Whiten scores 31, leads Mustangs to 6th win in 8 games

Dawin Whiten was a flamethrower, torching the UC Irvine defense what seemed like every time down the court.

One 3-pointer from the wing here. Another from the corner there.

In the end, Whiten – still recovering from an ankle injury – had piled up a school-record eight 3-pointers on his way to a career-high 31 points. The gutsy performance led the Cal Poly men’s basketball team to an 89-80 Big West Conference win over visiting UC Irvine in front of 2,581 fans Saturday in Mott Gym.

“I’m about 75, 80 percent (healthy),” said Whiten, a junior shooting guard who was sidelined for Thursday’s 80-77 loss to Long Beach State. “My teammates needed me. It’s about making sacrifices for the basketball team and I did that today.”

Whiten, who said he had iced his left ankle about 20 times Friday and Saturday before the game, shot 9 of 13 from the floor, 8 of 11 from beyond the arc and 5 of 7 from the free-throw line. He had 22 points at halftime.

“That shocked me a little bit, when I looked at the stats at halftime and it was 22,” Cal Poly head coach Kevin Bromley said. “There was one time I was going to sub for him and I had to pull Chaz (Thomas) back out. You hate to cool off a shooter, but then you don’t want him to get fatigued and start missing, so I left him out there a couple more possessions.”

Whiten’s 31 points were the most by any Cal Poly player since Varnie Dennis’ 31 in a 97-95 overtime win at UC Riverside on Feb. 26, 2004. Whiten eclipsed his previous career high of 29 points set in a 92-76 home loss to Andrew Bogut-led Utah on Dec. 22, 2004.

“He was on fire tonight,” Cal Poly senior forward Derek Stockalper said. “This was one of those games where it kind of clicked for him.”

With 15 points and 11 rebounds, Stockalper was the only player in the game with a double-double. Tyler McGinn added 11 points and Trae Clark dished out eight assists for the Mustangs.

Cal Poly (12-10, 4-5 Big West), which has won six of its last eight games, improved to 8-2 at home. The Mustangs have a winning overall record 22 games into the season for the first time since a 14-8 start to the 2001-02 campaign.

“Our synergy is really good, our camaraderie,” Whiten said. “We’re not there yet. Once we really get there, teams are going to have a hard time guarding us or playing against us. We’re coming together as a team. We’re all trying to understand who does what well and what our roles are. It’s becoming clearer.”

The Mustangs sure appear to be seeing the floor clearer.

Cal Poly committed a season-low seven turnovers, shot 51.7 percent from the floor and had 10 players score.

In a game in which the two teams combined for 28 3-pointers, UC Irvine shot 50.8 percent from the field. The Anteaters’ bench outscored the Mustangs’ reserves 38-17.

But the undoing for UC Irvine (11-15, 5-7) was being outscored 17-3 in points off turnovers and 22-8 in second-chance points.

The Anteaters jumped to a 10-3 lead before Cal Poly scored 14 of the next 16 points as part of a 24-7 run.

“First half, I don’t think we defended,” Bromley said. “We just exchanged baskets with them. We had great offensive rhythm. I didn’t want it to end up being a close basketball game where you’re just exchanging baskets. We really needed to hunker down and defend.”

That’s what the Mustangs did, switching from a 1-2-2 to a 2-3 zone and eventually man-to-man defense, holding UC Irvine to a 4-for-14 clip from 3-point range in the second half.

Though he did not start, regular starting center Titus Shelton played for the first time in four games. Recovering from an ankle sprain of his own, the 6-foot-7 sophomore played 18 minutes. He wielded an impressive baby hook shot and finished with four points, three rebounds, three assists and one blocked shot.

“Titus is a beast,” Stockalper said. “Look at his body, it’s huge. He gave us a good lift tonight. He was really physical inside. It took a lot of pressure off myself.”

Also patrolling the paint for Cal Poly were Matt Hanson (nine points, six boards) and Dreshawn Vance (two points, one rebound and one block). Vance’s lone bucket came when he threw down a two-handed, and-one jam on the low block that sent the crowd into a frenzy with 12:05 remaining.

“Titus, Matt and Dreshawn created inside presence for us tonight,” Bromley said. “It was absolutely terrific. We got (Darren) Fells into foul trouble and he’s a beast.”

Fells had nine points and five rebounds but played only 20 minutes because of accumulating four fouls.

The Mustangs continue their four-game homestand against rival UC Santa Barbara at 7 p.m. Wednesday. The Gauchos will be trying to avenge a 71-61 home loss to Cal Poly on Jan. 20, the Mustangs’ first win in the Thunderdome since 1998 and only their second there since 1959.

“As crazy as it may sound,” Bromley said, “they’re a better road team than they are a home team right now. That’s a big game for us on Wednesday and then we have (ESPNU) Bracket Buster on Saturday. It’s a great week ahead for Cal Poly basketball.”

Something the Mustangs still need to work on is their free-throw shooting, where they were a paltry 13 of 27 Saturday and have shot .611 this season.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” Whiten said. “We have to get better at rebounding, taking care of the ball and making our free throws. Now that we’re getting everybody back, we have to stay healthy. We can’t have Titus getting hurt, then he comes back, then I get hurt and I come back and then somebody else gets hurt. We’ve got to have everybody healthy, everybody on the same page.

“We all have to just enjoy the journey and realize we have a lot of work to do, but we can do it. We can accomplish our goals and possibly get to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in the school’s history.”