Cal Poly men’s basketball loses final home game: ‘We’re changing the culture’
Six-foot-eight Cal Poly forward Alimamy Koroma was bothered by Saturday’s loss to UC Davis, to the point of lying on the floor for several seconds after the buzzer sounded, hands in his head, as teammates picked him up and walked him off the court.
Cal Poly men’s basketball team lost an overtime nail-biter 68-66 to UC Davis in the Mustangs last home Big West Conference game of an unusual 2020-2021 season, punctuated by the absence of fans who aren’t allowed due to the pandemic.
Koroma, a sophomore and native of Sierra Leone in West Africa, said the season has been “a learning curve and a learning process.”
“Rome was not build in a day,” said Koroma, the team’s leading scorer at around 13 points per game. “We’re changing the culture and everything about it. We just ask that people be supportive and believe in us. (Coach John Smith) will be the reason we turn this around.”
Cal Poly (3-16,1-12 Big West) has felt the growing pains of a young team that has shown promise, losing three of its four by five points or less. They will finish in last place in the Big West this season, despite two remaining games.
But the Mustangs were bitten by a costly mistake at the end of Saturday’s contest against the Aggies (8-6, 5-3 Big West), as Cal Poly freshman Brantly Stevenson (7.5 points per game) committed a turnover with the Mustangs leading 66-64 with 13 seconds left in the second half.
Stevenson threw the ball to teammate Colby Rogers, who caught the ball out of bounds, while trying to avoid trap defense.
Stevenson has been one of the recent brights spots for the Mustangs of late, and logged 15 points in Saturday’s contest. Rogers logged 17 points and Koroma tallied 15.
“We had the ball in the best free throw shooter’s hands,” Smith said. “But (Stevenson) deferred to his big brother, who happened to be out of bounds. Those are the growing pains of a young team.”
The turnover led to a foul by Koroma on a rebound, with four seconds remaining in the game, and UC Davis’ Caleb Fuller hit two clutch free throws to tie the game and send it to overtime.
The Mustangs didn’t score a point in overtime and the Aggies topped Cal Poly by a bucket.
Late in the game, Stevenson suffered an ankle sprain that stopped the game and he limped off the court, aided by Cal Poly staff.
It remains to be seen if he will play on the road against UC Santa Barbara next season to conclude conference play leading into Big West tournament competition March 12-14.
The loss came on senior night, as the Mustangs’ Riley Till, Keith Smith and Mark Crowe played their last Cal Poly games at home.
“They fought together and collectively everybody was engaged,” said Coach John Smith, uncle of point guard Keith Smith. “The seniors showed leadership character, commitment and they were the right guys for the organization.”
Till, a graduate student, enjoyed a career high for blocks, recording half of Cal Poly’s eight.
The Ali Koroma story
Koroma is one of the first basketball players from his country to play at the collegiate level.
He started playing as a kid around 9 or 10 years old after transitioning from soccer, he told The Tribune.
“I was tall and the coaches invited me over to play because I was tall,” Koroma said. “I was just messing around but it started being fun. By 15 going on 16, I was part of the national team.”
Koroma became one of the top players in his country and landed at Prolific Prep in Napa, where he lived with Brian and Olivia Dodd, his host parents.
“It was pretty tough,” Koroma said. “I almost went back home after a month. I went from Africa where I hardly saw a white person to Napa where I hardly saw a Black person. It was culture shock.”
He didn’t even eat American food for four days, because it was so unusual and strange.
But the Dodds made him feel comfortable, and he stuck around.
“They’re still in my life to this day,” Koroma said.
Koroma said he came to Cal Poly after being recruited by Smith, then an assistant at Cal State Fullerton, and after a “disappointing freshman” season, he has become one of the team’s leaders.
“Ali is a great kid,” Smith said. “He’s a people pleaser and a world of talent. He’s effective on the floor. He has a high motor and high character.”
Turning Cal Poly basketball around
Coach Smith, in his second year, said that Cal Poly will need to gain consistency by playing more together, in a season that saw COVID-19 disrupt practice and some canceled games.
The team, he said, is younger than he’d hoped, but freshmen such as point guard Camren Pierce, Stevenson and Aidan Prukop have had to learn on the fly how to play elite college basketball.
“We all felt pain in the locker room tonight and that pain will be used to fire us in the next week and in the Big West tournament,” Smith said. “It will pay off in the end...Unfortunately, this isn’t the greatest of years. We want to be better. Our guys are not tracking it for granted. Every time you play it counts. We understand opportunity to get better.”
While developing the core group, Smith said he’s excited about next year’s incoming class, saying he feels he has one of the best shooters in the country in 6-foot-2 guard Daniel Esparza (Sonora High) and 6-11 forward Matur Dhal (PHHoenix Prep, which is stylized with two capital Hs).
Dhal, a native of South Sudan, averaged 13.2 points, 9.2 rebounds and 2.0 blocks per game as a junior, according to Cal Poly.
“I feel like those two will really help us and we have two more scholarship spots in our incoming class,” Smith said.
Mission Prep grad Kyle Colvin, the team’s third leading scorer as a freshman last year, is expected to return fully healthy after a torn hip labrum injury.
“He’ll be full strength next year,” Smith said. “We’ve done extra weight training. He’s really eager and ready to go. He plays with great pace.”
This story was originally published February 27, 2021 at 8:39 PM with the headline "Cal Poly men’s basketball loses final home game: ‘We’re changing the culture’."
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