Mustangs stomp Gators in home opener

Joel Awich throws down a dunk in the second half. By Owen Main

On Tuesday night, playing in Mott Athletics Center for the first time since their NCAA Tournament run a season ago, the Cal Poly men’s basketball team beat Division II San Francisco State 65-44. A trio of juniors scored in double figures for the Mustangs. Brian Bennett and David Nwaba had matching lines of 13 points and seven rebounds each. Joel Awich  dropped-in ten points and grabbed finve rebounds. Reese Morgan came off the bench to play 19 minutes, scoring nine points and grabbing seven rebounds.

The Gators from San Francisco State had their shots in the first half, as offense started slowly for both teams. The score was just 4-0 in Cal Poly’s favor nearly six minutes into the game. Once the teams got going, the Mustangs went on a run and extended the lead to 32-20 at halftime.

The lead was cut down to eight points as SFSU made a run in the middle of the second half, but Cal Poly clamped their defense down and gave up only four points in the final 11:02 to win the game by 21 points.

Gators had opportunities

The Gators, who ran a Princeton-style offense, had their opportunities early. While Cal Poly kept them out of the paint, open three-pointers didn’t fall. Eventually, the Mustangs found their legs and built-up a lead that the Gators had a hard time chipping into.

Derrick Brown led all scorers with 15 points on 5-9 three-point shooting. Brown’s three-pointer in the second half brought San Francisco State to within eight points for the final time.

The health of former Parade High School All American, Reese Morgan, will make a huge impact on the success of this Cal Poly team. By Owen Main

Turn up

When San Francisco State cut Cal Poly’s 17-point second-half lead to eight points, there was a lot of energy from the visitors in purple. It seemed to fuel Cal Poly as well. Team defense turned up a notch, the ball started to really move on offense, and the Mustangs quickly put the game away.

That level of play will keep them competitive all season, but they have to maintain it for whole games. Last year, Chris Eversley and Jamal Johnson didn’t allow other players to lose that focus for long. It remains to be seen who will grab that vocal leadership role this season on the court. There are a lot of upperclassmen on this roster who are pretty soft-spoken.

I’d bet on senior Maliik Love and junior Reese Morgan to grow into being more vocal leaders on this squad over the course of the season.

Student health

Cal Poly’s been dealing with a litany of injuries. With Zach Gordon and Taylor Sutlive out for the season, the Mustangs were already thin. So when David Nwaba rolled his ankle against Nevada on Saturday, coach Joe Callero had to be beside himself.

Callero described the ankle as being softball-sized during the game in Reno. Nwaba worked hard to get the swelling down in the two days between games and didn’t look any worse for the wear on Tuesday night, throwing-down a big alley-oop to cap the first half.

Who’s at the point?

Cal Poly started point guards Ridge Shipley and Maliik Love on Tuesday. Love and Shipley both have significant experience at point guard, and whether Love has to play more at shooting guard will be something to keep track of over the course of the preseason. Love has size and strength advantages over most other point guards and Joe Callero loves an advantage like that. But Love isn’t a prototypical shooting guard and Shipley has some work to do to extend his efficiency over the course of the additional minutes he’s sure to receive this year.

San Francisco State pressed for much of the game, forcing 11 Mustang turnovers despite both guards being on the floor at the same time for a lot of the game.

Bennett on the boards

There is no question that Brian Bennett has great touch from 10-15 feet. His offensive game has always been confident and smooth, but his rebounding numbers over his first two seasons are interesting to look at. Bennett averaged 4.6 rebounds per game as a freshman and just 3.1 per game last season.

Without Chris Eversley around, Bennett may have to be more active in not just engaging the other team’s biggest player, but also ending up with the ball. So far, his numbers reflect that as he is averaging 6.5 rebounds in the two games so far. Whether Cal Poly can maintain their rebounding edge against good teams all season will be a good indicator of how they do. When you don’t score a ton of points — and Cal Poly doesn’t — finishing defensive possessions becomes really important.

Tournament match-up

We all know Cal Poly was an NCAA Tournament team a season ago, but so was their next opponent, Delaware. The Blue Hens blew-out Cal Poly last year in the Diamond State, and the Mustangs are looking for some redemption in that regard at home on Friday night.

This game will be the first time Cal Poly has hosted a match-up of NCAA Tournament teams from the previous year and it’s the only pre-conference home game Cal Poly has against Division I competition this season. With local high school football teams like Arroyo Grande in the CIF playoffs, I will be looking to see how close to packed Mott gets on Friday night at 7pm.

Photos by Owen Main

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