In year five of his tenure at Cal Poly, Head Coach John Smith didn’t expect to have nine newcomers on his team that have never played in the Big West. He also didn’t expect to not have some of the long standing members of his program.
“I expected to have Brantly Stevenson, Ali Koroma, and a couple of other guys still here, but the transfer portal and NIL change that,” Smith said. “So I got to find a way to try and continue to bring these guys along, and hopefully, it’ll break through, and they learn through experience.”
The Mustangs (4-12, 0-4 Big West) fell 61-52 to rival UC Santa Barbara (8-6, 1-3 Big West) in a game where both teams came in winless in conference play.
Of the nine players who stepped on the floor for the Mustangs, only four have played at least a season or more of Division I basketball prior to this year as a consistent member of a rotation.
The inexperience showed against the Gauchos as the Mustangs were within striking distance but couldn’t surmount the Gauchos’ lead due to poor offensive play and timely defensive miscues.
Guard Kobe Sanders led the way for the Mustangs with 22 points, five rebounds and five assists, all team-highs in each stat category, and also his sixth 20-point game this season. Sanders took the task of guarding Mitchell in the first half, who’s getting buzz as a possible NBA Draft selection.
Sanders used his length at 6 foot 8 to bother Mitchell and finished with six points and one assist in the first half on on two of seven shooting.
But managing Sanders’ fatigue level throughout the game has been crucial for the Mustangs. With the load he carries on offense as the primary scorer and being the main point of attack defender, Sanders has struggled to close games.
In the second half, the team decided to move Sanders off Mitchell and put freshman Quentin Jones or freshman Justin Page on Mitchell in order to preserve Sanders for the end of the game.
Mitchell only added seven more points, but he did so on 3-4 shooting. The Gauchos started to find more success in ball screen actions with Sanders out of the play.
In a key sequence with 7:30 remaining in the game, Mitchell drained a pull-up jumper coming off a screen. On the following play, the Belgium native was double-teamed high up on the floor on a pick and roll, but he patiently waited for the right moment before splitting the double team and finishing a layup.
The two back-to-back scores from Mitchell increased the lead from five to nine points, and the Mustangs never came back within a possession.
Sanders was moved onto UC Santa Barbara’s two shooters: Ben Shtolzberg and Cole Anderson. The Gaucho offense involves their two shooters running off screens to open up three-point looks. There was nowhere for Sanders to rest on defense.
Anderson led the Gauchos in scoring with 16 points on 4-6 shooting from three. Sanders was forced to sprint and maneuver through the sea of screens to contest shots.
Even after moving Sanders off Mitchell, he wasn’t able to find a break, and the fatigue started to set in late.
After starting the game off going 8-12 from the field, Sanders missed his last five shots. He was still able to get to the free throw line, but the Mustangs needed a second scorer to help Sanders throughout the game.
Jones exploded for 22 points on five three-pointers in the last game against Long Beach State but struggled against the Gauchos. Jones played only 16 minutes and finished with two points on 1-7 shooting.
Graduate Jarred Hyder came back from an ankle injury. He managed to hit two three-pointers in his first game back but couldn’t find a score anywhere else in 37 minutes.
Smith felt that the team executed on offense and got the shots they wanted but just didn’t make them.
“The name of the game is making shots, and we just didn’t get enough shots made,” Smith said.
The Mustangs shot a poor 30% from the field and 22% from distance.
However, in the prior loss against Long Beach State on Thursday, the Mustangs had their best three-point shooting game from the season, going 13-29 from three for 44% shooting, but overall from the field, they only shot 40%.
The Mustangs can’t rely on their hot and cold shooting to help them win games.
In order to find a more sustainable offense, other players outside of Sanders need to deliver a semblance of offensive production. But it all goes back to inexperience.
Poor decision-making plagues the Mustangs offense. No matter how much a typically strong defense holds up, an opposing team will make some sort of run on offense. If the Mustangs can’t respond to those runs, it will be difficult to find wins in the Big West.