Stephan Teodosescu
steodosescu@mustangdaily.net
Having graduated six seniors, including one of the program’s top scorers in David Hanson and former big man Will Taylor, questions swelled around the Cal Poly men’s basketball team as to who would replace that talent in the post this season.
But instead of a single answer, the team got three.
Enter true freshmen Brian Bennett, Zach Gordon and redshirt freshman Joel Awich, the young bigs who have occupied the paint for the Mustangs since game one this season.
With Hanson, the program’s eighth all-time leading scorer, and Taylor, a junior college transfer who spent just two years with the Mustangs, Cal Poly lost two forwards who started nearly every game last season.
But in an opening game loss to TCU on Nov. 9 this season, the freshmen showed the former stars would not be missed. Bennett notched a team-high 10 points in 26 minutes of play — in his first ever collegiate game — and Gordon added seven points in his first 12 minutes of NCAA basketball, while Awich finished with two minutes of action against the Horned Frogs.
“Last year, we had six seniors,” head coach Joe Callero said. “You’re never going to replace guys because everyone has a different personality, everybody has a different skill set, different size or athleticism. You don’t want them to replace somebody, you want them to become their own person.”
All three have forged those unique identities so far this season, according to Callero.
Bennett, with his 6-foot-9, 240-pound frame has stepped up as a traditional center for Cal Poly. After all, he is the biggest player on the Mustangs’ roster.
Recruited out of Plainfield East High School in Romeoville, Ill., Bennett led his team to the Class 4A East Aurora Sectional semifinals in his senior year before heading west to San Luis Obispo where he now leads Cal Poly in shooting percentage (54.5 percent) while averaging almost 10 points per game.
“It’s a great feeling to get your name called out,” Bennett said. “But at the end of the day, I just wanted to come to (Cal Poly) to contribute. If that meant coming off the bench, then I’d be coming off the bench. I just want to help my team win.”
While Bennett has proved to be one of Callero’s top recruits in the coach’s four-year tenure, his spot on the team wasn’t always guaranteed.
After a recruiting visit and a recommendation from the coach in his junior year of high school, Bennett lost 50 pounds to prepare for the rigors of college basketball.
“We said, ‘It’s your scholarship for now, but we’re gonna continue to recruit other post players,’” Callero said. “But he really wanted to be a part of the team his freshman year. Brian has really stepped into that role.”
Neither Awich nor Gordon followed the traditional path of recruitment to Cal Poly like Bennett did.
Awich was unrecruited out of high school, but a Las Vegas tournament showcased his talents to the Cal Poly coaching staff and Callero offered the lanky freshman out of Maplewood, Minn., a spot on the team in the summer following his senior year.
Gordon was a similar situation in that he was taken off the recruiting radar late in his high school career. After suffering a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his senior year, potential scholarship offers from schools such as Gonzaga, California and Oregon evaporated for the Everett, Wash. native.
But Callero recognized the 6-foot-8 forward’s potential and offered him an immediate starting role after a stellar senior season at Archbishop Murphy High School.
“Once Cal Poly kept sticking with me (through the injury), and I got to come down here on an unofficial visit to see the guys and play with them, I got the scholarship and immediately started to work my butt off just to play,” Gordon said.
A need for the three young post players was highlighted most evidently when Cal Poly lost its leading scorer, junior forward Chris Eversley, to an ankle injury in a Feb. 9 game against UC Davis. Without its top player, the team called on its young guns to help avenge a loss to rival UC Santa Barbara earlier in the season.
With the help of a career-high eight points from Awich, who led the team in minutes played in that 67-49 win on Feb. 16 against the Gauchos, Cal Poly ended a six-game losing streak to UC Santa Barbara, dating back to 2010.
“(Eversley’s injury) impacted Joel the most,” Callero said. “Joel got himself a starting spot against (UC Santa Barbara) in a highly intense and emotional game. I thought he stepped up to an A-plus level. He had the energy, he had the athleticism and he had the comfort to perform at a high level.”
Despite the labels that call them freshmen, Bennett, Gordon and Awich have had considerable experience on the hardwood before developing in Callero’s system.
“I’ve always thought that programs are always best when you recruit freshman and have them in your program and even redshirt somebody during the course of their development,” Callero said. “It’s kind of the nature of what’s going on in college basketball now. With so much travel ball now, you’re seeing freshmen that are playing like 22-year-old or 23-year-old men because they’re more experienced and more poised.”
That poise has resonated not only with the coaching staff, but with fellow players as well. They’ve admitted that Bennett, Awich and Gordon have all done their part to fill the void left by last year’s senior class.
Junior guard Jamal Johnson said he thinks they will be key components to the team’s quest for a first-ever Big West Conference title.
“We saw what Brian was capable of doing, Joel did very well at (UC Santa Barbara) and Zach Gordon emerging late in the season proves to me and everyone else that they’re capable of stepping up and that they show the consistency,” Johnson said.
But at the end of the day the fact that Bennett, Awich and Gordon are all freshmen getting valuable playing time in their first season of college basketball pales in comparison to the experience that they’ve recieved off the court, Bennett said.
“We’re really like a family,” he said. “Not just with me, Zach and Joel, but with the entire team.”