Mustangs Face Cal State Fullerton Tuesday in First Round of Big West Tournament

Tuesday, March 8

Henderson, NV

2:30 P.M.

Cal State Fullerton

Mustangs Face Cal State Fullerton Tuesday in First Round of Big West Tournament

3/7/2022 1:54:00 PM | Women's Basketball

WEEKLY NOTES (PDF)
BIG WEST TOURNAMENT BRACKET

HENDERSON, Nev. — After playing its final two games of the regular season last week on the road, the 10th-seeded Cal Poly women's basketball team will head to Henderson, Nev. to open the Big West Conference Tournament against No. 7 Cal State Fullerton Tuesday in the first round. Tip time from the brand-new Dollar Loan Center is set for 2:30 p.m. Chris Sylvester will play-by-play for each of Cal Poly's games on ESPN 1280 and on GoPoly.com. Additionally, the game will be streamed live on ESPN+. Those links can be found on the schedule page. The winner of Tuesday's game advances to face No. 2 UC Irvine Wednesday at 6 p.m., who the Mustangs just fell to on Thursday in Irvine, 67-66. Tuesday's matchup against the Titans (10-17, 5-12 BWC) will mark the first time the Mustangs (3-21, 2-13 BWC) will face them in the Big West Tournament since the 2014-15 season when they met in the quarterfinals. Cal State Fullerton won that game 55-48 to end Cal Poly's season that year. Overall, Cal Poly is 2-1 against the Titans in the Big West Tournament and 33-32 all-time against them. The Mustangs beat Cal State Fullerton in their lone game this year on Feb. 3, 61-52 inside Mott Athletics Center. Junior guard Maddie Vick continues to lead the Mustangs in scoring (10.1 ppg), assists (3.6 apg), and minutes (35.4 per game). Her 35.4 minutes per game ranks third amongst Big West players while her 3.6 assists per game is sixth in the Big West. She's also second on the team in steals (24) and third in rebounding (4.1 per game). She has scored in double figures 13 times this season and dished out five or more assists eight times, including a career-high nine against Cal St. Fullerton. Junior guard Maddie Willett is second on the team in scoring (8.8 ppg) and leads the team in made threes (32) and three-point percentage (29.9). She's scored double digits eight times this year, including a career-high 20 points against Northern Arizona on Dec. 13. As a team, Cal Poly has been strong on the boards this year. The Mustangs rank second in the Big West in offensive rebounds per game (11.5) and third in defensive rebounds per game (26.9). The Titans have been led all year by Big West Freshman of the Year guard Lily Wahinekapu. She's fifth in the Big West in scoring at 14.5 points per game and fourth in assists at 3.7 per game. As a team, they rank fourth in the Big West in field goal percentage (40.1) and fifth in steals (7.8 per game). Cal State Fullerton lost its last four games of the regular season, including its final two games last week to No. 4 seed UC Riverside and No. 6 seed UC Davis. Cal Poly has reached the semifinals of the Big West Tournament each of the last two years. Last year, they beat Long Beach State in the quarterfinals on a Maddie Willett buzzer-beater before falling to UC Irvine in the semifinals. In the 2019-20 season, the Mustangs beat Long Beach State in the first round and UC Irvine in the quarterfinals to reach the semifinals. Their semifinal game against UC Davis was then canceled due to COVID shutting down the rest of the tournament. Returning Mustangs: Despite losing their top-two scorers from last season that accounted for about 50-percent of the team's scoring, 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. 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.