SAME FEDORA-NEW CROWN?

[PointGuard]

Hawaii Rainbow Warriors (3-22, 3-13) @ Cal Poly Mustangs (17-9, 14-3)

KCPR—Cal Poly radio station (excerpts of game play-by-play broadcast)

*When we played Hawaii on their court and beat them 83-77, they were winless. Since then they’ve won 3 games including a recent victory at home over UC Santa Barbara and a road win over Cal State Bakersfield. That’s got them out of last place, a game ahead of Cal State Bakersfield. The Mustangs should knock them off tonight, unless the Rainbow Warriors’ 1-2-2 zone defense gives Cal Poly problems….or the nagging injuries to Derrick LaLane, Bryan Taylor, and Donald Brown result in the rest of the team getting fatigued.
*Hawaii has a reasonably big group of fans at tonight’s game. But that’s not unusual. Many of their alumni reside in California and they’re extremely loyal and supportive.
*The tap goes to Hawaii. They get off a quick shot, but it’s off the mark and the ricochet goes off the fingertips of a Hawaii player and out of bounds. The Mustangs will inbound the ball for their first possession of the game.
*Cal Poly swings the ball back and forth across the court. Mosley takes a shot, but it’s blocked! Hawaii wins the scramble for the ball.
*Don Seals hits a jumper from the left of the key and Cal Poly draws first blood.
*Time out on the floor with the Mustangs on top 6-5 after just over 4 minutes of play.
*With the score 10-7 in favor of Cal Poly, Coach Aura has subbed in Collier and Boykin in place of Seals and Pearson. Those two had scored 8 of the Mustangs’ 10 points.
*12-7, but tough break for Cal Poly. Terrell Alexander picks up his 2nd foul with 13-1/2 minutes left in the half. Bryan is coming onto the court to replace him.
*Now Richard Lawson will join Alexander on the bench with 2 fouls. Ed Tenys replaces Lawson. Hawaii’s Erik Stanley sinks both free throws narrowing the gap to 17-10 with 11-1/2 minutes until halftime.
*Wow. The refs are making it tough for the Mustangs. That foul on Tenys puts the Rainbow Warriors on the line with a bonus. Steve Wilson’s free throws make it 20-16 with 9:33 on the clock.
*Mosley works the ball inside to Seals. Seals backs against Hall toward the basket, fakes to his right and turns and cuts to the basket and jams it home giving the Mustangs their first double digit lead at 32-22. That brought the home crowd to life.
*As the fouls pile up, the deep end of the Coach Aura’s bench is getting a lot of playing time early in this game. Hawaii’s scored 15 of their 24 points at the line.
*That’s the end of the first half. Cal Poly leaves the court with a 36-28 lead. The Mustangs will need to keep their players out of foul trouble in the 2nd half. Hawaii hit just 6 of 21 shots from the field in the first half, but stayed in the game by getting to the foul line and 4 of the Mustangs players have 2 fouls apiece with 2 of their starters playing very little thus far.
*No! Even though Hawaii’s 3 point shot missed, Alexander was called for his 3rd foul just 27 seconds into the 2nd half. Alexander hasn’t played enough tonight to work up a sweat. Howard will go to the line for 3 shots and Alexander troops back to the bench. Coach Aura is jawing away at the refs.
*The refs certainly didn’t put their whistles aside during halftime. Lots of fouls already in the 2nd half against both teams.
*Bryan Taylor sneaks inside and flips the ball up underhanded to avoid hte outstretched arm of a defender. It’s good! 51-37 in favor of Cal Poly with 13:24 to play.
*Taylor now drills a 3. That’s 11 points for him and a 17 point lead for the Mustangs.
*The Mustangs are lighting it up in the 2nd half. Collier hits one to make it 59-39 with 10-1/2 to go.
*PF Rodney Boykin is getting some serious game time and he’s showing what he can do. He’s already got 6 points and 6 boards. That’s good news for next season.
*The Mustangs worked the shot clock down but got Alexander free with one second on it. His jumper makes it 71-50.
*Don Seals looks to be on a mission tonight. He hit another one…sweet turn-around jumper from 14 feet.
*The buzzer sounds. Cal Poly polishes off the Rainbow Warriors by a 75-50 score. I’ll be right back to let you know who were the top scorers for the Mustangs.
*Welcome back, Mustangs fans. Leading the scoring tonight was C Don Seals with 20 points and he also pulled down 6 rebounds during his 24 minutes of playing time. The only other player to score in double figures was SG Bryan Taylor with 11 points. But 10 of the Mustangs 12 guys who played scored tonight and the bench contributed 35 points. The only Rainbow Warrior to score in double figures was SF Erik Stanley with 19 points. No one else for Hawaii had more than 7 points. Cal Poly’s 2nd half defense limited Hawaii’s shooting for the night to 29%. The Mustangs were also +11 on the boards.
*That win assured the Mustangs of at least a tie for the Big West title. UC Santa Barbara is 3 games back and would have to win all their remaining games while Cal Poly lost all theirs for there to be a tie for first place.

[PointGuard]

Cal State Bakersfield Roadrunners (7-19, 2-15) @ Cal Poly Mustangs (18-9, 15-3)

Tom Poole, Cal Poly alum

This is Cal Poly’s final home game of the season and the 2nd straight against the bottom-dwelling teams of the Big West. They ripped the Roadrunners 93-76 when they faced them in Bakersfield earlier this season. CSU Bakersfield has lost 6 straight games and their last win was against equally bad Hawaii four weeks ago. The Roadrunners do hava a nice inside-outside combo with C David Barrett averaging 13.7 ppg and SG Larry Fields scoring 17.2 ppg. But the rest of the team leave a lot to be desired.

Tonight is Senior Night at Cal Poly. So lots of festivities honoring: Don Seals, Derrick LaLane, Curtis Pearson, Richard Lawson, Donald Brown, Lamont Silva, Terrell Alexander, Aki Mosley, and walk-on Jeff Manely. So I’d say next season will be a building year. As far as I know thus far they’ve just signed 3 recruits…all inside players. So they still have a lot of work to do to replenish the team. The core they will work with next year are Victor Collier and Rodney Boykin up front, Ed Tenys at the 3, and Bryan Taylor and Edouard La Touche in the backcourt.

Curtis Pearson and Derrick LaLane will be limited by injuries for this game, but are expected to play. I assume that, because those two big guys are unlikely to play as much as usual, Rodney Boykin will again get extensive playing time though. That’s good since the Mustangs will need Boykin, who is a redshirt freshman this season, to be a major contributor next year. Sophomore SF Ed Tenys is another player who hasn’t played much this season, so if the Mustangs get a decent lead, it would be good to see him get some serious on-court time tonight. Coach Aura is starting senior Lamont Silva at SF tonight for his first start as a Mustang. Normal starter Richard Lawson has moved from SF to PF to begin tonight’s game to replace injured Curtis Pearson.

The Mustangs score the first 10 points of the game. Rodney Boykin then comes in off the bench and scores 5 quick points to make it 15-2. 10 minutes left in the half and it’s 25-4 and Boykin now has 8 points and 2 rebounds. The half ends with Cal Poly on top 43-16. Rodney Boykin led the scoring with 10 points.

Cal Poly’s lead swells to 30 just 2 minutes into the 2nd half. Not much to say from thereon. Coach Aura played the subs a lot and the Mustangs still shot down the Roadrunners 78-59.

C Don Seals scored 19 and had 9 rebounds and 5 assists. SG Terrell Alexander ripped the nets for 15 points. PG Aki Mosley had 11 points and 7 assists. PF Rodney Boykin finished with 10 points and 5 rebounds.

The win and a loss by UC Santa Barbara ensured that Cal Poly will finish at the very top of the Big West standings this season.

[PointGuard]

Cal Poly Mustangs (19-9, 16-3) @ UC Irvine Anteaters (13-15, 11-8)

Rashon Richardson, 3rd Assistant Coach (scouting)

We’ve really been trying to make sure our players get ‘up’ for this game. Since we’ve locked up 1st place in the conference, this final regular season could easily seem meaningless to them. Obviously we don’t want that or to have them already beginning to focus on the conference tournament when we don’t even know who our first opponent will be. UC Irvine is no pushover (especially on their home court) even if our players are totally focused and committed to beating the Anteaters. 4 of their starters are averaging in double figures and the 5th isn’t far from it. And the Anteaters will be intent on knocking (and our 5-game win streak) off. We have a stronger bench, so we’ll try wearing their starters down as best we can. Since any one of their starters can score well, we’ll double team any one of them that gets hot.

We got off to a slow start and while we recovered somewhat, we remained behind by as much as 12 points the entire first half. Having Don Seals riding the bench with 2 fouls after playing just 4 minutes certainly didn’t help. We went to the locker room down 31-22, having only hit 35% of our shots and getting to the foul line 9 less times than the Anteaters.

We cut the lead to a single point at 32-31 with 16:47 to go when Richard Lawson drove the end line and scored on a reverse layup. Then Don Seals dropped in 2 free throws to put us ahead 33-32. Our big guys were huffing and puffing by then…I was sorry that they had to be subbed out when we had just had a 11-1 run. UC Irvine took advantage by quickly scoring 5 straight points. But our guys finally responded and regained the lead at 38-37 when Victor Collier slammed down a jam. Coach Aura continued to shuttle player in and out to stick to our plan to wear down UC Irvine’s players and keep fresher legs on the court than them. The refs continued to give the Anteaters trips to the charity stripe. The lead shifted rapidly during the middle portion of the 2nd half. Don Seals fouled out with 9 minutes left in the game. Our offense went south at that point and we fell behind 59-52 with 4 minutes remaining. We couldn’t resurrect our offense and dropped this game by a score of 67-58. But this game was lost due to the refs sending the Anteaters to the foul line 21 more times where they scored 16 more points than us.

Our only player to score in double figures was PF Curtis Pearson who had 11 points before he fouled out.

[PointGuard]

FINAL BIG WEST STANDINGS

Cal Poly: 16-4
UC Santa Barbara: 14-6
UC Davis: 13-7
UC San Diego: 12-8
UC Irvine: 12-8
UC Riverside: 11-9
Cal State Fullerton: 10-10
Cal State Northridge: 9-11
Long Beach State: 7-13
Cal State Bakersfield: 3-17
Hawaii: 3-17

[PointGuard]

BIG WEST TOURNAMENT

Mustang News

Day 1 Results

6th seed UC Riverside—65, 11th seed Hawaii—56
7th seed Cal State Fullerton—71, 10th seed Cal State Bakersfield—66
8th seed Cal State Northridge—72, 9th seed Long Beach State—50

Quaterfinals Results

4th seed UC San Diego—72, 5th seed UC Irvind--60
3rd seed UC Davis—67, 6th seed UC Riverside—55
7th seed Cal State Fullerton—90, 2nd seed UC Santa Barbara—71
1st seed Cal Poly—72, 8th seed Cal State Northridge—49 (The Mustangs scored first and rapidly pulled away to build a 39-17 halftime lead as their defense gored the Matadors. The lead swelled to 32 points in the 2nd half before Coach Aura played the entire bench and Cal State Northridge trimmed the lead a little. PG Aki Mosley poured in 20 points, C Don Seals scored 17, and SG Terrell Alexander added 10 points.)

Semifinals Results

3rd seed UC Davis—75, 7th seed Cal State Fullerton—51
1st seed Cal Poly—78, 4th seed UC San Diego—66 (Cal Poly was 3 for 3 on 3’s in the first 3 minutes to go ahead 10-4, but C Don Seals again got into foul trouble after 4 minutes of play. With 12-1/4 minutes left in the half their lead had grown to 29-10 with PG Aki Mosley accounting for 13 of those points. The lead ballooned to 23 with 8 minutes til halftime. The half ended with the Mustangs holding a 49-33 advantage. Cal Poly held onto their big lead throughout the first 11 minutes of the 2nd half. But then the Tritons went on a run that cut the lead to 10 points with 5 minutes remaining in the game. The Mustangs staunched the bleeding when SF Richard Lawson scored on a give-and-go and then the Mustangs recovered a loose ball, brought it into the forecourt and PF Derrick LaLane got a tip in off a missed shot. Even though UC San Diego continued to chip away, Cal Poly held off the Aggies in the final few minutes to come away with a solid win. PG Aki Mosley scored 20 points and had 5 assists, SF Richard Lawson scored 13, PF Derrick LaLane had 9 points and 6 rebounds, and SF Donald Brown finished with 9 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocks.)

Championship Results

#3 seed UC Davis—81, Cal Poly—69 (Aggies’ freshman C Corey Heideman is the consummate post player on offense. Since he’s so strong near the hoop, he’s averaging 20.2 ppg. But Don Seals worked on him inside and drew 2 quick fouls, sending Heideman to the bench after just 1-1/2 minutes of play. But a mix of turnovers by and fouls on the Mustangs kept the Aggies in the game. Heideman came back into the game late in the half and scored 10 quick points to help UC Davis take a 46-40 lead to the locker room. The Mustangs came back to tie the game, but midway through the 2nd half Cal Poly’s multitude of turnover resulted in them falling behind by 12 points. The Mustangs were unable to get close and lost after beating the Aggies the two previous times they played this season. C Don Seals scored 20 points, SF Richard Lawson dropped in 14 points, and PF Derrick LaLane had 12 points and 7 boards. C Corey Heideman scored 20 points for the Aggies.)

[PointGuard]

SF Richard Lawson

I’m totally bummed to have lost to UC Davis. We beat the Aggies by 18 points on our court and 3 points on their court. And then to come up short on a neutral court just blows. For some reason we just never gtained control and we let UC Davis outplay us. But that loss is going to keep us out of the NCAA Tournament which really sucks. There are a lot of us who are seniors this year and to not get back to March Madness is tough to take. Yeah, we’ll get into another tournament, but anything other than the NCAA Tourney is a letdown.

After coming to Cal Poly following 2 years at a community college, I gotta say there’s been good and bad times here. On the positive side, I started the final 21 games this season. On the downside, I’ve felt I should have gotten more playing time. If the coaches had done so, we would have won more games. Finally getting placed on the starting 5 has been good, but I still think Coach Fed should have kept me on the court more. He and the other coaches thought I should work more on my endurance, but for me the important thing was working to improve my skills. And that paid off, even if the coaches didn’t value it high enough. I mean…heck, I hit 50% of my 3’s and 49% of all my shots from the field and I averaged 7.8 ppg but only got to play 19 minutes a game. I added more offensive pop on a per minute of playing time that either Brown, Pearson or LaLane. Coach Fed and I have never seen eye-to-eye on that. I hope that he finally realizes the importance of playing me more in whatever tournament we play so we can go deep.

[PointGuard]

Cal Poly Mustangs Team and Player Stats

Team:

Season Record: 21-11; Conference Record: 16-4 (1st); Home Record: 13-3; Away Record: 8-8; NET Ranking: 85th

PPG: 75.1 (44th); OPPG: 67.6 (120th); APG: 17.3 (147th); RPG:33.3 (91st); BPG: 4.0 (176th); SPG: 6.6 (271st); FG %: 47.5 (37th); 3P %: 38.5 (10th ); FT %: 75.0 (41st);

Players:

SG Terrell Alexander: 32 games, 32 starts, 26.2 mpg, 8.6 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 2.5 apg, 1.3 spg, 0.4 bpg, 1.5 topg
PG Aki Mosley: 32 games, 32 starts, 26.0 mpg, 10.3 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 4.6 apg, 1.0 spg, 0.0 bpg, 2.4 topg
C Don Seals: 31 games, 28 starts, 22.1 mpg, 14.6 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 1.6 apg, 1.0 spg, 0.6 bpg, 1.2 topg
PF Curtis Pearson, 32 games, 31 starts, 21.4 mpg, 8.2 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 1.2 apg, 0.6 spg, 0.7 bpg, 1.5 topg
SF Richard Lawson, 32 games, 24 starts, 19.2 mpg, 7.8 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 1.0 apg, 0.5 spg, 0.4 bpg, 1.2 topg
SF Donald Brown, 32 games, 8 starts, 18.6 mpg, 4.3 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 0.8 apg, 0.5 spg, 0.6 bpg, 0.9 topg
C Victor Collier, 32 games, 4 starts, 16.4 mpg, 4.5 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 1.5 apg, 0.4 spg, 0.7 bpg, 1.3 topg
PF Derrick LaLane, 31 games, 0 starts, 15.6 mpg, 6.4 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 0.6 apg, 0.3 spg, 0.6 bpg, 1.1 topg
SG/PG Bryan Taylor, 32 games, 0 starts, 15.0 mpg, 6.8 ppg, 1.4 rpg, 1.5 apg, 0.5 spg, 0.0 bpg, 1.3 topg
PG Eduoard La Touche, 31 games, 0 starts, 10.7 mpg, 2.8 ppg, 1.2 rpg, 1.7 apg, 0.3 spg, 0.0 bpg, 1.1 topg
PF Rodney Boykin, 15 games, 0 starts, 5.6 mpg, 2.1 ppg, 1.4 rpg, 0.3 apg, 0.1 spg, 0.0 bpg, 0.4 topg
SF Ed Tenys, 16 games, 0 starts, 4.3 mpg, 0.8 ppg, 0.6 rpg, 0.3 apg, 0.0 spg, 0.1 bpg, 0.2 topg
SG Malik Turner, 2 games, 0 starts, 1.0 mpg, 2.5 ppg, 0.5 rpg, 1.0 apg, 0.5 spg, 0.0 bpg, 0.0 topg
SF Lamont Silva, 9 games, 1 start, 2.3 mpg, 0.7 ppg, 0.6 rpg, 0.1 apg, 0.3 spg, 0.0 bpg, 0.1 topg
SG Jeff Manley, 2 games, 0 starts, 2.0 mpg, 0.0 ppg, 0.0 rpg, 0.0 apg, 0.0 spg, 0.0 bpg, 0.1 topg

[PointGuard]

Tournament Selections

NCAA

#1 seeds: Nebraska, Maryland, Louisville, Saint Mary’s

UC Davis--#15 seed in Midwest and will play #2 seed UCLA

NIT

Cal Poly—#6 seed in Midwest and will play #3 seed Oklahoma State

CIT

UC Santa Barbara--#5 seed in Midwest and will play #4 seed Texas-San Antonio
UC San Diego--#7 seed in East and will play #2 seed Northern Kentucky

CIT Results

Round 1:

UC San Diego—85, Northern Kentucky—31
Texas-San Antonio—74, UC Santa Barbara—69

Round 2:

Utah State—73, UC San Diego--56

NIT Results

Round 1:

Oklahoma State—75, Cal Poly—66 (The high-scoring (81.1 ppg) Cowboys were the prohibitive favorite coming into this game. Oklahoma State got off to a good start and led 29-13 after 10 minutes of play. The Mustangs cut the lead to 8 but the half ended with the Cowboys in charge 41-29 as poor shooting and a failure to control the boards kept Cal Poly from being able to get close. The Mustangs kept chipping away at the lead in the 2nd half. Then C Don Seals scored 7 straight points to cut the lead to 59-56 with 7 minutes remaining. But the Cowboys rallied to down the Mustangs and send them home. C Don Seals scored 22 points and grabbed 7 boards, SG Terrell Alexander hit for 17 points, and PF Curtis Pearson had 11 points and 5 rebounds.)

NCAA Results

Round 1:

UCLA—78, UC Davis--61

Tournament Championships

CIT: Minnesota—60, Georgia--59

CBI: Houston—69, Arizona State--53

NIT: Stanford—97, Virginia--90

NCAA: Saint Mary’s—81, UCLA—62

[Note: The Saint Mary’s Gaels have been becoming stronger and stronger in recent years. And this season they were ranked #1 in both polls. After 8 consecutive years exiting the post-season tournaments in the first round, last season they made it to the Elite 8 to give notice that they were a team to be reckoned with. But it still was quite an accomplishment for this West Coast Conference team to be crowned the National Champs this season. They did it in the most impressive manner, totally whipping five of the six teams they played in the NCAA Tournament and leading by as much as 23 before getting challenged late in the game by their other opponent. Their winning margins were: 25 (Fairleigh Dickinson), 21 (Wisconsin), 21 (14th ranked Michigan State), 4 (8th ranked Illinois), 16 (3rd ranked Illinois), and 19 points (10th ranked UCLA).]

[PointGuard]

Coach Fred Aura

A disappointing end to our season. First we were unable to win the conference tourney and therefore were relegated to the NIT rather than getting to the NCAA Tournament. Then we had to go up against a strong Oklahoma State team and after leading 2-0, could never regain the lead.

We’re losing our entire starting 5 to graduation, so the next season will be a whole new adventure. I guess you could say it will be a rebuilding year, but I prefer to look at it as a new challenge. This year we had a seasoned team and next year we’ll have a young team. We’ve got 4 recruits who have committed to us and will try to fill the remaining scholarships during the upcoming month. Who knows…we may come up with a very exciting team for next season.

After our final game I began to have people questioning me as to whether I’d be returning to Cal Poly or looking for a new head coaching job. I hadn’t really thought about leaving, but we’ll just see as things evolve this spring.

And the Big West Conference just announced its annual end-of-season awards. Only one award for us, but Don Seals certainly deserved it. He was our team leader this season and put together a nice career for us.

AWARD:

C Don Seals—Big West 1st Team All Conference

[PointGuard]

Janeka Aura

Fred had a number of very strong programs contact him to talk about being their head coach. These included Kansas University. The Jayhawks have been an historic powerhouse with continuous selections to the NCAA Tournament where they typically went deep. But several years ago they were penalized by the NCAA for cheating and therefore were prohibited from playing in post-season tournaments for 4 seasons plus could not fill scholarships. With their remaining talent they rolled off three 20+ win seasons before winning just 19 in their final penalty year. They came back to post two more 20+ win seasons during which they were ranked in the polls and got to the NCAA Tourney both seasons. Then this past season the bottom fell out and they went 12-19, a record unheard of for Kansas. That meant the end for Coach Michael Holmes. Kansas really wanted Fred to get them back on track.

We talked long and hard about it, but Fred finally decided to remain at Cal Poly to see how the new group of players does and to help them develop for the future. We both really like San Luis Obispo plus the surrounding environs and the proximity to the Pacific Ocean and didn’t want to leave the area for the middle of the country.