Cal Poly Mustangs (7-7, 2-3) @ UC Irvine Anteaters (11-5, 5-1)
Eugene Wallace, 2nd Assistant Coach (player development)
Big crowd at Donald Bren Events Center and most are rabid Anteaters’ fans. UC Irvine has eaten up the home-cooking with double-digit wins in all their home games this season. Greg Walker, their 6-11 center, is averaging 17.0 ppg and 7.1 rpg. He’s had 6 games in which he’s scored over 20 points (and he scored 33 in two of those). If we can contain him, Don Seals should cancel him out. PF’s Dereck Clayton and Chris Shipp are very high percentage shooters and combine to average 14 ppg.
Son of a (bleep)! SF Charles Gordon has been called for 2 fouls just 2 minutes and 20 seconds into the game. But at the first media timeout we’re up 8-3 with C Don Seals accounting for 6 of those points. The refs are calling things tight…they need to let the game flow more. We go up by 7 but the Anteaters drop in 9 straight points in less than 2 minutes to pull ahead with 12 minutes left in the half. We’re making too darned many turnovers which is negating some good shooting by us. But we force a bunch of turnovers by UC Irvine late in the half and due to hitting 58% of our FG’s we move out to a 39-28 halftime lead. C Don Seals has been experiencing migraines but thinks he says he can play in the 2nd half.
We have a good start in the 2nd half, but the refs are calling all the fouls against us. After going up by 14, the Anteaters cut our lead to 8 at the midpoint of the 2nd half. Both teams are making a lot of turnovers. Coach Aura gets on the guys during the next to last media timeout. But we keep throwing the ball away and with 6 minutes to go our lead has shrunk to just 6 points. SG Vince Carson fouls out and SF Charles Gordon has 4 fouls with just under 3 minutes to play and us ahead 52-48. With 2 minutes left we lead by just 2 and make yet another turnover. We’re still not in the bonus. PF Curtis Pearson muscles up a short jumper that falls through to put us up by 4 with a minute to go. But the Anteaters hit a FG and we make another turnover to give them the ball with 30 seconds left. We’re called for a foul and they sink both shots to tie the game with 23 seconds remaining. We call a timeout, miss a shot, but grab the offensive rebound and call another timeout with 9 seconds to go. Our play fails and UCI’s desperation 3 isn’t close and we go to OT.
PG Aki Mosley is dog-tired but scores our first 7 points in the OT to put us up by 3. Pearson then makes a put-back to put us ahead 63-58. But UCI sinks a 3. We’re then called for an offensive foul. Coach Aura is livid. UCI knocks down another 3 to put us down by a single point. Then with 56 seconds remaining, Derrick LaLane hits a baseline jumper to put us ahead 65-64. UCI misses and we rebound and are fouled. SG Terrell Alexander sinks both ends of the one-and-one to put us up by 3 with 28 seconds to go. The Anteaters hit a FG and foul on the inbounds play. Another 1-and-1 for Alexander…he makes both shots with 16 seconds to go. Big time pressure shooting by Terrell to convert back to back 1 & 1’s! Following a timeout, our defensive pressure makes UCA work the ball around outside to try to get off a shot. They finally put up a 3 that rims off, time expires, and we escape with a thrilling 69-66 overtime victory against the top team in the conference.
PG Aki Mosley dropped in 21 points, PF Curtis Pearson had 15 points and 13 rebounds, and C Don Seals added 12 points.
Even with our 3-3 record, that win moved us up into sole possession of 4th place in the Big West.