Mustangs Head South This Week to Face Long Beach State and Fullerton

Thursday, January 26

Long Beach, CA

7 P.M.

Long Beach State

Photo by: Kayla Stuart | Cal Poly Athletics

Mustangs Head South This Week to Face Long Beach State and Fullerton

1/24/2023 4:57:00 PM | Women's Basketball

WEEKLY NOTES (PDF)

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Coming off a busy week last week in which they played three games, two of which were at home, the Cal Poly women's basketball team will hit the road this week in southern California for a pair of games.

The Mustangs (5-11, 2-6 BW) will face Long Beach State Thursday at 7 p.m. followed by Cal State Fullerton Saturday at 6 p.m.

Both games will be streamed live on ESPN+. Links to that as well as live stats to follow can be found on the schedule page.

The Mustangs, who have already won more games this year than last season, will be seeing The Beach for the second and final time of the regular season when they tip things off on Thursday. Long Beach State won the first matchup earlier this season at Mott Athletics Center. This will be the first meeting this season with Cal State Fullerton.

There has already been plenty of improvement by the Mustangs this year under first year head coach Shanele Stires. During non-conference play, Cal Poly picked up three wins, matching its win total from all of last season. They have since collected two more wins during conference play to surpass its overall win total from last season and has already matched the two conference wins they had last year. They are doing this despite being hit by several injuries this year which led to only nine players being available in the last game against UC Davis.

It's been defense that has been the calling card for the Mustangs this season. In all five of Cal Poly's wins so far, the Mustangs have held opponents to 53 points or less.

Sophomore guard Annika Shah continues to lead the team in scoring at 10.4 points per game while also leading the team is assists at 2.6 per game. Shah also has two blocks for the season and, at 5'3, is the second shortest player in Division I to record a block this year. Only Oklahoma's Nevaeh Tot, who is 5'2, is shorter who has a block.

Following Saturday's game against the Titans, the Mustangs will host Blue-Green rival UCSB Thursday, Feb. 2 before traveling out to face Hawai'i on the island Saturday, Feb. 4.

Scouting LBSU: After starting out conference play 2-2, Long Beach State has won four games in a row to move up into a tie for second in the Big West standings. As a team, The Beach lead the Big West and rank seventh in the nation in steals at 12.6 per game, are second in scoring defense while leading the conference in field goal percentage, shooting 44 percent while also boasting the best turnover margin in the conference. Two of their players rank in the top seven in the Big West in scoring, led by guard Tori Harris' 13.4 per game.

Scouting Cal State Fullerton: The Titans head into the week having lost four of their last six. In their last game, they beat CSUN 70-67. As a team, they rank second in the conference in shooting from beyond the arc at 34 percent while leading it in free throw shooting at 76 percent. Senior guard Fujika Nimmo leads the team in scoring at 15.3 points per game, which ranks second in the Big West. She's had six games of scoring over 20 points this season.

Shah Leads The Scoring: Sophomore guard Annika Shah leads the Mustangs in scoring this season at 10.4 points per game. That's an improvement of more than six points more than what she averaged as a freshman last season, the biggest jump of anyone on the team. She's scored in double figures seven times, including over 20 twice and has led the team in scoring in seven of the 16 games so far.

Returning Mustangs: Despite losing two starters from last year, Cal Poly brings back plenty from last year's team. Two of the team's top three scorers are back this year.

Senior guard Maddie Willett returns after being second on the team in scoring last year at 8.9 ppg while leading the team in made threes and three point percentage.

Senior forward Julia Nielacna is also back after averaging 8.3 ppg last season while playing in 24 of 25 games and starting 11.

In addition to those two, there are five players back this season who played in at least 22 games last year.

New Stangs: Cal Poly added seven newcomers to this year's team, four freshmen and three Division I transfers. The three transfers consist of graduate student Nikola Kovacikova, graduate student Oumou Toure, and junior Taylor Wu.

Kovacikova comes to Cal Poly after previously playing at both Penn and Georgetown. Last season at Penn, she played in 19 games with eight starts. Off the court, she earned Penn's Norman J. Goldring Prize and George H. Frazier Prize which is given to a senior female student-athlete with the highest GPA. She spent her first two collegiate seasons at Georgetown. As a sophomore in 2019-20, she appeared in 27 games with 12 starts and was the Hoyas' third-leading scorer, averaging 7.9 ppg.

Toure comes to Cal Poly after having spent the last three years at Butler. She played her freshman season before missing the next two due to injury and the COVID pandemic. As a freshman in 2019-20, she was named to the Big East All-Freshman Team. That season, she appeared in 27 games, making 20 starts and ranked second on the team in scoring at 9.1 points per game while shooting 46 percent from the field to go along with 6.1 rebounds per game. She also led the Big East and ranked 45th in the NCAA in steals per game at 2.33.

Wu spent the last three seasons at California Baptist University where she played in 70 career games. She made her mark as a freshman in 2019-20, averaging 6.6 ppg, 1.7 rpg, 1.7 apg in 18.4 minutes per game. She broke the program's freshman single game scoring record after dropping 37 points against Ottawa (AZ) and in the same game broke the program record for threes made in a game with 10.

As a sophomore, she started 19 of 27 games, averaging 8.9 ppg, 1.7 apg, and 21.9 minutes per game. She scored in double figures 11 times including a season-high 15 against Pepperdine.