Cal Poly Travels to Bakersfield Wednesday, Hosts Fullerton Saturday

Wednesday, February 15

Bakersfield, CA

7 P.M.

CSU Bakersfield

Cal Poly Travels to Bakersfield Wednesday, Hosts Fullerton Saturday

2/14/2023 2:48:00 PM | Women's Basketball

WEEKLY NOTES (PDF)

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Coming off a win over CSUN this past weekend, the Cal Poly women's basketball team will look to keep things rolling this week when traveling to face CSU Bakersfield Wednesday before hosting Cal State Fullerton Saturday for a pair of crucial games.

Tip time between Mustangs (7-15, 4-10 BW) and Roadrunners (6-16, 3-11 BW) Wednesday is set for 7 p.m. They will then return home to host the Titans (10-13, 5-9 BW) at 2 p.m. Saturday.

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.

Saturday's game will be Senior Day. Before the game starting around 1:40, there will be a ceremony to honor seven Mustangs.

In its quest to be in the top six of the Big West standings to earn a first round bye in the Big West Championships, Cal Poly is now only one game back of Cal State Fullerton for sixth place in the Big West standings.

The Mustangs have already more than doubled their win total from last season and have done so despite dealing with several injuries all season, including being down to as few as nine available players for multiple games.

One of the seniors who will be honored before the game Saturday is guard Maddie Willett, who is now just 18 points shy from cracking the program's top-30 all-time scoring list. She heads into the week having scored 724 points.

Sophomore guard Annika Shah continues to lead the team in scoring at 10.5 points per game and assists at 2.9 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.

Last week, Shah averaged 12 points per game and four assists per game while shooting 53 percent. Against CSUN, she finished with a team-high 18 points while dishing out a career-high six assists.

As a team, It's been defense and offensive rebounding that has been the calling card for the Mustangs this season. In six of Cal Poly's seven wins so far, the Mustangs have held opponents to 53 points or less.

Crashing the glass, the Mustangs are second in the Big West in offensive rebounds per game at 11.5. Cal Poly has collected double-digit offensive rebounds in eight straight games

Following Saturday's game against the Titans, the Mustangs will hit the road to play UC Irvine Monday, Feb. 20 at 4 p.m.

Scouting CSU Bakersfield: The Roadrunners head into Wednesday's game having lost three straight games. A team that predicates itself on defense, they lead the conference in field goal percentage defense, holding opponents to 37 percent shooting from the field. On the offensive side, they have scored under 60 points in 11 of 14 games in conference play. In the first meeting this season, Cal Poly won 50-37, holding CSU Bakersfield to its lowest point total of the season.

Scouting Cal State Fullerton: The Titans head into the week having lost three straight games and now just sit one game ahead of Cal Poly for sixth place in the Big West standings. They are second in the Big West in three point shooting and have two players who rank in the top three in the conference in scoring. Fujika Nimmo leads the team and is second in the conference in scoring at 15.3 ppg while Una Jovanovic is third at 14.4 ppg. The first meeting of the season a few weeks ago was a close game throughout, but the Titans came out on top 69-61. Cal State Fullerton has won two straight games but the Mustangs still lead the season series 34-27.

Shah Leads The Scoring: Sophomore guard Annika Shah leads the Mustangs in scoring this season at 10.5 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 10 times, including over 20 twice and has led the team in scoring in eight of the 22 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.