SAME FEDORA-NEW CROWN?

[PointGuard]

Rob Benchley, Athletic Director

Coach Aura and all assistants are returning this coming year. While we didn’t win the conference tournament (and get to the NCAA tournament), we did with over 20 games (26) this season.

Our incoming recruit class has been ranked as the 23rd best within Division 1!

Coach Frederick Aura’s Division 1 Coaching Summary:

2019-20: Towson, 18-15, .545, unranked, 6th (tie) in CAA, No post-season tourney
2020-21: Towson, 13-17, .433, unranked, 5th in CAA, No post-season tourney
2021-22: Towson, 24-9, .727, unranked, 2nd in CAA, NCAA (Round 1)
2022-23: Towson, 27-7, .794, ranked 24th, 1st in CAA, NCAA (Round 2)
2023-24: Towson, 30-4, .882, ranked 15th, 1st in CAA, NCAA (Sweet 16)
2024-25: Towson, 25-8, .758, unranked, 1st in CAA, NCAA (Round 1)
2025-26: Boston College, 21-17, .553, unranked, 10th in ACC, CIT (Finals)
2026-27: Boston College, 25-10, .714, ranked 25th, 3rd in ACC, NCAA (Sweet 16)
2027-28: Boston College, 34-5, .872, ranked 2nd, 1st in ACC, NCAA (Final 4)
2028-29: Boston College, 30-6, .833, ranked 2nd, 1st in ACC, NCAA (Round 2)
2029-30: Boston College, 26-9, .743, ranked 8th, 2nd in ACC, NCAA (Round 2)
2030-31: Boston College, 30-8, .789, ranked 8th, 1st in ACC, NCAA (Champions)
2031-32: Cal Poly, 15-15, .500, unranked, 2nd (tie) in Big West, No post-season tourney
2032-33: Cal Poly, 16-15, .516, unranked, 4th (tie) in Big West, No post-season tourney
2033-34: Cal Poly, 26-8, .765, unranked, 2nd in Big West, NCAA (Round 2)
2034-35: Cal Poly, 21-12, .636, unranked, 1st in Big West, NIT (Round 1)
2035-36: Cal Poly, 25-10, .714, unranked, 4th in Big West, NCAA (Round 1)
2036-37: Cal Poly, 24-9, .727, unranked, 1st in Big West, NCAA (Round 1)
2037-38: Cal Poly, 26-8, .765, ranked #22, 1st in Big West, NCAA (Round 2)
2038-39: Cal Poly, 26-10, .722, unranked, 1st in Big West, NIT (Round 3)

CAREER RECORD: 482-202, .705

As you can see Coach Aura has built 3 different teams into conference powerhouses and regular participants in big-time post-season tournaments during his 20 year division 1 coaching career. In each case it's taken 1-2 seasons for him to turn the teams around. At Towson and Boston College, he left after spending 6 seasons with each team. He's now been at Cal Poly for 8 seasons. I realize we're living on borrowed time. He's had some great opportunities to move on, particularly after the past few years.

It's mid-April and he's asked to meet with me tomorrow without an explanation for the meeting. Obviously I'm worried.

[PointGuard]

Meeting between Coach Fred Aura and AD Rob Benchley

RB: Hey, Fred, good to see you this morning. Congratulations on another great season.

FA: Thanks, Rob. We had a very strong team. It was different because we didn’t have one player who carried the team in most every game. But I think the overall depth of this year’s team was probably the best of any team I’ve coached during my career. I felt like I could put any of my 13 scholarship players on the court and they’d contribute well without any downturn for the team.

RB: That really was the case. I think that contributed to some strong team chemistry.

FA: Well, with 6 guys graduating, it will be different next season.

RB: No doubt about that, but you have some really good recruits coming to replace those guys.

FA: True, it’s a good group. They’re very talented and all have excellent potential as collegians. It would be great if they all came ready to jump right in and be ready to be put on the court at any point in the game. But that likely won’t be the case. Some of them are likely to struggle a bit early in their college careers since it’s such a big jump from high school ball to Division 1 college play. That’s part of the challenge…molding them into good college players.

RB: None of your assistants want to leave, do they?

FA: No, any of the 3 could (and maybe should) move on to bigger challenging roles, but, somewhat surprisingly to me, they all seem satisfied with their existing roles.

RB: So that leaves the question in my mind about you. We certainly want you to continue to coach at Cal Poly. But we’ve always given you carte blanche approval to talk with other programs and I know that you get some good offers each year. I’m afraid to ask...but…do we hopefully have you for another season?

FA: I feel like I’ve accomplished what I set out to do here. We’ve become the almost perennial first place team in the Big West. We get to a great post-season tourney each year including getting to the Big Dance 4 of the past 6 seasons.

RB: And we really want that to be 5 of the past 7 seasons after the coming year. How about it?

FA: Thanks, but I just don’t know right now. Rob, I know that since UC Santa Barbara left the Big West, you’ve been testing the waters for something similar for Cal Poly. What’s the status?

RB: Yes, I’ve looked into so many different possibilities. Most of the conferences that are at a level that would accept a team coming from a conference with the prestige of the Big West are in the Midwest, East or South. So geography interferes as it relates to conference scheduling, travel, and budgeting. There are far fewer conferences in the west and Cal Poly’s basketball prestige level doesn’t fit within most, if not all, of those. I’m still working on things, but the Big West is definitely set against a simple departure like UC Santa Barbara did. They were reluctant to drop from 11 to 10 teams, but none of the other Big West colleges are agreeable to dropping the conference down to 9 teams. So, they just won’t approve us exiting.

FA: I understand and appreciate your being open with me. I also appreciate your continuing to give me the go-ahead to explore offers from other schools. I’m evaluating a few options and offers. I’m also talking continuously with my family. I’ll let you know what I decide in the next couple weeks.

[PointGuard]

2039-2040 SEASON

Rob Benchley, Athletic Director

Big News!

A realignment of the Big West and the Mountain West Conferences has been approved. We will move to the Mountain West Conference (MWC) and San Jose State is leaving the MWC and replacing us in the Big West Conference.

Other Mountain West teams are: Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Montana, Nevada, UNLV, New Mexico, San Diego State, Utah State, and Wyoming.

We’re tremendously excited. It’s a huge new challenge since we’ll be competing with much tougher teams than we were in the Big West. We may take our lumps initially, but I am confident that we can become very competitive within the Mountain West. The move has already stimulated increased alumni donations that will offset our increased travel costs.

[PointGuard]

Cory McCreight, 1st Assistant Coach (Recruiting)

None of our players are transferring and we have just one player (C Steve Hastings) who will be graduating after the upcoming season concludes. So that means we won’t be participating in the transfer portal and will be focusing all our recruiting efforts on landing one very strong player. Coach Aura has said we need to zero in on getting the “right” recruit and if we can’t, then not to worry…we’ll not recruit this year and we’ll just take on chances on picking up a good transfer player the following summer.

[PointGuard]

The Jamie Monroe Big West Review

The Big West Conference received another jolt with the departure of Cal Poly. The Mustangs move to the Mountain Wesst Conference followed UC Santa Barbara’s departure to the West Coast Conference 2 years ago. At least this time rather than simply losing a team, the Big West was able to keep the size of the conference the same with the addition of San Jose State.

It seems that Cal Poly felt they had outgrown the Big West. The Mustangs had been dominating the rest of the teams in conference play and had finished atop the conference standings 4 of the last 5 seasons. The Mustangs’ recruiting success, along with their ability to pick up excellent transfers, during the Coach Aura era had left the other Big West teams with distinct disadvantages. Cal Poly will be much more challenged in both the recruiting and transfer aspects of college ball within the Mountain West Conference. They’ll be going up against some historically strong basketball programs, most with bigger budgets and much higher basketball prestige. So their move to their new conference comes with some significant risks. They could easily find themselves relegated to the lower half of the Mountain West standings. Following a season where they brought in the 23rd best recruit class, the Mustangs could be competitive, if those young players come in ready to contribute as freshmen. With their departure we wish Cal Poly success in the Mountain West.

But UC Santa Barbara faced a similar risk and has fared reasonably well in its two seasons in the West Coast Conference. Two seasons ago the Gauchos finished in a tie for 5th place with an 8-8 conference record, while having an excellent overall season record of 26-13. That included a trip to the NCAA tourney where they amazingly made it all the way to the Elite 8. UC Santa Barbara finished alone in 5th place this past season with a 9-7 record in conference and a season record of 20-13. They were relegated to the CBI tourney but made it to the quarterfinal round. So though they haven’t been able to finish within the conference fight for the conference championship, the team has been very competitive within that strong conference and done very well in post-season play. The prestige of the team has also undergone a rapid rise. That’s been evidenced by highly successful recruiting. This past season’s haul of recruits resulted in the Gauchos recruit class being ranked as the 27th best in Division 1 which was the best of any West Coast Conference school, including Gonzaga, St. Mary’s, and BYU.

The Big West Conference now welcomes a new member, the San Jose State Spartans. Even though the prestige of their basketball program has slipped in recent years, they’re stepping into the Big West from a much stronger conference. So the Spartans should be highly competitive within the Big West. Their challenge, though, will be that they’re an extremely young team with 12 of 13 of their scholarship players being freshmen or sophomores.

[PointGuard]

Jack Stevens, neighbor of the Aura’s

Last night my wife Renee and I had Fred and Janeka Aura, our next door neighbors, over for dinner. After dinner while Janeka and Renee remained in the dining room kibitzing about their respective health care work, Fred joined me in our family room to enjoy some brandy.

Often our talks are about our families, our homes, our yards, or the neighborhood, but Fred was in a more expansive mood than usual. So I ventured to ask him about his decision to remain at Cal Poly. With his level of success, if it were me, I would have opted to take some of the jobs that I’ve heard rumored he’s turned down…like Duke, Kansas, and Michigan State and go for more national championships like the one he got while coaching at Boston College.

He acknowledged that winning the NCAA Tournament was a heady rush. But he said he soon realized that for him the real joy of coaching was the upward journey (the development and building of a strong team, and the challenge presented by working with teams and players who are not necessarily the cream of the crop) rather than achieving the peak of the mountain.

He confessed that he had begun feeling that he had accomplished most all of what he could with a team like the Mustangs in the Big West Conference. They’d become the anticipated/expected “best team” but would continue to be unlikely to gain the player or players who had the exceptional talent to carry a team deep into the Big Dance. Those players are not enamored to play for a team in a low-prestige conference which diminishes their opportunities to drafted by the NBA.

So he seriously looked at a wide variety of new challenges, both in the college coaching field and in other non-basketball pursuits. But by Cal Poly accomplishing the move to a new and much more challenging conference where the Mustangs at best are likely to finish in the middle of the pack and maybe even far further down in the standings, he became intrigued to see how that would play out and how he could help Cal Poly be as successful as possible.

I found it interesting to get a glimpse into his mindset and begin to understand his decision-making. But still, had it been me, I would have opted for the big money and rapid and continued success that would have come from becoming the head coach at Syracuse or Arizona or any number of other primo coaching jobs. The vagaries of different personalities and goals amongst people make life interesting, though.

[PointGuard]

Cory McCreight, 1st Assistant Coach (Recruiting)

With our sole scholarship to offer this year, we decided we preferred to recruit a very good PG, if possible. We took a shot after some really high flyers. But even though some of those 5-star players showed a little interest, it was never enough for us to seriously be considered by them. In late September we made an offer to a solid 4-star player from the West Coast. He and his family really liked the home visits Coach Aura conducted and he gave us a verbal commitment.

PG Robbie Boston is from Sedro-Woolley, Washington. As a junior last season he averaged 15.2 ppg, 6.7 apg, and 1.6 rpg. He an excellent passer and outside shooter. We’re going to have to work on his ball-handling and defense, though. The guy’s a gym rat but his work ethic is somewhat questionable. But he had a decent showing at the Indy Elite Camp and was rated in the Top 10 at the Las Vegas Revue. He’s ranked as the 61st best recruit.

[PointGuard]

Rob Benchley, Athletic Director

This year’s pre-conference schedule is unique for us. A lot of home games (which is very usual for us), but with some tough opponents. I think our fans are going to be excited to get to see some of the teams we have coming to take us on in San Luis Obispo. We also have been invited to a tournament late not too much before conference play begins. Then again our fans will get a treat as our totally new list of visiting conference opponents in our new alignment in the Mountain West Conference. It should prove to be an interesting season.

Pre-Conference Schedule

IOWA STATE
VIRGINIA TECH
@ Washington State
NORTHWESTERN
SAINT LOUIS
NORTHERN IOWA
@ Charlotte
VERMONT
HOUSTON
CHARLESTON
OREGON STATE
JAG Holiday Invitational Tournament (opening against Eastern Michigan)
@ #13 Butler

Conference Schedule

NEVADA
@Boise State
FRESNO STATE
@ Air Force
COLORADO STATE
@ San Diego State
NEW MEXICO
NEVADA-LAS VEGAS
@ Montana
@ Wyoming
UTAH STATE
@ Nevada
BOISE STATE
@ Fresno State
AIR FORCE
@ Colorado State
Mountain West Conference Tournament

[PointGuard]

C Steve Hastings

We’re ready to begin fall practices. Before we even began our first practice as a team, Coach Fed brought us all together. He told us in previous years we would have been likely to enter the season with a realistic expectation that we’d have a lot of wins, finish atop or near the top of the conference standings, and have a good chance of getting to the NCAA Tournament. But this year, with the move to the Mountain West Conference, there are no such lofty expectations. We come into the year in a kind of “no man’s land” and will have to scrap to see how well we can do.

But he said we continue to have mechanisms for control of our destiny. And those are to:
• continually have a positive attitude no matter the outcome
• work hard and smart at all times
• focus and prepare exceptionally well
• execute to the best of our abilities
• learn both from our successes and our failures, and
• remember that we often learn more from our failures than our achievements.

He said expectations of us by others are likely to be low since we’re moving up to a more competitive conference, but we should set our goals high and then do our best to achieve or exceed those. He said we’re a strong and talented team and by pulling together as a cohesive team, we will surprise others.

After experiencing some questionable coaching at North Dakota State to which I have to admit I rebelled, it’s been refreshing to play for Coach Fed, a man I’ve grown to trust. Last season I played fewer minutes than I had in my two seasons at North Dakota State and was not the guy the team depended upon to score a lot of points like things were when I played for the Bison. But I ended up having more fun and enjoying basketball again. It’s been interesting to see how Coach Fed blends all his players into games and how the guys respond to that inclusiveness. And my relationship with Coach Fed and the other coaches and my teammates has been A-1. This season we have 3 freshmen interior players to meld into our team. All 3 of them are talented so I think the coaching staff will depend on our interior game being a big part of how the team performs.

[PointGuard]

Omari Aura, 3rd Assistant Coach (player development/practice)

Fall practices went well. Our incoming freshmen worked well into our group of returning players and players pulled together and were supportive of each other. We had decided to redshirt freshman SG Will Cage. He’s got some maturing to do and we felt it might be best to give him a year to practice with the team before throwing him into the fire. But he made a good case for giving him a chance this season. So at the last minute we decided to give him on-court experience this year. He may not get a lot of minutes, but he’s OK with that.