In the shadow of 46 consecutive Big West Conference losses spanning nearly two years, something unexpected began stirring in San Luis Obispo.
The Cal Poly men’s basketball team, long relegated to the conference cellar and written off before the season even began, was quietly assembling a band of misfits that nobody believed in.
Nobody, that is, except first-year Cal Poly Head Coach Mike DeGeorge.
The Coach Nobody Wanted to Bet On
When Cal Poly hired DeGeorge last spring, eyebrows raised across college basketball. A Division II coach from Colorado Mesa University taking over a Division I program?
The skepticism was palpable. Conventional wisdom suggested his perimeter-oriented, three-point-heavy system might work against lesser competition, but would surely crumble against Division I athletes.
“But basketball is basketball,” DeGeorge said. “We just want good people here all pulling in the same direction, treating everybody with respect.”
His first move was bringing four of his Colorado Mesa players with him. Graduate wing Owen Koonce, graduate guard Mac Riniker, senior guard Isaac Jessup and senior forward Ethan Menzies. Followed their coach into what looked like basketball purgatory.
A program that hadn’t won a conference game since 2022. A program that had become an afterthought, regularly playing to empty seats in Mott Athletics Center. A program that, since its magical 2013-14 NCAA Tournament run, had won just two Big West Tournament games.
The Players Nobody Else Wanted
Look around the Cal Poly locker room and you’ll find stories of being overlooked everywhere.
Koonce walked onto the University of Colorado as a freshman and transferred in his second year to Mesa, now averaging 17.2 points per game with eye-popping shooting splits (52.4% FG, 39.8% 3PT, 89% FT). He leads the team in scoring and rebounding (4.9 per game), proving his shooting translates to any level of basketball.
Jessup also walked onto the University of Colorado in 2020 before transferring to Colorado Mesa in his second year. He now ranks among college basketball’s top 15 three-point shooters nationally, connecting on 43.4% of his attempts from beyond the arc.
“If I get space, I’m going to let it fly,” Jessup said with confidence. “My teammates trust me to hit those shots. It’s a good feeling.”
Then there’s Riniker, the 6-foot 5-inch defensive menace who guards opponents’ best players regardless of position. Undersized by Division I standards, Riniker leads the team with 48 steals and makes his presence felt on every defensive possession, averaging 4.1 fouls per game as a badge of honor for his physical play.
Jarred Hyder, the graduate guard now averaging 14.3 points and leading the team in assists, arrived at Cal Poly after previous stops elsewhere left him injury-riddled and undervalued.
Perhaps most remarkable is the freshman class.
Guard Cayden Ward began the season as a walk-on with zero Division I offers. Now he’s logging crucial minutes, averaging seven points and three rebounds while showing the confidence of a seasoned veteran.
Guard Peter Bandelj, an international freshman from Slovenia, plays with a fearlessness that belies his age. Guard Guzman Vasilic is the only Uruguayan actively playing NCAA men’s basketball.
“When I came here and when I was recruited, that was my main goal,” Bandelj said. “I knew we could do it in December. I knew we were a good team.”
The System Nobody Thought Would Work
DeGeorge didn’t just bring players—he imported an entire basketball philosophy that experts claimed wouldn’t translate to Division I.
His three-point revolution has transformed Cal Poly into the Big West’s most explosive offense. The Mustangs lead the conference in scoring (81.7 points per game), a shocking turnaround for a program that previously struggled to break 60. They also lead the Big West in both three-pointers made and attempted while ranking third nationally in three-point attempts per game.
“Our style gets criticized a lot,” DeGeorge acknowledges. “But when you’re undersized in every game like we are, you have to find advantages elsewhere. We spread the floor, we shoot the three, we play fast.”
Over their last five crucial games, as the Mustangs fought for tournament eligibility, they’ve averaged a blistering 94 points per game while shooting over 45% from beyond the arc. The system that “wouldn’t work” has found its rhythm at precisely the right moment.
The Season Nobody Saw Coming
The beginning of conference play threatened to continue the pattern of disappointment.
Despite a promising non-conference performance (6-6, including a historic win over Stanford), the Mustangs opened Big West play with eight consecutive losses, extending their conference losing streak to a staggering 46 games.
“The start of the conference season took us all a little bit by surprise,” DeGeorge said. “We had some bad circumstances with injuries, and we faced some of the tougher teams with difficult scheduling early on.”
And then it happened. The streak ended. One win became two. Two became three.
Suddenly, a program picked to finish dead last in the Big West preseason poll was surging up the standings, playing meaningful games in February and March.
With their victory over Long Beach State, the Mustangs officially clinched a spot in the Big West Tournament in Las Vegas, a great turnaround for a program that seemed perpetually stuck at the bottom of the standings in past seasons.
“Playing your best basketball coming into March is one of the most important things,” Bandelj said.
For Hyder, who has witnessed the program at its lowest, this moment represents vindication.
“It’s going to take all of us to put our best foot forward,” Hyder said. “We know what’s at stake, we’re ready to go get it.”
The Future Nobody Can Ignore
As the Mustangs prepare for the Big West Tournament, they carry with them the echoes of the 2014 Cal Poly team that shocked the conference as a No. 7 seed, winning three games in three days to secure an NCAA Tournament bid.
This team lacks the future NBA talent of that squad (which featured David Nwaba), but they compensate with greater offensive firepower and a chip on their shoulder the size of Bishop Peak.
“It’s a group that you want to cheer for with how hard they try and how connected they are to each other,” DeGeorge said.
Win or lose in Henderson, this Cal Poly team has already accomplished something remarkable: they’ve changed the program’s trajectory and restored belief in what’s possible. Breaking the losing streak removed a psychological barrier that had haunted the program for years. Establishing a clear identity gives future recruits a vision of how they might fit.
Most importantly, a collection of transfers, international players, walk-ons and overlooked talents found a home in San Luis Obispo and decided to rewrite a story everyone thought was already finished.
“The job’s not finished,” Bandelj said. “It’s only getting harder.”
For a program that endured 46 consecutive conference defeats, that attitude represents perhaps the most significant change of all, the expectation of success rather than the anticipation of failure.
After years in the wilderness, Cal Poly men’s basketball matters again.
