Senior forward Chris Eversley was named to the six-player Preseason All-Big West Team after leading the Cal Poly men’s basketball team, averaging 15.4 points per game last season.
Shaun Kahmann
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Cal Poly men’s basketball placed third in this season’s Big West Conference preseason polls, finishing ahead of last season’s regular-season champion Long Beach State and five other teams.
This year, Cal Poly garnered a total of 165 votes, including three first-place votes behind first-place UC Irvine and trailed UC Santa Barbara by two points in the polls. Jumping up four spots from last year’s seventh place prediction, Cal Poly set a program record winning 92.9 percent of their home games last year as the Mustangs finished third overall in conference play.
It marked the second time during Joe Callero’s five-year run as head coach that the Mustangs have been picked third. Cal Poly was picked to finish third in the 2011-12 season, as well. Whether the results are good or bad, Callero said he doesn’t put much stock in the polls.
“When it’s good you can’t celebrate and when it’s bad you can’t cry,” Callero said. “The results are a nice pat on the back, but it doesn’t mean much.”
The Mustangs will return with eight letter-winners from last year’s squad, including three starters that led the Mustangs to last year’s third-place finish. The lineup will include senior forward Chris Eversley, who was selected as one of six members of the preseason all-conference team.
“I think the polls are a bit too opinionated,” Eversley said. “But it’s nice to be acknowledged. In the end, it’s up to me to prove the predictions right.”
The poll is a compilation of surveys sent to members of the media that cover the Big West Conference in their respective regions. Each panelist is asked to rank each team in the conference from one to nine, in the order they predict the teams will finish. But the team with the most first-place votes doesn’t always come first in the polls, said Mike Villamor, assistant commissioner of the Big West.
“This year’s polls were close because the first-place votes were pretty evenly distributed,” Villamor said. “Irvine got first place by a slim margin. It’s going to make for a very, very exciting race this year.”