Mustangs Host Blue-Green Rival UCSB Thursday, Travel to Hawai’i Saturday

Thursday, February 2

San Luis Obispo, Calif.

6 P.M.

UCSB

Tickets

Photo by: Owen Main

Mustangs Host Blue-Green Rival UCSB Thursday, Travel to Hawai’i Saturday

1/31/2023 1:40:00 PM | Women's Basketball

WEEKLY NOTES (PDF)

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — It's a game that all Mustang players, coaches, and fans get excited for every year, the Blue-Green rivalry game with UC Santa Barbara. That rivalry will be renewed Thursday when UCSB comes to Mott Athletics Center.

Tip time between Mustangs (5-13, 2-8 BW) and Gauchos (14-5, 7-2 BW) is set for 6 p.m. Cal Poly will then hit the road to face defending Big West champion Hawai'i Saturday at 9 p.m. PT.

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.

Thursday's game against UCSB is Cal Poly's 'Play for Kay Game' with all fans encouraged to wear pink in honor of legendary women's basketball coach Kay Yow and the fight against all forms of cancer.

The Mustangs will be looking to snap a four game losing skid when they face both UCSB and Hawai'i for the second time this season. They will be to avenge close losses to both the Gauchos and Rainbow Wahine the first time out. Cal Poly lost on the road to UCSB Jan. 7 65-59. They also just narrowly fell at home to Hawai'i Dec. 31 50-47.

The Mustangs are coming off a pair of road games last week in which they were just edged out. After erasing a 12 point first quarter deficit, they fell at the end to Long Beach State, 57-54. They then lost a close one Saturday to Cal State Fullerton, 69-61.

Graduate Oumou Toure has been playing her best basketball of the season lately. Against Long Beach State, she scored a team-high 18 points before following it up with a 19 point performance against the Titans Saturday. She has scored 18 or more points in three of the last four games and during that stretch is getting to the free throw line at a clip of nearly eight attempts per game. In conference games, Toure leads the Mustangs in scoring at 10.3 points per game.

Another bright spot for Cal Poly as of late has been sophomore guard Sydney Bourland, who recorded Cal Poly's first double-double of the season Saturday against Cal State Fullerton with a season-high 14 points and a career-high 10 rebounds. In conference play this year, she is leading the Mustangs in rebounding at 6.6 per game and has had 6+ rebounds in five of the last six games.

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 to key players this year.

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 2.7 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 Rainbow Wahine, the Mustangs will host UC Irvine, who is currently atop the Big West standing at 8-1, Thursday, Feb. 9 at 6 p.m.

Scouting UCSB: Winners of three straight and six of their last seven, the Gauchos sit in third place in the Big West standings. They are the Big West's top scoring team at 68.4 points per game. They are also the conference's top rebounding team at 37.8 per game and leader in assists at 15 per game. Individually, UCSB has two players who rank in the top 10 in scoring in the Big West, guard Alexis Tucker (13.0 ppg) and forward Ila Lane (12.8 ppg). Lane also leads the Big West in rebounding at 8.9 per game and field goal percentage, shooting 55.2 percent.

Scouting Hawai'i: Last year's Big West champions have won two of their last three games and are currently in fifth place in the Big West standings. In the first meeting with the Rainbow Wahine earlier this season in San Luis Obispo in which Hawai'i won 50-47, the Mustangs held Hawai'i to 28.6 percent shooting from the field, the lowest they've held an opponent to all season. Reigning Big West Freshman of the Year Lily Wahinekapu leads them in scoring at 10.9 ppg while fellow guard Daejah Phillips averages 10.8 ppg. As a team, Hawai'i is third in the conference in fewest points allowed, giving up 60.6 points per game.

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.