Jonathan Sze is a journalism senior and sports reporter and columnist for Mustang News. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Mustang Media Group.
With the Big West season hitting its stride, the month of January had their fair share of ups and downs for Men’s Basketball.
Despite the Mustangs (9-15, 5-7 Big West) currently sitting in the last playoff spot for the Big West tournament in March, they are just two games away from the No. 4 seed (ignoring tiebreakers). The tight midpack race also works against Cal Poly, as Long Beach State sits just one game back from the eighth seed.
Cal Poly scraped both the ceiling and floor of this iteration of its squad all in the span of about 15 days. Overall they came out with a 4-5 record in January, but with just eight games remaining until the tournament, the team needs to catch fire quickly to secure a spot in the Big West postseason tournament.
The ceiling
Let’s start with the positives, they opened up the new year with a statement win at home against defending Big West champs UC San Diego.
Yes, UC San Diego lost all of their starters and head coach Eric Olen from their 2024-25 Big West championship squad, but the Tritons looked just as strong, heading into the game 11-3 on the year.
It wasn’t particularly pretty, but hey, when you send the final score out to the Big West they don’t ask you to rate your play on a scale from 1-10 to get the win.
Being down for the majority of the night, Cal Poly clawed and clawed, finally getting back ahead on a beautiful drive and finish from Peter Bandelj.
Against a premier Big West squad, Cal Poly dug deep despite the rough shooting night and won playing team basketball.
After the game head coach Mike DeGeorge said that Cal Poly had the three best wins in the Big West: at Seattle, at Utah and versus UCSD.
That statement was truer on New Year’s day than it is at the end of the month, but all three are still quality squads and great wins to have under the teams belt.
The team also finished the month off strong. After a trio of losses that could have sent the team down the path to the valley of unhappiness, the Mustangs responded strong with wins.
Against Bakersfield the bench came alive on the back of Troy Plumtree’s 31 points, a game where Cal Poly broke the century mark and won by 25 points. The game against Riverside had another balanced Mustang attack, with Austin Goode and Jess Esso Essis scoring in double digits.
When Cal Poly gets contributions from its bench, it’s a dangerous team. Teams can’t key in on just the three main scorers in Bandelj, Hamad Mousa and Cayden Ward, and those players can get breaks without the offense stalling out while they sit on the bench.
The floor
Now to the not so good.
Not much went right against Hawai’i on Jan 15. The basket had a lid on it at times, and while the Mustangs were buoyed by strong defensive play in the first half, in the second half it all fell apart.
After the game DeGeorge pinned the loss on the team’s emotional immaturity, players were unable to move on to the next play and got stuck playing isolation.
You didn’t need to be an expert to know something was amiss that night. A free-flowing offense that likes to run was ground to a halt.
One bad game happens, and with a week-long break before the Blue-Green rivalry game in Santa Barbara there was plenty of time for the team to get themselves right.
They didn’t. Cal Poly got outplayed by Santa Barbara in every aspect of the game. The Gauchos shot a scorching 82% from the field in the first half, and never looked back with a 26 point lead at half. Defensive miscues were plentiful, the Gauchos hit some tough shots but for every tough shot there was a defensive breakdown springing someone free.
Their next game against Cal State Fullerton wasn’t a particularly close game either, the Titans out muscled the Mustangs at Mott Athletics Center. However, it was a little bit of a turning point, with Essis making his debut as a Mustang and giving a strong 17 minutes off the bench.
Looking ahead
With eight games to play and hovering just under .500, Cal Poly is in a decent spot to make the tournament.
Going just 5-4 and getting to .500 will get this team in the postseason, but this squad has an opportunity to make up ground on some of the top seeds.
The remaining games look like this:, UC Davis, UC Irvine (x2), UC Santa Barbara, Hawai’i, Long Beach, UC San Diego and Bakersfield. All very winnable games and the majority of them against teams above Cal Poly in the standings.
If the team plays like they did to bookend the month of January, Cal Poly has a great shot to earn a bye and make a run in the tournament.
If they play like they did in the middle of the month, the road to Vegas is filled with potholes and another bad stretch could mean the bus breaks down before they have the chance to get there.