The road woes continued for Cal Poly men’s basketball on Saturday night as the Mustangs ceded a 16-point lead to rival UC Santa Barbara in the first half and eventually fell 68-60. Head coach Joe Callero flatly took the blame for Cal Poly’s (15-14, 6-8) slow start. He said the Gauchos took apart their zone defense during the first 12 minutes as UCSB built up a lead.
“We were concerned about them having a high-percentage 3-point shot,” Callero said. “To their credit, when they saw the zone, they didn’t try to shoot us out of it. They really went inside for two or three easy buckets.”
After solidifying the defense in the paint, the Gauchos proceeded to dish the ball off to seniors James Nunnally and Orlando Johnson who scored 20 and 16 points, respectively. The pair was also 5 of 11 from beyond the arc.
The coaching staff decided to switch back to a traditional man-to-man defense, but UCSB was already leading 32-16 with eight minutes to go in the first half.
“A lot of it’s based on the communication, but some of their motions and movements got us mixed up on certain matchups,” junior guard Dylan Royer said. “We left some guys open under the hoop, and they made a couple hard shots.”
After making the switch, the Mustangs got hot on the offensive end as Royer worked the perimeter and Will Taylor made his presence felt in the paint to go on a 10-0 run. Johnson, who became UCSB’s all-time leading scorer in the first half, responded to a Taylor put-back with a 3-pointer halting Cal Poly’s progress.
“(Taylor) is probably one of the keys to our team being successful,” Callero said. “When he’s scoring and rebounding, we have that presence inside.”
Royer paced the team with 14 points, including four 3-pointers, that kept the Mustangs within striking distance, but Johnson’s ability to create shots whenever the Cal Poly inched closer was the theme for the night.
Taylor, who said additional conditioning has helped himself and the team, scored 11 points, his first double-digit scoring game since Feb. 9 against UC Riverside. He had a more positive outlook on the failure of their zone defense against the hot-shooting Gauchos.
“I think the concepts of the matchup zone are going to help us with our man-to-man,” he said. “It was a tough game, but that’s life. You’ve got to keep playing and not complain about it.”
Cal Poly cut UCSB’s lead to seven points early in the second half when David Hanson, who had 13 points, hit a 3-pointer from the corner, but the Gauchos responded quickly with long-balls of their own from Nate Garth and Johnson.
The Mustangs shot just 33 percent from the field while the Gauchos hit half of their shots, going eight of 15 from long range. Cal Poly held a slight 34-33 advantage in rebounds, but coughed the ball up 14 times to UCSB’s six turnovers.
Cal Poly won just two Big West road games this season, at UC Davis and UC Irvine, and the Aggies visit Mott Gym on Thursday where the team is 8-4 overall.
“Coming out slow on the road isn’t something we’re really focused on, but it’s something that we need to figure out by tournament time,” Royer said. “We need to come out firing early.”
The Mustangs find themselves in a three-way tie for fourth place in the Big West standings with Pacific and UC Irvine while Long Beach State has clinched the regular season title with an undefeated 14-0 conference record. Cal State Fullerton and UCSB will occupy the second and third seeds in the Big West Tournament.
The team concludes the season against Pacific on Saturday night at 7 p.m. Cal Poly dropped a 61-51 game in Stockton earlier this season.