The 2023-24 season did not start on a high note for Cal Poly Men’s Basketball, as they lost their exhibition game to Division II Cal State LA to start the season.
The Mustangs went on to win a total of four games that season, without winning any of their Big West contests.
Former head coach John Smith was let go at the end of last season after accumulating only eight total Big West Conference wins during his tenure.
In five seasons under Smith, Cal Poly went 30-117 (good for a 20.7% win percentage).
On March 26, Mike DeGeorge was named the head coach of the Mustangs, who has quickly gone to work in shaping the team in a new image.
Before DeGeorge took over Colorado Mesa, the Mavericks had won 19 games combined in the two previous seasons. In his first season, they won 19 games.
At the job before that, Rhodes College in Iowa, he took a decade-long losing program and turned it around within three seasons to win the conference championship.
DeGeorge is looking to replicate those turnarounds with his previous programs while at Cal Poly, and it starts with the roster.
Familiar Faces in a New Place
Cal Poly lost key players to graduation and to the transfer portal, namely guard Kobe Sanders, who transferred to Nevada. The Mustangs return only five players from last season.
To help replenish the ranks, head coach Mike DeGeorge brought over four players from his previous stop at Division II Colorado Mesa.
Graduate student Mac Riniker was Rocky Mountain Defensive Player of the Year in the previous two seasons at Colorado Mesa while pouring in 14 points per game.
“Anyone who has ever been around sports and loves somebody who competes, Mac is their favorite player,” DeGeorge said during the Big West Basketball Preview. ”He’s been a guy who can guard all five positions, he truly was at times our best defender at all five positions.”
Senior Isaac Jessup and graduate student Owen Koonce combined for 23 points and seven rebounds a game, with both tallying 35 or more steals apiece.
It’s not just players from Colorado Mesa that DeGeorge has brought in, junior Luka Tarlac and Lone Star Freshman Player of the Year Kieran Elliott both figure to provide an impact.
Graduate student Jarred Hyder returns as the only other double-digit scorer and as the leading ball handler.
Offensive Overhaul
The Mustangs scored 110 points in its exhibition matchup against the Caltech Beavers earlier this season.
Beating Caltech by 70 isn’t the noteworthy part of that game; it’s how they did it.
Of those 110 points, 52 came from the paint, 39 came from three-point shots, and 15 came from the free-throw line.
That leaves four points that came from a midrange shot.
In the Big West, no team averaged more than nine threes a game, and Cal Poly averaged a tick over six, which was in the middle of the pack.
That extreme disregard for midrange shots has been a hallmark of DeGeorge-coached teams. At Colorado Mesa, the Mavericks shot the third-most threes in Division II. It is part of the analytics that the team uses.
Assistant coaches Ron Dubois and Kyle Bossier both have experience in the NBA, and DeGeorge said that as a team, they have tinkered around trying to discover what translates to the college game and what doesn’t.
On the defensive end, Cal Poly ran rampant over the Beavers, collecting 16 steals and converting that into 36 points (or 2.25 points per turnover).
“If we stick to our defensive principles, that helps us get out and run,” Hyder said after the scrimmage.
However, the relative lack of size could become a problem in the interior defensively. The tallest player currently on the roster is six-foot-nine-inch senior Paul Bizimana. Bizimana had the only two blocks during the scrimmage against Caltech.
The Big West preseason poll places the Mustangs in dead last, although, with a bit of gelling and a commitment to the system, this team can make noise in the Big West Conference.
Cal Poly opens the season against the San Francisco Dons on Tuesday, Nov. 5, at 7 p.m. at The Sobrato Center.