Hamad Mousa planted his foot on the hardwood, his sneakers squeaking beneath him as he rose off the ground and launched a shot towards the basket.
His three-pointer bounced off the rim, but Guzman Vasilic – another one of Cal Poly’s eight international players – raced to the ball and collected the rebound.
“Look at Guz!” said Kyle Bossier, Cal Poly’s assistant coach. “He’s like a defensive end on a bull rush!”
The sophomore guard from Montevideo, Uruguay heard the comment, but had no idea what it meant.
Each flag represents a Cal Poly Men’s Basketball player from that country. Click on the flag to reveal the cards, and click on the card to flip and find a short description of each player.
Graphic by Trotter McLemore
“If you make a baseball reference, they have no idea,” Head Coach Mike DeGeorge said. “If you make a football reference, they have no idea. The players have no idea about anything American football.”
DeGeorge, who grew up in the Midwest, relies frequently on American sport references as analogies to describe how his team should play. Both he and assistant coach Bossier use them during practice.
“At first, they were just ignoring them,” DeGeorge explained. “They’d just be like, ‘Whatever, this American guy is crazy.’”
DeGeorge, who built a roster with the second-most international players in all of NCAA Division I, underwent changes to his coaching style to coach a team with several different native languages.
The challenges of a language barrier
In the grand scheme of things, misunderstanding American sports references during practices and explaining what running the floor “like a bat out of hell” means are smaller issues.
English being the main form of on-court communication during games presents a bigger challenge.
When noise is at its highest during a basketball game, DeGeorge explained that English-first speakers have a much easier time understanding in-game adjustments. Even during a huddle, the eight international players struggle with how much background noise there is.
“If you have a grandfather or someone that doesn’t hear as well with background noise, they just don’t pick much up,” he said. “It’s kind of the same with a second language.”
Even when the calls are heard, there is another problem.
Some players admitted to DeGeorge that they think in their native language in their head and then process it into English to communicate. This creates a split-second delay in saying what they need to.
“When you think about a game of reaction, that’s a big challenge,” DeGeorge said. “We need that communication to be timely.”
Sophomore forward Hamad Mousa acknowledged the language barrier, but noted it doesn’t play as much of a factor on the court as DeGeorge mentioned. Once they’re on the court, Mousa says “it’s just basketball.”
“Most of the basketball terms are used in every other language,” the Qatari native said.
Compound that with Cal Poly playing the fastest adjusted tempo in Division I basketball, and the factor of split-second communication delays become much more prominent. Cal Poly averages 73.6 possessions per 40 minutes, which, according to KenPom, is the most in the entire country.
“We’ve not been a great communication team,” DeGeorge said. “That’s right at the root of a lot of our issues.”
How miscommunications affect games
On offense, the Mustangs have the highest amount of turnovers in the Big West. This leads to Cal Poly averaging approximately three less possessions per game than their opponents, which matters when games come down to the wire.
On defense, the Mustangs give up more points than any other team in the Big West. While playing at a fast tempo naturally gives the other team more possessions, constantly giving up points make it harder for any offense to catch up during the game.
These defensive issues have always been apparent, but the Mustangs are improving.
Cal Poly competed against a top-five team in the conference in five of their past six games. During that stretch, they went 4-2 and allowed 79.8 points per game on average, substantially lower than their season average of 85.
Building the roster
After ten straight losing seasons, Cal Poly brought in DeGeorge from the University of Colorado Mesa, a program that made the Division II Sweet Sixteen in 2024.
While DeGeorge had a hand in recruiting, he needed global coaches to create a global team.
Assistant coach Ron Dubois, who DeGeorge has known since 2010, is one of them.
Dubois, who has coached in Mexico, France, Antigua and Barbuda, and most recently Uruguay, has created a worldwide web of connections. He’s spent time in the NBA, the NBA’s G League, NCAA Divisions I and III and multiple stops internationally.
For Cal Poly, DuBois specializes in recruiting evaluations, opponent scouting and quality control.
When DeGeorge needed an Arabic translator to help land freshman forward Ali Assran from Egypt, DuBois had the resources.
In 2021, DuBois spent one year as a sports advisor in Uruguay’s national federation of basketball, where he met and got to work with Guzman Vasilic, who played for the national team at just 15 years old.
Trusting Ron’s judgment, DeGeorge knew extensively about Vasilic prior to recruiting him. While his abilities may have flown under the radar for other coaches, DeGeorge knew that Vasilic’s IQ and work ethic would benefit the team.
“He’s a great decision maker, he can put it on the floor and finish, and he’s a very committed, hard worker on defense,” DeGeorge said. “He’s just a glue guy that connects people, and we’re just better when he’s on the floor.”
DuBois first evaluated and introduced sophomore guard Peter Bandelj as well, which inherently led them to freshman forward Austin Goode.
Bandelj spent a year playing with Goode at Royal Crown Academy, a premier basketball high school in Toronto, Canada. When Bandelj recommended his former teammate, DeGeorge looked into it.
“We really felt like he could be an elite defender, which we need, and he can make a shot,” DeGeorge said.
DeGeorge’s system leads Cal Poly back to the postseason
In the positionless system, everyone must be able to shoot the three-pointers efficiently. Even Jess Esso Essis, the freshman from France listed at 6-foot-10, plays guard and has shot the ball beyond the arc 29 times out of his 42 shot attempts.
While he only appeared in seven games so far, he is currently shooting 41.4% from three, the most efficient on the team.
“His potential is unlimited,” DeGeorge said. “For him to give us what he’s been giving us is great.”
The positionless and fast-paced system under DeGeorge proved itself over the course of the season. The Mustangs defeated almost every team in the Big West at least once.
The only exception is Cal State Northridge, who beat Cal Poly by five points or less in both matchups.
Cal Poly clinched the Big West postseason for the second year in a row and put up their best regular season record in 12 years.
From March 11-14, the Big West Championships will take place in Henderson, Nevada. The Mustangs must win four games in four days to take the title and advance to NCAA March Madness.
Cal Poly put the talent together to win the championship and finally found some consistency late in the season. The tournament will be the penultimate opportunity to showcase how well this global Cal Poly team meshed together.
