The 3,245 fans who’ve filed into Mott Gym this season to take in 10 Cal Poly women’s basketball games have seen considerably more winning than the 17,594 who’ve watched the men.
Through 20 games, the women are 13-7 — tied with perennial power UC Santa Barbara for the best overall record in the Big West Conference.
At 5-3 in conference play, they’re tied with Pacific for third, behind the Gauchos (8-0) and new-money UC Riverside (7-1), which won the conference in 2006 and 2007.
The Mustangs lead the conference in scoring (66.2 points per game), field-goal percentage (43.4 — well ahead of the second-place 40.8), assists (16.8 per game) and assist-to-turnover ratio (0.95). The assists number was 12th in the country entering the week.
Sophomore forward Kristina Santiago is averaging a team-high 15 points per game, as well as 5.2 rebounds, 1.8 steals and one block. She’s shooting 55 percent from the floor — No. 1 in the Big West and No. 23 in the nation.
Two others — seniors Megan Harrison and Lisa McBride — are also averaging double figures in scoring. McBride is leading the conference in 3-point percentage (41.8) and has knocked down 87 percent of her free-throw attempts, which would be good enough for second in the Big West if she had enough attempts to qualify.
Perhaps most importantly, this is all coming in a contract year for head coach Faith Mimnaugh, who’s yet to post a winning season since taking over the program in 1997.
Now that it looks like that’s about to change, would you extend Mimnaugh’s contract again?
Obviously, she accounted for the recruiting of this year’s class, including Santiago, a Santa Maria native hailing from Righetti High. At the time, Frisco Del Rosario blogged, Mimnaugh said she was lucky to get Santiago, who “slipped under some radars with a knee injury.”
Perhaps with the program’s emergence, Mimnaugh will be able to lure another Santa Maria sensation.
St. Joseph center Aly Beebe, a 6-foot-3 freshman, is averaging 14.3 points, 10.1 rebounds and 3.4 blocks per game while shooting 59.8 percent from the floor. Longtime Morro Bay coach Cary Nerelli told The San Luis Obispo County Tribune earlier this year that she was “the complete package” and a “Pac-10 caliber player.”
Hey, the Mustangs did host UCLA this season.