Mustangs Close Out Regular Season This Week at UC Irvine, UC San Diego

Thursday, March 3

Irvine, CA

7 P.M.

UC Irvine

Photo by: Owen Main | Cal Poly Athletics

Mustangs Close Out Regular Season This Week at UC Irvine, UC San Diego

3/2/2022 2:43:00 PM | Women's Basketball

WEEKLY NOTES (PDF)

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Gearing up for next week's Big West Tournament in Henderson, Nev., the Cal Poly women's basketball team will play its final two games of the regular season this week on the road.

The Mustangs (3-19, 2-11 BWC) will face UC Irvine Thursday at 7 p.m. and UC San Diego Saturday at 4 p.m. Both games will be aired on ESPN+ with links for those as well as live stats on the schedule page.

Graduate forward Kirsty Brown is set to become Cal Poly's all-time leader in career games played Thursday against UC Irvine. She is currently tied with Jonae Ervin at 124 games.

Cal Poly is coming off losses last week to CSU Bakersfield and Hawai'i. Against the Roadrunners, three Mustangs scored in double figures led by junior forward Julia Nielacna's season-high 21 points as Cal Poly fell 85-71.

Then in the home finale against the Rainbow Wahine, junior guard Maddie Vick finished with a team-leading 14 points, her 12^th time scoring double figures this year while Nielacna added 11 points as Hawai'i won 73-49.

Vick continues to lead Cal Poly in scoring (10.5 ppg) and assists (3.8 per game), which ranks fifth in the Big West. She also leads the Mustangs and is third in Big West in minutes per game (36.6). She has played 35+ minutes in 17 games this year.

Junior guard Maddie Willett is second on the team in scoring at 9.1 points per game. She also leads Cal Poly in made threes (31) and three-point percentage (31.0). Her 1.4 threes made per game ranks tied for 12th in the Big West.

As a team, Cal Poly is second in offensive rebounds per game (11.8) and fourth in defensive rebounds per game (27.3).

The Anteaters (17-10, 12-4 BWC) currently sit in second in the Big West standings. They are coming off a pair of wins last week against Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State. Leaders in the Big West in scoring at 66.6 points per game, they are led by Kayla Williams' 14.6 ppg which ranks fifth in the conference. UC Irvine took the first game of the season series Jan. 29 in San Luis Obispo and has won the last four meetings. However, the Mustangs lead the all-time series 37-28.

The Tritons (11-14, 8-8 BWC) head into the week winners of two of their last three games. Sydney Brown paces UCSD at 12.4 points per game which ranks 10^th in the Big West. Brown is also fourth in the conference in rebounding at 8.0 per game. The Tritons won the first matchup this season in San Luis Obispo on Jan. 27, 69-58.

Brown Nearing Program Record: Kirsty Brown, a fifth-year player, needs to play in just one more game to become the Mustangs' program leader in career games played. The record is 124 and she is currently tied with 124.

Returning Mustangs: The Mustangs return a total of eight players from last season. Those include junior guard Maddie Willett who started 23 of 24 games last year and was third on the team in scoring at 7.8 points per game and had seven games in which she scored double figures.

Graduate forward Kirsty Brown returns for her fifth season. Last year, she was fourth on the team in scoring 6.4 points per game, second in rebounding at 5.6 per game, and had three double-doubles.

Junior guard Maddie Vick played in all 24 games last season and came off the bench to lead the team in assists per game at 2.8. She also ranked third in the Big West in assist-to-turnover ratio at 2.6.

New Stangs: Cal Poly will have plenty of youth on this year's team as they welcome six freshmen. The Mustangs also added two Division I transfers in redshirt freshman guard Sarah Dumitrescu from Ole Miss and junior forward Julia Nielacna from San Francisco.

At USF, Nielacna was second on the team in scoring as a freshman in 2019-20. Last year, she averaged 8.0 points per game while shooting 44-percent from the field and 35-percent from three.

As a freshman last season at Ole Miss, Dumitrescu averaged 4.5 points and 7.3 rebounds per game in six games before missing the rest of the season due to injury.