Ryan ChartrandCal Poly men’s basketball head coach Kevin Bromley acknowledged it was nothing short of incredible.
After being left for dead just over a week ago, sitting at 0-5 in the Big West Conference and hitting the road for two more conference games, things were looking grim for the Mustangs.
Staring at the possibility of an 0-7 conference start, Cal Poly traveled to Stockton last Thursday and knocked off perennial conference frontrunner Pacific on their home floor.
The flustered Tigers never got into the game, trailing by 17 points at halftime.
Two nights later, the Mustangs trailing by 16 points with nine minutes remaining, completed an improbable comeback to beat UC Davis 77-75 on two 3-point field goals from senior guard Chaz Thomas in the final 1:30.
Not only did the Mustangs avoid falling by the conference wayside, they climbed back into the conference race.
“I want to be in a coffin right now and I want the coffin to open up and me sit up and go, ‘See we’re alive. We’re back from the dead’,” Bromley joked.
The Mustangs (5-12, 2-5 Big West Conference), who were in danger of missing the conference tournament a week ago, are now just two games behind fourth place Cal State Northridge.
Cal Poly can cut that gap in half when they host the Matadors at 6 p.m. on Saturday in Mott Gym in a game that will be nationally televised by Fox Sports Network-Prime Ticket.
A main source of the Mustangs’ resurgence has been the recent play of junior guard Lorenzo Keeler.
After a week in which he averaged 22 points, 4 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game, Keeler was named Big West Player of the Week.
I thought he did everything extremely well,” Bromley said of Keeler’s performance. “He’s always been a competitor. He really did it all over the entire weekend.”
Bromely said that senior forward Titus Shelton was also a big component to the Mustangs’ recent success.
“Titus was the man (last) weekend,” Bromley said. “He did a great job on (Pacific senior forward) Anthony Brown. The officials just let them play and it was so physical. When you saw those two it was almost like, ‘This is a collision sport’.”
Cal Poly will likely need the inside presence of Shelton and the hot shooting of Thomas and Keeler to beat the Matadors (7-10, 4-3) despite Cal State Northridge likely being without leading scorer Deon Tresvant after he was arrested along with the son of Matadors’ head coach Bobby Braswell and two others for allegedly stealing more than $6,600 in merchandise from a Best Buy in Porter Ranch, Calif. earlier this month.
Still, Bromley said that while the Matadors haven’t played their best basketball this year, a wounded animal is more dangerous.
“Obviously they’re disappointed early,” Bromley said. “They had a pretty tough schedule early on and didn’t play very well. Then the thing with (Braswell’s) son and Tresvant has been a distraction. But it didn’t look like it (last) weekend. They beat Irvine pretty handily.”
The Matadors may be recovering their swagger at the right time. At the Big West media day in October, coaches overwhelmingly picked Cal State Northridge to win the conference championship.
“We teased (Braswell) in the Big West Conference meetings this year,” Bromley recalled. “We said, ‘Well, we’re going to pick you to finish first and second in the conference this year because you should beat everybody so badly’.”
Long Beach State is the current Big West leader.
Bromley acknowledged that Saturday’s game is important but is happy with where his team is mentally.
“They’re loving the game right now and that’s all you can ask,” he said.