SAME FEDORA-NEW CROWN?

[PointGuard]

Post Season Tournaments

CIT Tournament

Round 1:
UMASS—68, Cal State Fullerton—65

Championship: UNLV—74, Manhattan--64

CBI Tournament

Championship: Vanderbilt—77, Drexel--52

NIT Tournament

Championship: Brigham Young—69, Seton Hall--68

NCAA Tournament

Round 1
UC Santa Barbara—87, Oregon State--77
Boston College—69, Saint Paul—51
Georgetown—77, Georgia Tech--71

Round 2
Minnesota—86, UC Santa Barbara--69
Creighton—77, Boston College—71
UCONN—82, Georgetown--80

Championship: Maryland—80, Clemson--73

[PointGuard]

Awards: None for anyone from Cal Poly

Upgrade Request: Request for a budget increase was denied by the Athletics Advisory Board. That wasn’t surprising since the basketball program is on probation due to the malfeasance of the previous coach.

[PointGuard]

2032-2033 SEASON

Fred Aura

The Good, The Bad, and the Juggling

After taking a 2-week vacation, I returned to good and bad news.

The bad news was that 4 of our 7 players remaining on scholarship have decided to enter the transfer portal. It’s not totally surprising since we lost our two best players to graduation plus another part-time starter. Since we were unable to recruit that means that not only will we have few scholarship players and many walk-ons but the overall quality of the team is very likely to be lower this coming season. Our players could read the tea leaves that indicate we will probably win far fewer games and place much lower in the conference standings. And the 4 of them were unwilling to endure that. So the four players decided to see if they could latch on at colleges who have a better chance of having winning seasons.

The four players we lost were: SF Jason Fleming, C Donald Blackmon, PG John Gibbs, and SG Cederic Gregory. Fleming was a starter throughout last season, Blackmon started a little over half our games, Gibbs was our backup at PG and played a decent amount of time, and Gregory was a sub last season who had a few good games and has good potential.

That means, though, we have just 3 remaining scholarship players plus 3 returning walk-on players and only have one remaining player who started for us last season (PG Aki Mosley). And we have absolutely no one to start at SF, PF, or C.

But almost immediately after players declared for the transfer portal, the good news arrived: an appeal concerning the team’s probation resulted in the NCAA vacating the final year of probation. So we’ll be able to recruit this year.

And the juggling? The loss of four players becomes an opportunity. We’re going to be able to sign 4 transfer players if we’re able to entice 4 good players to transfer to our school. That could be a good thing, particularly if we can get 2 solid big men and a SF who can start for us this coming season.

We don’t have a big recruiting budget and will likely have to spend a fair amount of it on contacting and evaluating players in the transfer portal. That will result in us having a VERY small amount of money left for recruiting this summer and fall. But there’s no way we can pass up the chance to bring in some strong transfer players who will help us this season.

[PointGuard]

Transfers

3rd Assistant Coach Rashon Richardson

We spent quite a bit of money contacting and evaluating players from a huge list of potential transfer players. But I think it was well worth it. Here’s the 4 players we added to our roster:

C Derrick LaLane, sophomore, trfd from Detroit Mercy (15.6 ppg and 6.9 rpg last season)
C Don Seals, sophomore, trfd from Jacksonville (14.1 ppg and 6.1 rpg last season)
C Curtis Pearson, sophomore, trfd from Texas Southern (12.0 ppg and 6.2 rpg last season)
SF Charles Gordon, senior, trfd from Louisiana-Lafayette (10.9 ppg and 6.1 rpg last season)

Gordon will most definitely be starting for us at SF. His personality is far from stellar, but since he’s a senior we think we can keep him in control for a year. Seals, Pearson, and LaLane will compete for starting roles at PF and C with the 3rd filling in at both of those positions.

Here’s where the 4 players who transferred away from us ended up:

C Blackmon to East Carolina
PG Gibbs to Bellarmine
SF Fleming to Morgan State
SG Gregory to Lamar

[Wayne23]

Transfers are definitely the way to go for a small program. Surprised you only grabbed 4, or was that a conscious decision?

[PointGuard]

Yeah, in order to do that I would have needed to cut some of the numerous walkons off my roster apparently. Didn't know that when I ran thru the transfer period so it just showed I could only go after 4 transfers. And that certainly would have created a strong team real quick. But in hindsight, I'm sort of glad I didn't. It would have been to quick and too easy a "fix" for the program (especially since we all know the transfer portal needs some adjustment and that the AI needs to be quicker to make scholarship offers to transfer players). Now that I can recruit this year I will have to go out and RECRUIT bigtime and make a more incremental (and somewhat more realistic) improvement to the Cal Poly program.

[PointGuard]

Fred Aura

Pro Draft

Four players that I recruited and coached at Boston College were drafted in the NBA Draft: PG Bobby Grannum was the 18th pick, SG Corey Graham was the 34th pick, SG Adrian Moss was the 48th pick, and PF Darius Hein was the 54th pick. It’s really great to see them all be selected.

Janeka Aura

It looked as though Omari would be spending another season in the G-League, but he called us today and said he’d been traded by Memphis to the Indiana Pacers. The Pacers placed him on their NBA roster and want him to play in the summer league for them. He’s ecsatic and can’t wait until July when the summer league games are played. We’re all hoping he does well because that way he’ll likely remain on the Pacers’ roster.

[PointGuard]

2nd Assistant Coach Eugene Wallace

Lineup

We have just 7 scholarship players on the roster and will try to maximize their minutes. Some of the 8 walk-ons will get a limited amount of playing time, particularly if there are injuries or foul trouble encountered by any of the 7 scholarship players.

Starters:

PG—Aki Mosley, 6’5” So., 11.4 ppg & 4.1 apg last season
SG—Victor Carson, 6’2” Sr., 5.2 ppg & 3.5 rpg last season (also will fill in at PG & SF)
SF—Charles Gordon, 6’8” Sr., 10.9 ppg & 6.1 rpg last season for Louisiana-Lafayette
PF—Curtis Pearson, 6’8” So., 12.0 ppg & 6.2 rpg last season for Texas Southern (also will fill in at C & SF)
C—Don Seals, 6’7” So., 14.1 ppg & 6.1 rpg last season for Jacksonville

Primary reserves:

SG—Terrell Alexander, 6’3” So., 4.0 ppg & 2.0 rpg last season
PF/C/SF—Derrick LaLane, 6’9” So., 15.6 ppg & 6.9 rpg last season for Detroit Mercy

Those 7 players are a solid core, but we have very serious depth challenges since I don’t foresee any of our walk-ons providing any consistent production. Coach Aura is used to playing a deep bench so this season will require him to make a big alteration in how he handles the team.

[PointGuard]

Terrell “T-Man” Alexander

The coaches have let all 7 of us scholarship players on the Mustangs know to get ourselves in shape to play 30+ minutes in every game this season. So we have begun calling ourselves the “Seven Samurai”. I’m ready and willing to play 30+ minutes and am pretty sure Aki (Mosley) and Charles (Gordon) also are. But I think that the extended court time will be very tough for our big guys and maybe Victor (Carson).

Last season I hung nicknames on everyone on the team. Aki is “Sparks” (he does provide a spark for our team), Victor is “Shark” (he’s definitely one when we play cards), and I’m “T-Man” (my nickname my entire life). Here’s the nicks for our 4 new guys:

Charles Gordon is “Smiley” (he rarely does that)
Curtis Pearson is “Hulk” (he weighs 270 lbs)
Don Seals is “Fur” (He is pretty hairy)
Derrick LaLane is “Indy” (he’s from West Lafayette, Indiana)

And our 8 walkons? Well 3 of them already had nicks:

Kerry “Shaman” Hayes
Jarrod “J-Rod” Hill
Scott “Hawk” Torrey

Here’s ones for the 5 new guys:
Anthony “Doc” Ballinger (he plans to go to med school)
Michael “Head” Turner
Charlie “CR” Richeson
Charlie “Trout” Fisher
Terrence “Twirly” Worley

[PointGuard]

Janeka Aura

Malik played his firstgame of this season for Georgetown. He’s moved from PG to SG for this season. He hit the first basket for the Hoyas, but then his shooting went cold until he knocked down a 3 late in the first half. But more important than his 5 points in the half was that he pulled down 6 rebounds and dished out 3 assists to help Georgetown come back from trailing throughout most of the half. By the end of the half the Hoyas were on top of UC Santa Barbara 31-28. But overall the Hoyas didn’t play well, shooting poorly and making far too many turnovers. In the 2nd half Malik hit back-to-back 3’s with about 6 minutes to go that got his team even but they then let the Gauchos pull away and lost 67-57. Malik’s performance was a mix. While he was the Hoyas’ top scorer with 15 points, his shooting wasn’t any better than the rest of his team. But he did finish with 7 rebounds and 4 assists.

Fred’s away with his team since they play in Indiana later tonight. But when he reviews the game, I’m sure he’ll be happy with Malik’s rebounding and passing, but acknowledge that he really needs to pick up his shooting game to justify starting at the “2”. The way UC Santa Barbara played in the Preseason NIT Tourney against a Big East team may give Fred nightmares about having to play them during conference play this season.