SAME FEDORA-NEW CROWN?

[PointGuard]

Cal Poly Mustangs (5-4) @ #14 Cincinnati Bearcats (8-2)

Tom Poole, Cal Poly alum

I’m watching this game on TV. Kind of cool to see the Mustangs on national television taking on a highly ranked team like Cincinnati…a team that’s on a 6-game winning streak and is a big favorite in this game.

Bad start. Cincinnati steals passes on Cal Poly’s first 2 possessions and it’s 4-0. The Bearcats are quick. Ivelitsch hits a beautiful 3 to get us on the board and within a point. Another nice 3—this one by Erskin and we’re up 6-4. Refs are calling a lot of fouls…on both teams….let ‘em play! Our guys are really fighting hard to hold onto their lead. After shooting well for most of the half, the Mustangs are having a tough time getting the ball in the hoops as the half winds down and that’s let the Bearcats retake the lead. Well, we trail 36-31 at halftime, but we certainly made Cincinnati work hard to get the lead. Our guys need to get their shooting eyes back in the 2nd half, though.

Oh man, that’s 5 fouls on Ivelitsch and there’s still 16-1/2 minutes to play. Nice pass inside to Bailey and he banked in the shot to get us within 2 points. The refs need to pack away their whistles for a while. They’re putting the Bearcats on the line a lot. We’d be ahead if they weren’t giving Cincinnati so many free throws. We’re down 58-52 and the announcers just said that Cincinnati has scored 15 more points at the line than Cal Poly. Cincinnati’s scored 8 straight points. Gonna need a big comeback. Cincinnati’s showing why they’re in the Top 25…running us ragged. Game’s over. We played the Bearcats pretty even for 30 minutes but Cincinnati buried the Mustangs in the final 10 minutes to win 79-63. The Mustangs can take some solace in scoring 5 more points from the field than the Bearcats. But a 21 point advantage at the foul line for Cincinnati was just too much to overcome.

Danny Preston was the only player for Cal Poly to score in double figures and he had 13 points. Eddie Erskin had a good game with 9 points, 6 boards, 3 assists, 2 steals and a block.

[PointGuard]

Dec. 26: Buffalo Bulls (5-4) @ Cal Poly Mustangs (5-5)

Albert Rasmussen, local sports guru

The Mustangs record doesn’t look very good, but they’ve played a very tough pre-conference schedule. Danny Preston started the season cold, but has come on stronger as the season has progressed. Nikolos Ivelitsch is the team’s leading scorer (14.7 ppg), but needs to begin hitting a higher percentage of his shots. Calvin Barnes is carrying the interior load. But overall I expected the interior players to do better than they’ve done thus far. The team really needs to do well at home against a team like Buffalo. This is the final tune-up before Big West play begins.

So far the Bulls have won all of their home games and lost all of their away games. Let’s hope that pattern continues tonight. Buffalo shoots well, hitting 50% of their FG’s and 39% of their 3’s. So why do they suck at the free throw line (57%)? The Bulls put on a pretty good show during the warmups, so let’s see if they can continue that during the game.

The Mustangs ran a nice set play off the tipoff, clearing Ivelitsch for a nice 15 footer, but then the Bulls showed off their shooting skills but hitting their first 2 shots, including a 3. While as a Cal Poly fan, I should have been happy to see Buffalo’s SG Vidoni pick up 2 fouls, I always hate to see the refs making a difference in the game…yeah, both were fouls but they were a bit tacky and the refs were too quick to call those fouls. Oh wow, beautiful block by Boykin and he deflected it off a Bull so Cal Poly gets the ball. Boykin’s really improved this season. Then Barnes missed a shot but grabbed his own rebound and put it right in…I like that kind of effort. Another slow start offensively by the Mustangs though. This has happened to them too much this season. Tonight it took over 5 minutes for them to ignite their O. And Buffalo outplayed them during those 5 minutes. 3 minutes later, though, Cal Poly seemed to be in control. The Mustangs offense was so hot that they should have run away from Buffalo. But Cal Poly’s D was a mis of good and bad with too many mental lapses that allowed the Bulls to stay close. Barnes was so hot that there were times when he was carrying the Mustangs. When the half ended, Cal Poly had hit 61% of their FG’s, and after making just 1 of their first 4 from 3 point distance, then sunk 6 of the final 9 three’s. That resulted in the Mustangs scoring 48 points, but they allowed Buffalo to score 36 when I felt that with a consistently good D, Cal Poly should have been ahead by 20. Calvis Barnes scored 16 points in the half.

After the refs call 5 fouls against the Mustangs in the first 3 minutes of the 2nd half (sending both Barnes and Luton to the bench with 3 fouls apiece), Coach Aura was called for a technical. Yeah, that gave the Bulls 2 points, but I think Coach Aura needed to get on the zebras. But the question in my mind was: “With Barnes on the bench, would any one else step up for the Mustangs?” The answer seemed to be: “Nobody”, as Buffalo cut the lead to 6 points with 12-1/2 minutes left to play. But then Boykin and Preston hit back-to-back 3’s to reopen a double-digit lead. Both teams’ defenses really put a damper on scoring in the 2nd half. With 2:37 to go, the Mustangs’ lead was down to 69-63. But Barnes then hit his first FG of the 2nd half, Erskin blocked a shot, and Ivelitsch canned a 3 to open an 11 point lead with 1:50 remaining. Cal Poly went on to whip the Bulls 78-65. The Mustangs were +14 in rebounding and made 11 more points than the Bulls on 2nd chance points.

C Calvis Barnes had 24 points and 7 rebounds; PG Danny Preston scored 14 and had 3 boards, 7 assists, and 2 steals; SG Nikolos Ivelitsch pumped in 10 points and also contributed 5 rebounds and 5 assists; and PF Rodney Boykin scored 9 and pulled down 5 boards.

Maybe not a great, but at least a good, ending to pre-conference play. Now it’s on to Big West opponents.

[PointGuard]

Rob Benchley, Athletic Director

I’m not surprised our record is just 6-5. Coach Aura’s desire to take on high quality opponents during pre-conference play pretty much assured this would be the case. But it worked as far as getting us a very good NET Rank where we’re #32 in Division 1. Of course, no matter how we do in Big West play it’s likely to go down since the level of competition in this conference just isn’t that strong.

Here’s how our players have done thus far (starters in bold-face):

PG Danny Preston: 10.8 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 4.0 apg (FG%-44%, 3P%-44%)
PG Scotty Lee: 6.6 ppg, 1.8 rpg, 2.8 apg (FG%-44%, 3P%-29%)
SG Nikolos Ivelitsch: 14.3 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 2.3 apg (FG%-37%, 3P%-29%)
SG Damien Harris: 2.6 ppg, 1.8 rpg, 0.7 apg
SG Ronnie Kirkland: 1.5 ppg, 0.0 rpg, 0.2 apg
SF Eddie Erskin: 6.9 ppg, 6.3 rpg, 1.0 apg (FG%-38%, 3P%-38%)
SF Louis Taylor: 1.6 ppg, 0.9 rpg, 0.1 apg
PF Rodney Boykin: 6.7 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 1.5 apg (FG%-41%)
PF/C Brandon Bailey: 4.1 ppg, 3.1 rpg, 0.8 apg (FG%-43%)
PF/C Sam Ridnour: 1.1 ppg, 2.2 rpg, 0.3 apg (FG%-39%)
C Calvis Barnes: 10.5 ppg, 6.4 rpg, 1.4 apg (FG%-48%)
C Edsell Luton: 5.1 ppg, 3.6 rpg, 0.9 apg (FG%-55%)

Calvis Barnes was named the Big West Player of the Week the last week of pre-conference play.

Here’s the Big West teams pre-conference records:

Cal St. Bakersfield: 7-4, NET:229
UC Irvine: 6-5, NET: 54
Cal Poly: 6-5, NET: 32
UC San Diego: 6-5, NET: 211
Long Beach St: 5-6, NET: 180
UC Davis: 4-7, NET: 284
UC Riverside: 4-7, NET: 250
Cal St. Northridge: 3-8, NET: 279
Hawaii: 2-9, NET: 359
Cal St. Fullerton: 0-11, NET: 334

Here’s how the Media expects the Big West standings to end up:

1. Cal Poly, 2. UC Irvine, 3. UC Riverside, 4. Cal St. Fullerton, 5. Cal St. Northridge, 6. Long Beach St., 7. UC San Diego, 8. UC Davis, 9. Hawaii, 10. Cal St. Bakersfield

Top 10 in the Media Poll:

1. North Carolina; 2. Virginia Commonwealth; 3. Purdue; 4. Mississippi State; 5. Miami (FL);6. Butler; 7. Memphis; 8. Oklahoma; 9. Arizona; 10. West Virginia

[PointGuard]

Jan. 2, 2038: Cal Poly Mustangs (6-5, 0-0) @ UC Davis Aggies (4-7, 0-0)

Jody Hedde, 2nd Assistant Coach (scouting)

The Aggies won 4 of their first 6 games, but then lost their final 5 pre-conference games. A big factor in the reversal of fortunes was that their star C Corey Heideman broke his hand and missed 6 straight games. But he’s back, so after contending with him the past 3 seasons, he again will likely be the biggest thorn in our hides yet again. He’s averaging 17.2 ppg, but would be averaging over 20 ppg had he not played in one game for just 1 minute. The guy’s a freakin’ beast in the paint. His backup, sophomore Alvin Betts appears to be a pretty good scorer also. And their starting PF Andy Collins is also a prolific scorer inside. So we’re going to need some good interior defense. We’ll see if our 2-3 zone is able to shut things down inside or if we have to go strictly to m-2-m. I’m concerned that our big men are going to get into foul trouble early.

Much as I suspected, the Aggies immediately got the ball inside to Heideman and Barnes was called for a foul on the shot. Fortunately Heideman missed both shots, but I think the pattern of working the ball inside had been established on that initial possession. We need to cut off those interior passes. We’re going to try front and backing Heideman. On the Aggies 2nd possession we cut Heideman off when he got the ball and forced him to kick the ball outside, but they brought it right back to him for an 8 foot jumper that went down. We went with a 2-3 zone on their next possession and stole the pass inside…need to keep that us. And the next time the zone forced them to take a deep shot from outside that was offline. Same thing the next time, except they drilled the 3. On the other end of the court we turned the ball over 4 times and had a shot blocked on our first 6 possessions. Barnes picked up his 2nd foul just over 4 minutes into the game. Heideman missed 2 more free throws. 6 minutes into the game we had 6 turnovers and had had 2 shots blocked and trailed 9-4. Our horribly sloppy play continued…11 minutes into the game we had 11 turnover and 3 shots blocked and trailed 18-11. Coach Aura called a time out to try to get our players heads in the game. Two minutes later we’d blocked one of their shots and stolen two passes and forced a bad shot plus hit 5 baskets and were on top 22-18…and silenced what had been a raucous Aggies’ crowd. UC Davis didn’t get called for a foul until there were just 2:45 remaining in the half. From thereon we again played lousy and fell behind 40-29 at the break. Coach Aura roasted the team in the locker room for making 16 turnovers. Really we did just 2 things well in the first half: (1) we held Heideman to just 6 points and (2) we hit 54% when we held onto the ball and got off shots.

We came out in the 2nd half playing much better and went on an 17-5 run to go ahead 46-45 with 15-1/2 minutes to go. UC Davis’ offense, led by Corey Heideman, caught fire and we fell behind by as much as 7 points for the next 6 minutes. But we edged close and Damien Harris hit a beauty of a 3 from the left corner to put us back in the lead at 66-64. The teams pretty much traded baskets and the lead…with 4 minutes to go the game was tied at 81-81. It began to look like whichever team took the final shot would win. With a minute to play, Scotty Lee stole a pass and made a nice outlet pass to a flying Damien Harris for a breakaway layup to put us ahead 89-88. Our zone stymied the Aggies and they had a shot clock violation returning the ball to us with 28 seconds to go. Coach Aura got our best free throw shooters on the court. As expected the Aggies fouled on the inbounds pass sending Scotty Lee to the line…he sank both shots. UC Davis it a quick FG and fouled us again. This time Danny Preston knocked down both foul shots with 16 seconds left on the clock. The Aggies missed a 3, we rebounded and that was the game…we won 93-90. In the 2nd half we made just 3 turnovers. We hit 58% of our FG’s and 43% of our 3’s. Our bench outscored the UC Davis bench 43-27. And surprisingly we outscored the Aggies in the paint 30-22 and on 2nd chance points 7-2. The 64 points we scored in the 2nd half was our best offensive half of the season.

Player stats: PG Danny Preston—16 pts, 5 ast, 2 stl; PG Scotty Lee—14 pts, 7 ast; SG Nikolos Ivelitsch—13 pts, 6 reb, 3 ast; PF Rodney Boykin—10 pts, 5 reb, 2 ast, 2 stl; C Estell Luton—10 pts; SG Damien Harris—9 pts. As I said, Heideman had a big 2nd half…he finished with 20 points.

[PointGuard]

Cal State Fullerton Titans (1-11, 1-0, 1st place tie) @ Cal Poly Mustangs (7-5, 1-0, 1st place tie)

Mustang News

MUSTANGS CUT TITANS DOWN TO SIZE

Following up on a hard fought road win in their first conference game, the Mustangs jumped out ahead when Cal State Fullerton came to Robert A. Mott Athletics Center and never gave up the lead. Although they were only ahead 34-28 at halftime, the Mustangs jumped out to a big lead 5 minutes into the 2nd half and ran away from the visiting Titans to score a lopsided 67-47 victory. The win gave the 2 and 0 Mustangs sole possession of the conference lead since 8 of the 10 teams now have 1-1 records.

Cal Poly didn’t shoot well, hitting just 38% of the FG’s and 21% of their 3’s, but held hapless Cal State Fullerton’s shooting to just 28%. The Mustangs also made 8 fewer turnovers that the Titans. Cal Poly scored 34 points in the paint compared to just 16 by the Titans.

C Calvis Barnes led all scorers with 19 points and he also had 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and blocked 6 shots. PG Dwayne Preston had 10 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 assists. PF Rodney Boykin scored 9 points and grabbed 5 boards. PG Scotty Lee scored 8 points. SG Nikolos Ivelitsch had an uncharacteristic 6 points, but had 5 rebound, 6 assists, 5 steals and a block. Coach Aura said, “Calvis had an awesome game offensively and Nikolos was great at harassing the Titans. After the razor close win over UC Davis, it was nice to have a game where I was able to take a breath.”

The Mustangs will host Hawaii this coming Tuesday and then travel to take on Cal State Northridge at the end of next week.

[PointGuard]

Hawaii Rainbow Warriors (3-10, 1-1, 2nd place tie) @ Cal Poly Mustangs (8-5, 2-0, 1st place)

KXTA Radio—sports radio

The Rainbow Warriors hung with the Mustangs for 9 minutes during which there were 8 lead changes. But Cal Poly then streaked to a 46-25 halftime advantage. The Mustangs edged further ahead in the 2nd half to lead by as much as 31 points and finish with a 94-66 stomping of Hawaii. Cal Poly connected on 59% of their shots, including 56% of their 3’s. The Mustangs also were an amazing +20 on the boards.

Topping the scoring was PG Danny Preston who had 19 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals. C Calvis Barnes had a double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds and he also had 3 assists and 2 blocks. PG Scotty Lee had 14 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 steals. PF Rodney Boykin scored 11 points and had 4 boards and 3 assists. SF Louis Taylor scored 8 points. Coach Aura emptied the entire bench in the Mustangs blowout victory.

[PointGuard]

Cal Pol Mustangs (9-5, 3-0, 1st place) @ Cal State Northridge Matadors (4-10, 1-2, 4th place tie)

Coach Fred Aura

Our bench is pretty solid but I’m really pleased with our 5 starters…5 good players who have become a cohesive unit.

SG Mike Forrest returns for his senior season with the Matadors. He’s always been tough to stop and this season he’s scored 20+ points in 9 of Cal State Northridge’s 14 games and is averaging 20.0 ppg. The key to beating the Matadors is keeping Forrest in check so that he doesn’t break out for a really big game. To do that successfully we also have to make sure Nikolos Ivelitsch doesn’t get into early foul trouble. I’ve heard that Forrest strained his knee injury in the Matadors last game, but he’s starting and I expect he’ll give us plenty of trouble.

We begin by doubling Forrest and SF John Price dropped in two quick 3’s on us. Five minutes into the game and we’ve missed all 8 of our shots and trail 11-0. Estell Luton finally made our first FG with 13:15 left in the half. We’ve got a lot of ground to make up. We start making a few shots, but the Matadors are making more and we trail by 18 with 8 minutes to go in the half. The half mercifully ends. We’re behind 44-29. We hit 29% of our shots (and 10% of our 3’s) while Cal State Northridge dropped in 55% of their FG’s and 40% of their 3’s. We held Mike Forrest to 5 points, but John Price ripped us for 24 points in the half.

The beginning of the 2nd half starts as a replay of the first half, except it’s Mike Forrest knocking down two 3’s even though we’re all over him. It doesn’t matter who I put out on the court. None are able to turn the tide against the Matadors. We cut into their lead a little in the final 5 minutes but still get slaughtered 78-61. We simply got outplayed.

C Calvis Barnes scored 13 and pulled down 9 boards. SG Nikolos Ivelitsch and C Estell Luton each had 11 points and 5 rebounds. PG Danny Preston and SG Damien Harries both scored 8 points. For Cal State Northridge SF John Price had a huge game, scoring 31 points and grabbing 6 rebounds.

Sam Ridnour had yet another blowup after the game. It earned him a week’s suspension. I’m guessing he’s working himself into deciding to transfer after the season ends.

I have to admit I was down about our bad loss, but then I saw that a number of Top 25 teams also got blasted on the road. We’re now in a 3-way tie for 1st place with UC Riverside and, surprisingly, Cal State Fullerton…a team that lost their first 11 games and lost to us a week ago but they’ve played well in their other 3 conference games.

Fortunately after obsessing about our ugly loss and dealing with sam Ridnour, I got some good news. My son, Malik, has been moved into the starting lineup with the Denver Nuggets after their star SG Travis Marston was injured. It looks like Malik will be starting for at least a couple weeks for the Nuggets. Thus far this season he's come in off the bench and has averaged 6.4 ppg. Malik thinks that if he does well in the starting role that his value to other teams will peak so it could possibly lead to him being trade once Marston returns to the starting lineup.

[PointGuard]

UC San Diego Tritons (7-8, 1-3, 8th place tie) @ Cal Poly Mustangs (9-6, 3-1, 1st place tie)

Jack Stevens, neighbor of the Aura’s

This is the first game I’ve been to this season. Al Miller, Janeka Aura’s father, came over and got me to go with him. It’s fun going to games with Al since he’s so knowledgeable about the game and the team.

The Mustangs totally throttled the Tritons in the first half. UC San Diego’s play was riddled with missed shots and turnovers. On the other hand Cal Poly shot well and by halftime led 43-16. Fred (Aura) played his bench a lot in the 2nd half and still won with ease 68-43. The team did that with starting PG Danny Preston relegated to the bench except for 9 minutes due to foul trouble.

I’d seen Nikolos Ivelitsch play in prior seasons, AND he looked really great tonight, scoring 13 points and garnering 11 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals. SF Eddie Erskin scored 12 and had 6 rebounds (Al said it was good to see Eddie play well because he had been invisible in the Mustangs’ loss to Cal State Northridge), and C Calvis Barnes scored 10 points to go along with 3 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 blocks.

[PointGuard]

Cal Poly Mustangs (10-6, 4-1, 1st place) @ Cal State Bakersfield Roadrunners (10-6, 3-2, 2nd place tie)

San Luis Obispo Tribune

POLY GETS ROAD WIN OVER ROADRUNNERS

Cal Poly’s basketball team maintained their lead in the Big West standings last night by defeating the Cal State Bakersfield Roadrunners 73-62 in Bakersfield.

The Mustangs used a stingy defense throughout the first half to pull away to a 39-26 halftime advantage. Cal Poly ran their lead up to 26 points midway through the second half and cruised to a satisfying road victory.

Coach Fred Aura said he was pleased with the disciplined way his team played. The Mustangs hit 48% of their field goals and made just 12 fouls and turned the ball over only 7 times.

PG Danny Preston and SF Eddie Erskin both scored 15 points. C Calvis Barnes had 13 points and 8 rebounds and SG Nikolos Ivelitsch added 10 points. None of the Roadrunners scored in double figures.

The Mustangs return home to take on the Long Beach State 49ers next Tuesday.

[PointGuard]

The Jamie Monroe Big West Review

With 10 more conference games to play this season, let’s take a look at the Big West Conference.

Here’s the standings thus far:

Cal Poly: 5-1 (11-6 overall; NET Rank 48)
UC Irvine: 4-2 (10-7 overall; NET Rank 92)
UC Riverside: 4-2 (8-9 overall; NET Rank 207)
Cal St. Fullerton: 3-3 (3-14 overall; NET Rank 315)
Long Beach St.: 3-3 (8-9 overall; NET Rank 220)
Cal St. Bakersfield: 3-3 (10-7 overall; NET Rank 214)
Cal St. Northridge: 3-3 (6-11 overall; NET Rank 305)
UC Davis: 2-4 (6-11 overall; NET Rank 295)
UC San Diego: 2-4 (8-9 overall; NET Rank 271)
Hawaii: 1-5 (3-14 overall; NET Rank 356)

Cal Poly and UC Irvine have shown they are stronger than the rest of the conference. The other 8 teams will compete for the remaining spots in the standings. Here’s a quick assessment of the two top teams:

Cal Poly: Good but not great offense and defense. Very strong rebounding. Shooting has been inconsistent. Best team in conference at blocking shots. Good ball control with lowest turnovers in conference. Primary offense comes from guards (Ivelitsch-12.6 ppg, Serraville-11.2 ppg, and Lee-7.4 ppg) and C (Barnes-11.4 ppg).

UC Irvine: Good offense due to extremely good shooting from all over the court and high number of assists. Their tempo is slow, though. Defense is adequate. Offense primarily generated by 3 interior players (Clark-14.1 ppg, Dye-13.0 ppg, and Thompson-9.6 ppg and SF (Green-14.6 ppg).

Top Scorers in Conference: Heideman (UC Davis)-20.3 ppg; Forrest (Cal St Northridge)-19.1 ppg; Mihm (Cal St Fullerton)-15.4; Barrett (Cal St Bakersfield)-14.9 ppg

Top Rebounders in Conference: Robins (Cal St Bakersfield)-9.2 rpg; Mihm (Cal St Fullerton)-7.1 rpg; Augustine (UC San Diego)-7.0 rpg; Thompson (UC Irvine)-6.8 rpg; Barrett (Cal St Bakersfield)-6.8 rpg

Tops in Assists in Conference: DeSantis (UC Irvine)-6.3 apg; Morris (UC San Diego)-5.7 apg; Brownlee (Cal St Bakersfield)-5.6 apg; White (UC Irvine)-5.2 apg; Powers (Cal St Fullerton)-5.1 apg