Stephan Teodosescu
steodosescu@mustangdaily.net
After suffering several injuries throughout his career and coping with a redshirt season following his freshman season because of NCAA transfer rules, senior guard Chris O’Brien has waited a long time to deliver a signature performance like the one he did Saturday night against Cal State Fullerton.
And after posting a career game against the Titans, there should be no doubt the Irvine, Calif. native can lead his team to victory on any given night — especially if it’s senior night.
Along with junior forward Chris Eversley, O’Brien erupted for a team-leading 14 points, 12 of which came in the second half, to lead the Mustangs past the Titans 62-60 in the regular season finale just hours after he and fellow seniors Drake U’u and Dylan Royer were honored for playing in their final game inside the Mott Athletics Center.
“When you’re out there and you’re competing at such a high level, you forget that (it’s your last game),” O’Brien said. “You want to run the play, get to your defensive assignments and do what it takes to win. Once that final horn goes off then, that little guy in the back of your head says, ‘All right, it’s senior night too, don’t forget that.’ Then you start getting the emotions flowing.”
With the win, the Mustangs (17-12, 12-6 Big West) finished undefeated at home in conference play this season and extended their Big West winning streak to 14 straight games inside Mott, dating back to last year. They also set school records for single-season Big West wins and conference winning percentage.
That outcome was less than probable near the end of the game Saturday, though, as Cal Poly was deadlocked in a back-and-forth affair with the Titans.
With his team up by two, Eversley took a designed one-on-one drive to the left side of the hoop and converted a left-handed layup with 14 seconds remaining in the game to ice the victory and secure the Mustangs’ fifth-straight win.
“It’s not something we go over a lot in practice, so for us to execute it like that was pretty good,” Eversley said. “It was a matter of making a play when my team needed me to and I was able to make the play, thankfully.”
Headed into Saturday’s matchup with Cal State Fullerton (14-17, 6-12), Cal Poly had already clinched the No. 3 seed in next week’s Big West Conference Tournament after Pacific defeated regular-season champion Long Beach State earlier in the day.
The Mustangs will face No. 6 UC Davis in the opening round of the tournament starting at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday inside the Honda Center in Anaheim. The winner of the Big West tournament will advance to the NCAA tournament in two weeks.
“It’s good for us to use this as a springboard game going into Anaheim next weekend. Hopefully we’ll put forth an effort that will have us happy (next) Sunday,” Eversley said.
Down 35-33 at halftime, O’Brien helped ignite the Mustangs out of the locker room as he hit a 3-pointer with 18:30 to go in the game, which broke open a 35-35 tie. The Titans managed to knot the score on two more occasions after that, but O’Brien hit a layup with 2:04 remaining and drew a charge a minute later to give the Mustangs the lead for good.
“I thought his scoring was a great boost for us, but his defense was amazing,” head coach Joe Callero said. “He took a big charge down the stretch.”
The Mustangs spread the wealth on offense as they saw eight different players score on the night. Freshman forward Brian Bennett and junior guard Jamal Johnson finished with eight points apiece. Royer added six on 2-of-5 shooting from downtown and U’u had five.
Cal State Fullerton’s Kwame Vaughn, the conference’s third-leading scorer entering the game, finished with 22 total points on the night, 17 of which came in the first half alone. Guard Alex Harris also added 22.
With their five straight wins, the Mustangs are now arguably the hottest team in the conference headed into the most important part of the schedule — the postseason.
“Guys have confidence,” Callero said. “They see themselves winning, they believe they can beat anybody and we didn’t want to come in here and drop the last game of the year on senior night.”