Cal Poly drops fourth straight in loss to Anteaters

After winning two home games a few weeks ago, Cal Poly men’s basketball has dropped four straight games and find themselves in the middle of a three team battle for the final two seeds in the Big West Tournament. 

On Saturday, the Mustangs (3-10 in Big West play) lost 75-58 loss to UC Irvine. Now, they find themselves in a de-facto 8th place. In reality, the Mustangs are tied for 7th with CSUN, but the Matadors beat Cal Poly in Northridge earlier this season, giving them the current tiebreaker over the ‘stangs. In 9th place, just one game behind Cal Poly and CSUN, lies UC Riverside. After losing their first seven conference games, the Highlanders have won two of their last four to get within striking distance.

All three teams will play each other once over the final two weeks of the regular season. For what it’s worth, Cal Poly’s win over UCSB could be an ace in the hole. After head-to-head records (they are 1-0 vs. UCR and 0-1 vs. CSUN), the next tiebreaker is how they did against the teams that finished at the top. Cal Poly’s conference-opening win against UCSB (currently the top team in the Big West) could give them a slight advantage if they split a season series with a team they’re tied with at the end. 

Down early

After getting down early on Thursday night, Cal Poly head coach Joe Callero talked candidly about how they need to play better early in the game. Less than 10 minutes into the next game, Cal Poly was down by 20. 

As they’ve done most of the year, Cal Poly went on a few runs and battled-back, but getting yourself in a 10-20 point deficit on a nightly basis is clearly something that’s frustrated Callero.

Hitting the glass

Grit and toughness were concepts he alluded to in the post-game press conference. Cal Poly was out-rebounded by UCI 43-22, including a 10-2 advantage on the offensive glass in the first half. UCI is one of the best rebounding teams in the nation, but to get beat in a way that the other team gets nearly twice as many rebounds is illustrative of the night the Mustangs had Saturday. 

Long Ball

Cal Poly’s three point shooting isn’t directly correlated with their success, but it can be some kind of bell-weather. The Mustangs shot 17-55 this past weekend. That’s just a little under 31 percent. To get wins against teams like UCI and UC Davis over the last few weeks of conference play, that number will have to be closer to 40 percent.

Coming up

Cal Poly hosts CSUN on Thursday night in a game that could go a long way to determining who goes to the Big West Tournament. 

Photos by Owen Main.

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