Cal Poly upsets UC Irvine in final minutes with 6 games to go till the tournament

Cal Poly men’s basketball knocked off UC Irvine 79-73 on Thursday night, flipping the script from last March when the Anteaters ended the Mustangs’ season in the Big West semifinals.

​With eight players still on the roster from that team, the memory of that loss hasn’t gone anywhere. Thursday night felt like a response from a group that’s been carrying it for nearly a year.

​Thursday night was the first time these two teams met since the tournament last March, when the Anteaters (9-4, 16-9) came in as the No. 2 team in the Big West.

Pulling out a win didn’t look realistic in the first half for Cal Poly (6-8, 10-16).

At one point, Cal Poly strung together consecutive three-pointers from Peter Bandelj, Austin Goode and Cayden Ward to stay within striking distance of the Anteaters.

But hanging around and actually taking control are two very different things.

The Anteaters closed the half on a 19-4 scoring run, and suddenly the game felt like it was slipping out of reach with Cal Poly taking a 42-29 deficit into the locker room.

Cal Poly storms back in the second half

After halftime, however, the Mustangs looked like a new team.

Midway through the second half, Guzman Vasilic caught fire from beyond the arc. The threes kept falling, and he finished with a career-high 18 points to lead the Mustangs.

Cal Poly took the lead for good with 4:49 to play.

This group has been in its share of tight finishes, and more often than not, they haven’t gone the Mustangs’ way.

In their last game at home against CSUN, they dropped a one-point heartbreaker in the final two seconds on a Northridge jumper.

But Thursday felt different. With eight seconds left, Irvine hit a three to cut the deficit to five, putting a little tension back into the building.

From there, it turned into a foul-and-free-throw situation, and Cal Poly handled it calmly to secure the 79-73 upset over the Anteaters.

Cal Poly managed to pull off the upset even with Hamad Mousa, their leading scorer, finishing with just five points.

Thursday’s game was Mousa’s first this season without reaching double figures. Even without his usual production, the Mustangs found enough elsewhere to get it done.

A major concern entering the matchup was Kyle Evans, UC Irvine’s 6-foot-10 big man who ranks among the nation’s top defensive rebounders and leads the country in blocks.

Evans still finished with a double-double, posting 11 points and 10 rebounds, but Cal Poly didn’t let him control the glass.

The Mustangs battled inside, winning the rebounding effort and turning second chances into production.

Nineteen of their points came off second-chance opportunities, a difference-maker in a game that stayed tight from start to finish.

“(Kyle) has an incredible defensive presence, and I thought in that second half we recognized better when he was rotating over, and we were able to move the ball to the open man. That really changed his impact on the game,” head coach Mike DeGeorge said.

Despite coming into the game second in the Big West conference standings, this loss now pushed the Anteaters down to third while UC Santa Barbara climbed in the standings. Irvine is now on a two-game skid after falling to UCSB last week.

Cal Poly looks ahead to the Blue-Green Rivalry on Saturday, when they host UC Santa Barbara (10-4, 17-8), which now sits in second place in conference play. The Mustangs got blown out by the Gauchos 107-67 in their first matchup on Jan. 22.

Hawaii (10-3, 18-5) leads the Big West. Cal Poly sits in eighth place.

6 games left in Big West conference play

As the season nears its end and March is not too far away, every game for Cal Poly moving forward has some serious stakes.

Six conference games remain in the season, and each directly impacts their chances of making another postseason run.

“​​All the games that we’ve lost in conference have been really close and been decided by a couple of possessions,” Ward said. “So we knew we could compete with one of the best teams. And tonight was kind of a statement game, that we’re one of the teams that people should be looking out for.”

Last season, the Mustangs didn’t pick up their first conference win until late January after starting 0-8 in Big West play. That breakthrough sparked just enough momentum down the stretch to secure the No. 7 seed in the conference tournament.

DeGeorge proved then what his group is capable of when the pressure ramps up late in the season.

“We felt all year that the difference between the top and the bottom (of the conference standings) in our league isn’t very much,” DeGeorge said. “We just felt like if we could keep getting better and better and get in the tournament, we’re good enough to win the tournament.”

This story was originally published February 13, 2026 at 9:12 AM.