Preview:
I am always irritated by the "Cal Poly" designation since there are two of them: SLO and Pomona, and people outside the CSU are pretty ignorant about this. This Cal Poly opponent is SLO--the Mustangs. Pomona is Div II. SLO is Div I and their WBB team competes in the Big West, the same conference as CSUN, Hawaii, UC Davis, and CSU Bakersfield, to cite a few familiar opponents. Next week they get to play South Carolina after South Carolina plays us, on Tuesday. Quite a challenge for this team.
So far this year they lost to UCLA 48-84, and beat Simpson 81-49. Don't ask me where Simpson is. Massey has them at 265, so a whole lot less capable than U Portland at 99. Last year they were 3-22, with 5 cancelled games. One of their few victories was over CSUN.
This has a chance to be our least competitive game outside the exhibition. The main goal should be to avoid injuries. That said, I have tried to find out if there is anything in particular the fan should watch on this team, and yes there is!
Anika Shah is their starting point guard, a 5'3" spark plug. She doesn't score a lot, but her claim to fame to us fans is that she was the starting point guard at Paly for three years and will undoubtedly bring a lot of fans. Let's all give her a big cheer or two.
Another interesting player is 5'10" guard Nikola Kovacikola. NK played for 2 years at Georgetown and then for 2 years at Penn before transferring as a grad student to SLO. She started for many of those games, so she is a serious player, and must be fairly brainy to have played for an Ivy. She is from Slovakia.
Sydney Bourland is a 5'10 sophomore guard who played for Mitty, so she must have overlapped with Jones for two years. Expect to see some hugs with her former teammate. She is their best scorer at not quite 10 ppg.
Their tallest starter is 6'1" Natalia Ackerman, a junior forward who scored 12 points against hapless Simpson.
Their fifth starter is Tailor Wu, a 5'7" guard from Hawaii.
Folks, this game is not going to be remotely competitive, but the kids on the Cal Poly team have a lot of local connections and we owe Cal Poly thanks for scheduling us and South Carolina. Without their willingness to play South Carolina, we might not have had that game. As the only source of drama in this is whether we hit 100 or whether they hit 40, we can afford to be a welcoming, friendly, appreciative crowd. Magnanimous even. I am going to break my normal rule and cheer (a little) for Anika Shah, a homie. That is, if I can stay awake.
I am always irritated by the "Cal Poly" designation since there are two of them: SLO and Pomona, and people outside the CSU are pretty ignorant about this. This Cal Poly opponent is SLO--the Mustangs. Pomona is Div II. SLO is Div I and their WBB team competes in the Big West, the same conference as CSUN, Hawaii, UC Davis, and CSU Bakersfield, to cite a few familiar opponents. Next week they get to play South Carolina after South Carolina plays us, on Tuesday. Quite a challenge for this team.
So far this year they lost to UCLA 48-84, and beat Simpson 81-49. Don't ask me where Simpson is. Massey has them at 265, so a whole lot less capable than U Portland at 99. Last year they were 3-22, with 5 cancelled games. One of their few victories was over CSUN.
This has a chance to be our least competitive game outside the exhibition. The main goal should be to avoid injuries. That said, I have tried to find out if there is anything in particular the fan should watch on this team, and yes there is!
Anika Shah is their starting point guard, a 5'3" spark plug. She doesn't score a lot, but her claim to fame to us fans is that she was the starting point guard at Paly for three years and will undoubtedly bring a lot of fans. Let's all give her a big cheer or two.
Another interesting player is 5'10" guard Nikola Kovacikola. NK played for 2 years at Georgetown and then for 2 years at Penn before transferring as a grad student to SLO. She started for many of those games, so she is a serious player, and must be fairly brainy to have played for an Ivy. She is from Slovakia.
Sydney Bourland is a 5'10 sophomore guard who played for Mitty, so she must have overlapped with Jones for two years. Expect to see some hugs with her former teammate. She is their best scorer at not quite 10 ppg.
Their tallest starter is 6'1" Natalia Ackerman, a junior forward who scored 12 points against hapless Simpson.
Their fifth starter is Tailor Wu, a 5'7" guard from Hawaii.
Folks, this game is not going to be remotely competitive, but the kids on the Cal Poly team have a lot of local connections and we owe Cal Poly thanks for scheduling us and South Carolina. Without their willingness to play South Carolina, we might not have had that game. As the only source of drama in this is whether we hit 100 or whether they hit 40, we can afford to be a welcoming, friendly, appreciative crowd. Magnanimous even. I am going to break my normal rule and cheer (a little) for Anika Shah, a homie. That is, if I can stay awake.