Mustangs split the weekend

Cal Poly men’s basketball turned the ball over with, what was for them, a reckless abandon on Thursday night in Northridge. Eighteen turnovers was double what they’ve averaged in recent years and CSUN took advantage of the Mustang miscues to erase an eight-point deficit in the second half and win the game 76-74. On Saturday night in Fullerton, Cal Poly corrected turnovers in a big way, giving the ball away just twice in a 83-75 win at Titan Gym.

Reese Morgan is averaging 30 minutes per game for Cal Poly in Big West play — tops on the team. He is also an 84 percent free throw shooter. By Owen Main

Boards matter?

Last weekend at home, Joe Callero was focused on rebounding margin as an indicator of how Cal Poly was playing, but this weekend, that margin was all backwards. On Thursday, Cal Poly out-rebounded CSUN by 10 (by four on the offensive side), and lost the game.

Saturday afternoon, the tables were turned. Cal State Fullerton out-rebounded Cal Poly 42-29, including 16-9 on the offensive end, but Cal Poly somehow managed to pull the game out anyway.

Minimizing miscues

The way Cal Poly won the game on Saturday, despite being out-rebounded so dramatically, was by taking care of the ball. Two turnovers was the lowest total in the Joe Callero era and might be the least ever. Cal Poly only turned the Titans over 12 times in the game, but a margin of 10 turnovers is something that’s generally hard to overcome. If Cal Poly can control turnovers, it would be one way to off-set their not-great defensive efficiency moving forward.

Bombs away

Cal Poly sports two shooters ranked highly in all of Division I from behind the three point line. Sophomore Taylor Sutlive is shooting 50.7 percent from distance, good for 12th in the nation. Senior Reese Morgan isn’t so bad himself at 43.2 percent. For much of yesterday’s game, Morgan and Sutlive were on the floor at the same time to try to create space for post players like Brian Bennett, Joel Awich, and Luke Meikle.

Ridge Shipley started Saturday’s win at Fullerton, though 10 guys on Cal Poly could be in the game at any given time. By Owen Main

Rolling 10 deep

Cal Poly continues to play 10 guys double-digit minutes. I’ll have more analysis of this, but it’s something I always wonder about — can a team who plays 10 guys consistently be a great team? I guess we’ll find out over the course of the next few months of Big West Conference play.

Women split, too

Beth Balbierz was freaking clutch on Thursday night. With Cal Poly down 3 to visiting CSUN, Balbierz took an inbounds pass and sunk a game-tying three-pointer with .2 left on the clock. The Mustangs would go on to win the game in overtime by a final of 66-62.

On Saturday afternoon, though, UC Davis was too good for Cal Poly, beating them handily 75-57, despite a big crowd of 1,840 -mainly middle school students and their families — in attendance. Middle schoolers can be loud when prompted, and they helped Cal Poly hang with the Aggies for much of the first half, but Davis built-up an 8-point advantage at halftime and out-scored Cal Poly 21-14 in the third quarter to take a commanding lead.

This Cal Poly team hasn’t been the one that scored crazy points in previous seasons. They’ve scored in the 50’s in two of their past three games and as teams continue to do a good job scouting them, a question will be whether they can adjust and fight for a top-half seed in this year’s competitive Big West.