Mustangs sweep another home weekend

Joe Callero has done a solid job so far this season. By Owen Main

If you voted for coach of the year right now in the Big West, UC Davis head coach Jim Les should win it going away. It’s weird to say for a 4-5 team, but for my money, Joe Callero is doing a good a job as anyone else in the Big West Conference.

The Mustangs, who lost close games at Long Beach State, Cal State Northridge, UC Davis, and at home against Hawai’i and UCSB, continue to lose players. They also continue to, somehow, get better.

Prior to this week, things didn’t look fantastic for the team. They had lost three tough conference games in a row and their already-depleted rotation was made even thinner when David Nwaba, their most athletic player and leading scorer, came down with mono. Losses to Cal State Northridge and Long Beach State at home would have put Cal Poly at-risk of a dreaded ninth-place finish in the Big West.

Instead, Cal Poly scored at least 70 points in both home games and found an edge in winning two games and moving into position to contend not just for a conference bid, but for a decent seed.

Keep in mind, the Cal Poly team that came into this weekend with kind of a strange situation. The Mustangs have basically had a six- or seven-man rotation of late. Anthony Silvestri got nine minutes and KJ Logue got two minutes on Saturday but generally the Mustangs are doing what they’re doing with six productive players. (Silvestri’s time was pretty productive on Saturday. He got three rebounds, including a rare offensive rebound, and even got himself to the free throw line. Silvestri also held his own defensively, which is saying something against Long Beach State’s longer, more athletic post players).

Let’s just contextualize it this way. Last season, Cal Poly was playing 12-13 players Cal Poly had a 4-5 Big West record at this point also.

With a slightly tougher schedule, that Cal Poly team was 8-14 overall. This year’s team? 12-11.

Perhaps last season’s team was deeper and more likely to make a conference tournament run, where depth is pretty important. But the season-long job that Callero and co. have done this year has been just as impressive, if not more so.

Photos by Owen Main

As I take photos in the second half, sometimes I stand in the corner adjacent to the end of the Cal Poly bench. There are reinforcements there, even if they won’t “arrive” until next Fall.