Cal Poly vs. UCSB Big West Tournament Day-Two Blog

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7:10 AM Mountain Time.The Next Day.

Happy Saturday morning. I’m quite tired, but have a few recap thoughts this morning.

Looking back on the game, the Mustangs were doing fine until the final 9 minutes. During that time, UCSB went on an 18-5 run. While Cal Poly’s offense was a little more “spurty” this season, they had a hard time scoring in crunch-time. Will Taylor being injured at the end didn’t help, to be sure.

Let’s looks at a few things I predicted:

* Cal Poly shouldn’t shoot more than 15 3’s.

Teams push up on Royer and allow three-pointers from other players, especially when Odister isn’t in the game. Cal Poly was 7-19 from behind the arc including 3 straight misses during the final UCSB run. Their overall percentage wasn’t bad, but it was REALLY good before the final few minutes and they shot themselves out of the advantage from behind the arc.

* Cal Poly needs a big game from at least one of their starting seniors.

David Hanson had a monster game. His 19 points capped a season during which no Mustangs player scored 20 points in a game. Fermin also had a productive game with 11 points, despite only dishing one assist. Will Taylor only scored six points and his not being involved down the stretch hurt Cal Poly. After being one of the most consistent scorers on the team during the second half of the season, sophomore Chris Eversley scored only four points in the game.

Throughout the season, Coach Callero pointed to turnover differential as a key to winning. Cal Poly only turned the ball over 8 times, which is a great number. Unfortunately, they could only force 3 UCSB turnovers for the entire game. This meant that there weren’t many/any easy buckets for the Mustangs as was proven out by their scoring under 50 points in the game.

One of the things I love so much about college basketball is how close the difference between winning and losing is. Games turn on a few plays and games this time of year are SO unpredictable. Here’s to a fun rest of March!

10:56

So that’ll just about do it.

A few thoughts I have as the game winds down-

1) Orlando Johnson is REALLY good.

2) Letting Serna get off early was not a good thing.

3) David Hanson, Will Taylor, and Amaurys Fermin shouldn’t hang their heads. Along with Jordan Lewis, Matt Titchenal, and Will Donahue, they all contributed and will be missed.

4) James Nunnally trying to dunk at the end of the game was pretty much classless. He’s a senior, right? Maybe that’s something Callero can remind his team of next year when they play UCSB. I’m glad Donahue gave a hard foul there.The Mustangs weren’t trying to foul. They were just letting UCSB run out the clock. I’m OK with it in that situation.

5) The Mustangs made a little headway as a program this year, but they lost six seniors including 3-4 starters. Given their start to the season and the number of seniors they had, many people expected more than a second-round exit.

So long from Fansmanship. We’ll be posting some pictures tomorrow.

10:38

Under 6:00 left now and Poly’s offense looks not so good. They’ve shot 3 straight 3’s and are getting dangerously close to the 15 3-pointer milestone. While they are taking open shots, it’s Eversley and Johnson who are taking them, not Royer. If I’m UCSB I’m happy with that.

Poly needs to get some inside or mid-range shooting back.

Luckily for the Mustangs, UCSB has remained cold along with them and is only up by 1 with about 5 minutes left.

10:30

Listen, I know I’m in a hotel, but ESPN3 commercials are really starting to bug me. While the game is quite pixelated (expected because of the slow hotel Internet), the commercials refuse to adjust accordingly. This means that they are choppy and take longer than the commercial break.

This means that, at this moment, I am hating on Norelco and Dove.

Meanwhile, Cal Poly is hanging tough, taking a 47-46 lead with under 9:00 left.

10:15

Early in the second half, it looks like Will Taylor is hurt. That’s not good for Cal Poly.

Also not good is the fact that Hornbuckle, Serna, and Boswell have 16 points between them already.

Gauchos by 1 with 16:03 to play.

9:55

Orlando Johnson gets a buzzer-beater to go at halftime, giving the Gauchos a one-point advantage. In a game where mistakes are magnified, the first half has been relatively clean. Despite the fact that Cal Poly has only turned the ball over four times, the Gauchos played an even cleaner first half, turning it over just twice.

If UCSB continues to play this cleanly, they will be tough to beat. I wonder if Cal Poly has anything up their sleeve for the second half like last night? Good game so far. 32-31 UCSB.

9:43

So Orlando Johnson makes two 3-pointers in a row, but this shouldn’t be a surprise for the Mustangs. Johnson will score. So will Nunnally. The Mustangs shouldn’t be surprised by that. While you want to hold those guys down, if you hold down Serna and Williams, then Johnson and Nunnally putting up 20 each won’t be as big a deal.  Cal Poly up by one late in the first half.

9:32

Christian Petersen got a bloody nose. Having been at altitude over 6,000 feet for the past 14 days, I can say I know the feeling. The break ruined a little of Cal Poly’s momentum I think. Maliik Love doesn’t pay attention to that though and, after having some pine time leading up to the conference tournament, Love has contributed in each of the last two games.

Will Taylor is talking on the floor. He’s loud enough that I can hear him on the broadcast, which I think bodes well for Cal Poly. 18-11 Mustangs with just under eight minutes remaining in the first half.

9:25

UCSB starts 3-13 from the field. I’m not a math major, but that seems like a good percentage for the Mustangs’ defense.

9:20

The pace of this game favors the Mustangs, but they I wouldn’t describe their start as “sharp.”

9:15

Hey ESPN3, I like your service, but when I have hotel-level bandwidth, I don’t need to see parts of Shaq and Tom Izzo talking about Dove products… . Back to the game.

9:12

Well, I said the Mustangs needed to keep Jaime Serna down and he is 3-3 for the first six points for the Gauchos. Not a good start.

8:50

ESPN3 (also called WatchESPN now) is really a good invention. Recently, the wife and I decided to get rid of Cable/Satellite completely. We have an old-school antenna, Hulu Plus, and Netflix. I was worried about my sports fix, but I think ESPN3 will help with a lot of that. Also having friends who have the sports packages will help. The social experiment on how long those people can stand me continuing to come over and watch sports remains something of a mystery. I’ll keep you updated. Or not.

Like I said earlier, Orlando Johnson (19.8 ppg) and James Nunnally (15.7 ppg) are going to get theirs. In order to beat UCSB, the Mustangs must keep high percentage shooters like Jaime Serna from having better-than-average games. Serna shoots 62 percent from the field and is the Gauchos’ third-leading scorer at 8.7 points per game.

8:35

Wow. I knew this game would be late, but not this late… . Maybe the late feeling has something to do with the fact that I’m a time zone away and this game won’t be over until around midnight local (Colorado) time. Lucky for me I’m going back to California tomorrow. If the Mustangs beat the Gauchos, I’ll “get off the bus” at LAX to make it to the men’s final. If not, I’ll be back in SLO before 5pm.

I like the way this game is shaping up for Cal Poly. It’s difficult to beat the same team three times in a row and that’s what UCSB is up against tonight. Coach Callero will certainly have something up his sleeve for the Mustangs’ geographic rival. Should be a good game.

5:50

Amaurys Fermin (16 points vs. UC Riverside last night) and the Mustangs are trying to get to the Big West Conference Final for the first time during Joe Callero's 3-years in San Luis Obispo. Photo by Bryce Ashland

Again, I’ll be going old-school, pre-twitter blogstyle today — blogging about the Cal Poly-UCSB semifinal Big West Tournament matchup.

First thing’s first. I want to congratulate the Lady Mustangs on a second fantastic season in a row. They were bounced in the semifinals today by Long Beach State, who slowed down the tempo, hung in for long enough, and pulled away at the end. At some point we’ll be able to say, “Sure they finished first in the regular season for the second year in a row, but why can’t they win in the tournament.” While this is a high-class problem that many teams would love to have, I prefer to take at least some time to reflect on and be thankful for Kristina Santiago and her all-time career scoring mark. To say that there won’t be a player like that at Cal Poly for a while/ever is not an exaggeration.

Here’s hoping Santiago, a senior, hasn’t played her last game for the Mustangs. According to Cal Poly’s website, they still have a chance to get into the Women’s NIT like they did last year. The selection for that is next Tuesday, I believe. I’ll consult my sources about whether an invitation for Cal Poly is actually a plausible possibility.

As for the men, they played one of their more complete games of the season last night in a victory over UC Riverside. Amaurys Fermin scored 16 points to lead Cal Poly and tonight they’ll face the UCSB Gauchos in a renewal of the Blue/Green rivalry.

To win tonight, the Mustangs must have at least one 16+ point performance from one of their senior starters — David Hanson, Will Taylor, or Fermin along with solid performances from the other two. They need to turn the ball over less than 12 times and shoot fewer than 15 3-pointers. If I were a color analyst, those would be my keys for the Mustangs.

They have to hold UCSB to about 60 points because they aren’t going to score more than 65 or 70.

Last night’s game was a total team effort. Nine Mustangs played within the first 8 minutes of the game and they all scored. This will have to continue for Cal Poly to win.

For UCSB, the usual offensive keys are Orlando Johnson and James Nunnaly. While they are going to get their points, you’ll want to keep an eye throughout the game on UCSB’s field goal percentage. While the Mustangs gave up over 50% shooting to UCR in the first half last night, they tightened things up to only allow the Highlanders a 33% field goal percentage in the second half, when they outscored UCR by 18 points. UCSB shot 46% from the field last night against Pacific and if Cal Poly expects to win, they’ll have to hold them closer to 40% for the game.

Tonight’s game will be broadcast on ESPN3 and, of course will feature Tom Barket on the radio for the Mustangs.

And for you Gaucho fans, here’s a stupid fast break dunk by Orlando Johnson. By ‘stupid’ I mean stupid-awesome.