Cal Poly Hosts UC San Diego, Travels to UC Riverside for Final Regular Season Games

Thursday, March 2

San Luis Obispo, Calif.

6 P.M.

UC San Diego

Tickets

Photo by: Owen Main | Cal Poly Athletics

Cal Poly Hosts UC San Diego, Travels to UC Riverside for Final Regular Season Games

3/1/2023 11:59:00 AM | Women's Basketball

WEEKLY NOTES (PDF)

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — More than three months after playing its first games, the Cal Poly women's basketball team will close the regular season this week with a pair of games as it prepares for next week's Big West Championships.

The Mustangs (9-16, 6-11 BW) will host UC San Diego Thursday at 6 p.m. for their final home game of the year. They will then travel down to face UC Riverside Saturday at 6 p.m.

Thursday's game against the Tritons (12-16, 9-9 BW) will be a blackout game with all fans in attendance encouraged to wear black.

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

Cal Poly has won three of its last four games and currently sits in seventh place in the Big West standings. If the Mustangs win both of their games this week and the Titans lose their final game, Cal Poly would jump into the sixth spot. However, a Cal Poly loss and/or a Cal State Fullerton win this week and the Titans would be the six seed.

Tough defense continues to be the staple for the Mustangs this season. In eight of the nine wins this year, Cal Poly has held its opponents to 53 points or less.

First year head coach Shanele Stires has already guided the Mustangs to tripling 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.

With a win Thursday, Cal Poly would end the season with a winning record at home of 8-7. The Mustangs have won three of their last four games.

Sophomore guard Annika Shah continues to lead the team in scoring at 10.1 points per game and assists at 3.0 per game, which is tied for seventh in the Big West. She also leads the Big West in assist to turnover ratio at 2.0. Shah 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.

Crashing the glass, the Mustangs are second in the Big West in offensive rebounds per game at 11.2. Cal Poly has collected double-digit offensive rebounds in 10 of the last 11 games

Following Saturday's game against the Highlanders, the Mustangs will head to Henderson, Nev. for the Big West Championships which will take place March 7-11 at the Dollar Loan Center.

Scouting UC San Diego: Cal Poly will be looking for revenge against the Tritons after falling in the first meeting in La Jolla, 70-58. The Mustangs led at halftime in that game but UC San Diego scored 44 second half points to pick up the win. The Tritons are second in the Big West at made threes per game at over seven. Guard Sydney Brown leads the team in scoring at nearly 13 points per game, ranking eighth in the Big West. UC San Diego is currently on a three game losing streak. They are still ineligible for postseason play for one more season.

Scouting UC Riverside: Currently on a six game losing skid, the Highlanders are tied for last place in the Big West heading into the week. In the first meeting with them this season in Mott, Oumou Toure hit a shot at the buzzer to lift the Mustangs to a 49-47 win. Guard Jordan Webster leads UC Riverside in scoring at 12.5 points per game which ranks ninth in the conference. She's scored double digits in six straight games. Cal Poly has won five of the last six meetings and leads the all-time series 40-38.

Willett Moves Up Record Book: During Cal Poly's game last week against UC Davis, senior guard Maddie Willett moved into a tie for 30th in career points at Cal Poly with 742 points scored. She is 20 points away from moving into 29th.

Shah Leads The Scoring: Sophomore guard Annika Shah leads the Mustangs in scoring this season at 10.1 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 11 times, including over 20 twice and has led the team in scoring in eight of the 25 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.