4.8 rpg last season

(Certainly Derrick La Lane is the most experienced of our subs and the reserve who will get the most playing time. Richard Lawson and Lamont Silva, who have JC experience, hopefully will be ready to give us some strong minutes. Of the freshman, it looks like Ryan Jackson is the one most developed and ready to step in initially.)

And Our Redshirt—Rodney Boykin, 6-7 Fr PF

The consensus opinion of the media from throughout the Big West cities has us picked to finish 7th. I think we’ll do much better than that, but it’s good to be considered as an underdog.

[jksander]

How are you keeping up with two distinct threads? I can never do that ... it's all or nothing lol

I am still playing with the 2021 version ... how is the transfer portal? Do they transfer in and play immediately? Are scouting budgets increased to allow fo rname and likeness stuff? The other thing I wondered about ... has anything changed with the "player relationship" settings? I have a kid on my team Jason Sanders, who has a 99% relationship rating with me as a coach but he still emails me every few weeks bitching that I'm mean to him. I want to throw a chair at him a la Bob Knight, but I'm starting to wonder if he's flirting with me lol

Good to be back, gonna follow this one

[PointGuard]

How are you keeping up with two distinct threads? I can never do that ... it's all or nothing lolC

I am still playing with the 2021 version ... how is the transfer portal? Do they transfer in and play immediately? Are scouting budgets increased to allow fo rname and likeness stuff? The other thing I wondered about ... has anything changed with the "player relationship" settings? I have a kid on my team Jason Sanders, who has a 99% relationship rating with me as a coach but he still emails me every few weeks bitching that I'm mean to him. I want to throw a chair at him a la Bob Knight, but I'm starting to wonder if he's flirting with me lol

Good to be back, gonna follow this one

I do all in Fedora (recruiting, game play, etc) but sim recruiting and game play for the 5 coaches in the other association (alhtough I DO the transfer portal for all 5 coaches--because I wanted to test it out for a variety of programs and that gave me a way to do it).

CB22 was a big improvement...with respect to the things you mentioned: transfer portal---lots of transfer players (just like real life nowadays), it's fun to do, they play as soon as the season starts (just like in real life); recruiting budgets are unchanged; nothing yet re NIL; can now praise players in response to issues or just for the hell of it (and it can affect relationship); seldom get the lingering bitching now. I expect Gary to begin beta testing for CB2023 in mid-late Dec or early January.

[jksander]

How are you keeping up with two distinct threads? I can never do that ... it's all or nothing lolC

I am still playing with the 2021 version ... how is the transfer portal? Do they transfer in and play immediately? Are scouting budgets increased to allow fo rname and likeness stuff? The other thing I wondered about ... has anything changed with the "player relationship" settings? I have a kid on my team Jason Sanders, who has a 99% relationship rating with me as a coach but he still emails me every few weeks bitching that I'm mean to him. I want to throw a chair at him a la Bob Knight, but I'm starting to wonder if he's flirting with me lol

Good to be back, gonna follow this one

I do all in Fedora (recruiting, game play, etc) but sim recruiting and game play for the 5 coaches in the other association (alhtough I DO the transfer portal for all 5 coaches--because I wanted to test it out for a variety of programs and that gave me a way to do it).

CB22 was a big improvement...with respect to the things you mentioned: transfer portal---lots of transfer players (just like real life nowadays), it's fun to do, they play as soon as the season starts (just like in real life); recruiting budgets are unchanged; nothing yet re NIL; can now praise players in response to issues or just for the hell of it (and it can affect relationship); seldom get the lingering bitching now. I expect Gary to begin beta testing for CB2023 in mid-late Dec or early January.

I'll probably skip 2022 and wait for 2023 then send me an email when you hear anything about it ... naptownpunk@gmail.com ... I'd love to get back into testing again

[PointGuard]

Tulsa Golden Hurricanes (1-0) @ Cal Poly Mustangs (0-0)

Zahara Carter, Assistant (sports administration)

I think we have a stronger team than last season. Our starters are experienced. Even though we have several freshmen, we aren’t having to rely on any of them to be starters. And while most all of our reserves are new to the team, they are more talented than the walkons who constituted nearly all the reserves last year. We begin this season with 2 home games, but 6 of our 9 pre-conference games are on the road. Coach Aura said his main priorities with the pre-conference games is to get the new members of our roster familiar with our sets and running them well and also to get the team playing cohesively since there are so many new faces on it.

9 turnovers in the first 8 minutes contributed heavily to Tulsa gaining a 16-5 lead. We fell behind by 14 before rallying late in the half to cut the deficit to 3. But Tulsa hit two 3’s in the final minute to give them a 33-24 lead at the break.

The Mustangs began the 2nd half by outscoring the Golden Hurricanes 13-5 to cut the lead to a single point. But Tulsa stubbornly held onto the lead and while we kept getting close, we could never get ahead. We lost a close one, 71-69. We shot well in the 2nd half, but 21 turnovers ultimately were our undoing.

PG Aki Mosley scored 21, PF Derrick LaLane came off the bench to hit 6 of 7 shots and score 13, and PF/C Don Seals scored 11. Tulsa’s starting guards, Lawrence Korn and Ray Walls, combined to score 40 points.

[PointGuard]

Massachusetts Minutemen (1-0) @ Cal Poly Mustangs (0-1)

Tom Poole, Cal Poly alum

I missed the team’s opening game, but got here for this one. After spending most of my working life on the East Coast, it’s good to see the Mustangs take on Massachusetts here. The Minutemen’s C Desmon Barker scored 17 and had 11 boards in their first game this season.

Cal Poly looked pretty good in the first half. They outshot UMass 48% to 38% and out-rebounded the Minutement 20-15. And PF Aki Mosley pumped in 13 points. That all accounted for the Mustangs’ 44-32 lead at halftime.

The Mustangs expanded their lead throughout the 2nd half and won with ease, 89-64. I liked what I saw. The team hit 51% of their FG’s, 52% of their 3’s and 95% of their FT’s. Their defense held UMass’ shooting to just 37% (and only 20% on 3’s).

PF/C Don Seals had 18 points and 8 rebounds, PG Aki Mosley scored 16, and reserve PG/SG Brian Taylor scored 13 points. The bench scored 33 points.

[PointGuard]

Cal Poly Mustangs (1-1) @ Robert Morris Colonials (1-0)

PG Aki Mosley

We split against a couple good teams at home. Now this game is our first road test of the season.

Too many early turnovers. We fell behind 7-1. When we finally got going, Don Seals scored our first 7 points. With 12 minutes left in the half, I got fouled and made both shots to tie the Colonials at 14-14. Don Seals hit back to back 3’s and the a deuce to put us ahead 26-22 with 7 minutes to go. We then opened a 9 point lead but had to settle for a 44-38 lead at the break. C Don Seals carried us, scoring 21 points and grabbing 7 rebounds in the half. Coach Fed got on us in the locker room about our 10 turnovers.

That didn’t solve our turnover problem. So the lead shifted back and forth for the first 16 minutes of the 2nd half. But on 3 straight possessions, T-Man (Terrell Alexander) hit two 3’s and I hit one 3 to put us ahead 83-73 with 3 minutes remaining. We held on to come away with an 87-77 victory. We tossed in 54% of our FG’s, 44% of our 3’s, and 91% of our FT’s to offset our 21 turnovers.

C Don Seals finished with 28 points, 10 rebounds, and 4 assists. SG Terrell Alexander scored 14, and PF Derrick LaLane dropped in 11 points. As for me, I didn’t shoot well and scored just 7 points. Our bench totaled 31 points for their second straight strong game.

[PointGuard]

Janeka Aura

Georgetown split their first two games, but Malik had a good first week, scoring 29 and 27 points in the two games and hitting over 50% of his FG’s. He also had 8 rebounds, 6 assists, and 3 blocks. He was the Big East Conference’s Player of the Week. Even with those stellar performances, Georgetown split their games against what should have been lesser competition.

Omari didn’t get traded as he had hoped. He’s back with the Indiana Pacers and pretty much in the same situation…coming in off the bench to play 10-12 mpg.

Devany’s junior high basketball team is practicing but their games have not yet begun.