Cal Poly Hosts CSU Bakersfield Thursday

Thursday, January 5

San Luis Obispo, Calif.

6 P.M.

CSU Bakersfield

Tickets

Photo by: Owen Main | Cal Poly Athletics

Cal Poly Hosts CSU Bakersfield Thursday

1/3/2023 5:06:00 PM | Women's Basketball

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — After opening conference play last week with a pair of close games, the Cal Poly women's basketball team begins a stretch of playing three of its next four games at home starting this week. The Mustangs (3-7, 0-2 BW) will host CSU Bakersfield Thursday at 6 p.m. inside Mott Athletics Center. The game will be streamed live on ESPN+. Links to that as well as live stats to follow can be found on the schedule page. Last week, Cal Poly played its first games since Dec. 10 when it began Big West play with a 65-55 loss at CSUN followed by a narrow 50-47 defeat to defending Big West champion Hawai'i at home. Recent injuries have plagued the Mustangs as they had only nine available players against the Matadors and 11 against the Rainbow Wahine. Despite dealing with injuries, Cal Poly had opportunities to win both games and had players step up. Against the Matadors, sophomore guard Annika Shah scored a career-high 23 points, hitting six threes. Against the defending champion Rainbow Wahine, junior guard Junie Dickson put up a season-high 11 points. Defensively in that game, Cal Poly held Hawai'i to 14 points in the first half and 28 percent shooting for the game. Shah continues to lead the team in scoring at 12.3 points per game on 40 percent shooting while also leading the team is assists at 2.7 per game. Her 40.7 percent shooting clip from three ranks second in the Big West and 67th in the nation. In all three of Cal Poly's wins this season, the Mustangs have shot at least 41 percent from the field, 74 percent from the free throw line, and have held opponents to 53 points or less. Through the first 10 games of the season, the Mustangs rank fourth in the Big West in three-point percentage at 31.8. Last year, Cal Poly was last in the conference in shooting from three at 24 percent. They also rank third in the conference in offensive rebounds at 11.4 per game. Following Thursday's home game, the Mustangs will hit the road to face rival UC Santa Barbara Saturday at 4 p.m. Scouting CSU Bakersfield: The Roadrunners come into Thursday's game 1-1 in Big West play after splitting their first two games last week. They started by beating UC Riverside 56-53 in double overtime. They then lost on the road to UC Irvine by six. During non-conference play, they went 3-5 with wins over Fresno State, Omaha, and Pacific. A defensive-minded team, CSU Bakersfield leads the Big West in both field goal percentage defense and three point percentage defense. This will just the second matchup with CSU Bakersfield since they joined the conference in the 2020-21 due to games being cancelled because of COVID. Overall, the Roadrunners have won three of the last four meetings. Shah Leads The Scoring: Sophomore guard Annika Shah leads the Mustangs in scoring this season at 12.3 points per game. That's an improvement of more than eight points of what she averaged as a freshman last season, the biggest jump of anyone on the team. She's scored in double figures five times, including over 20 twice and has led the team in scoring in six of the 10 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.