Kali Bills“We want our rivalry back. Cal Poly won’t do anything, so we did. Cal Poly spirit is slipping down the drain,” read an ominous sheet of paper anonymously posted at the Mustang Daily newsroom Wednesday morning, accompanied by a CD of photographs detailing UC Santa Barbara’s briefly green-and-gold, graffiti-garnished campus earlier this week.
Cal Poly faithful and apathetic alike have a chance to prove the vandals wrong Saturday as both the men’s and women’s UCSB basketball teams travel to Mott Gym in a renewal of their Big West Conference rivalry.
Coming off their best Big West start ever, and their best conference start in 28 years, the Cal Poly women (7-10, 4-0 Big West) will try to secure the top spot in the Big West as UCSB (9-6, 4-0 Big West) is riding a four-game win streak of its own.
“Certainly this game on Saturday is going to be a pretty big deal for us and I’m sure it’ll be a big deal for Santa Barbara,” Cal Poly women’s head coach Faith Mimnaugh said. “I’m sure they’ve got their truckloads coming for the game.”
Mimnaugh alluded to one of the most resounding, recent examples of the ongoing athletic battle between the schools by saying she hopes the doubleheader could attract the same kind of record-breaking, standing-room-only crowd the Cal Poly men’s soccer team did when it beat defending national champion UCSB 2-1 at Alex G. Spanos Stadium on Oct. 17, 2007. That event shattered the program’s attendance mark by thousands.
On the basketball court, though, the Mustangs have won two straight games at the Thunderdome but haven’t defeated the Gauchos in Mott Gym since 2001.
Mustangs junior forward Megan Harrison, the second-leading scorer in the Big West, has scored in double figures in 17 of 21 games dating back to the 2006-07 season and should be key to the Mustangs’ chances.
Cal Poly poses another offensive threat in junior forward Lisa McBride, who currently ranks second amongst Big West players in field-goal percentage (49.2), fourth in free-throw percentage (78) and eighth in 3-point percentage (33.3).
UCSB’s leading scorer four games into the season, senior center Jenna Green, redshirted because of back spasms.
In her absence, the Gauchos have just two players averaging double figures in points, in senior guard Jessica Wilson (11.5 per game) and junior forward Kat Suderman (10.1).
Wilson is the reigning Big West Conference Player of the Week, as she averaged 15 points and eight rebounds in two home wins over UC Irvine and Cal State Fullerton a week ago.
Suderman, though, could present problems for the Mustangs up front because of her 6-foot-4 frame.
“I don’t think her size is necessarily going to be an issue,” Harrison said. “We’re just going to have to focus on boxing out, every single time, trying to get (the) front in the post.”
Harrison, who said the Mustangs need to “limit (Suderman’s) touches,” did admit that UCSB’s height advantage will force them to be resourceful.
“They’re a lot bigger than us at a lot of positions,” she said, “so we’re going to basically have to out-scrap them.”
The Cal Poly women trail the all-time series 10-43.
But the Mustangs, coming off of several close wins, Harrison said, have a newfound and ever-increasing confidence in their ability to hold on to leads.
“You can feel the excitement in our team,” she added. “Everyone’s talking about the game.”
The women tip off at 4 p.m.
Cal Poly men try to duplicate last year’s conference surge
Although a rivalry indeed, on the men’s side as well, it has been one that has swayed heavily in the Gauchos’ favor.
Since 1959, UCSB has won 35 of 47 contests and leads the all-time series 51-30.
Albeit the underdog, the Mustangs swept UCSB last season and have won four of the past five meetings.
Junior guard Trae Clark fared well against the Gauchos last year as he recorded a career-high nine assists and dropped 18 points in Mott Gym en route to an 86-79 victory. In the Mustangs’ second win at UCSB since 1959, he tallied a season-high 19 points.
“This game is really important to us,” Clark said. “Besides the fact that it’s the battle of the Central Coast, it is a very important game for us mentally, and the key to the great season we are working for.”
Kevin Bromley, Cal Poly’s head coach, shares Clark’s sentiment of the elevated magnitude of the game.
“I think it’s great,” Bromley said of the teams’ sparring. “You can go 2-25 but if you beat Santa Barbara twice, at the end of the year you’re still feeling pretty good.”
In last season’s match-up at Mott Gym, the Mustangs hit half of their 3-pointers (15 for 30) while both teams shot better than 50 percent from the floor.
The Gauchos (13-4, 2-2 Big West) split their outings last week as they fell 66-63 to UC Irvine and defeated Cal State Fullerton 87-72.
Unlike the Mustangs (6-10, 1-3 Big West), who have no players averaging double figures in scoring, the Gauchos rely mainly on their heavy hitters to put numbers on the board.
Senior guard Alex Harris, who shoots 46 percent from the floor overall and 51 percent from behind the arc, leads the Gauchos with 21.1 points per game.
Bromley called Harris something of a “double-edged sword” for UCSB.
Harris, Bromley said, will no doubt get to the foul line, but has the tendency to break out of set plays.
“He has freedom to shoot the ball, and he’s a terrific offensive player,” Bromley said.
While Bromley added that Harris has a “green light” in terms of shot selection, other Gauchos to look out for are forward Chris Devine and guard James Powell, who chip in 13.7 and 11.2 points per game, respectively.
UCSB head coach Bob Williams is not one to veer much from a set rotation of players, as just eight players average more than 15 minutes per game.
Meanwhile, even though no high-scoring star such as Harris has risen for the Mustangs this season, they do have seven players averaging at least 6.4 points per game.
Bromley said Cal Poly will have to step up its pressure defensively and get some big stops near the end of the contest.
“This team has to keep getting that defensive toughness down the stretch,” he said.
Despite the hot starts of conference adversaries like Cal State Northridge and UCSB, among others, Bromley said no team has established itself yet as the one to beat in the Big West.
“We’re as good as anybody in the conference right now,” he said.
The Mustangs will get another chance to prove it at 7 p.m.
UCSB vandalism cleaned up in a hurry
Vandalism of the UCSB campus late Tuesday night, apparently carried out by Cal Poly fans, was cleaned up early Wednesday morning, confirmed Thursday Matt Bowman, the UCSB Police Department’s public information officer.
“It sounded like it was probably done by people from Cal Poly,” Bowman said. “That was the consistent message throughout all of the occurrences.”
Bowman, who said the several instances of graffiti tags left around the Thunderdome and the University Center either promoting Cal Poly or disparaging UCSB were discovered while “paint was still wet,” couldn’t recall any other such occurrences of seemingly sports-related vandalism taking place at the campus in the 10 years he’s worked there.
– Mustang Daily staff contributed to this report