Coach says effort is there, is optimistic results will come for Cal Poly men’s basketball team

With three games remaining in the regular season, Cal Poly men’s basketball coach Joe Callero feels optimistic about where the Mustangs could potentially be 18 days from now.

An uneven season continued Saturday night as Cal Poly fell 75-71 in overtime to visiting CSUN during a Big West Conference matchup inside Mott Athletics Center. It took another resilient effort to rally back from a 14-point deficit in the final 12 minutes.

The Mustangs (10-16, 4-9 Big West) have played three overtime contests on their home court since the start of conference play last month. Of their nine Big West losses, six have been decided by six points or less.

“A lot of these games we’ve had opportunities to win,” senior guard Reese Morgan said. “We just can’t keep putting ourselves down 14 and expect to be able to come back.”

Morgan turned in his best statistical performance of the season and arguably one of the best shooting efforts of his career against the Matadors. He scored a season-high 23 points on 7-for-8 shooting from behind the 3-point line, which matched his career-high for 3-pointers made in a single game.

For the season, Morgan has 64 made 3-pointers and is shooting 44.1 percent from beyond the arc — the third-highest total in the Big West. He helped spearhead Cal Poly’s 20-6 run to close the game, knocking down his sixth 3-pointer with 31 seconds remaining to force overtime.

“That’s just Reese being Reese, honestly,” senior forward Joel Awich said. “He does the same thing in practice. Gets us going, helps us every way he can.”

All four of the Mustang seniors — Morgan, Awich, Brian Bennett and David Nwaba — were key contributors on the 2014 team that won the Big West Conference Tournament and qualified for the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history.

So, when Callero talks about where the team could be two weeks from now, he has an eye toward the Honda Center in Anaheim. The character and makeup of this year’s team has rarely been in question, and that makes for an intriguing possibility of another improbable postseason run.

“I’ve coached a long time and I know when kids are hitting the gas pedal and they’re giving it their all,” Callero said. “When we’re doing that, I’m proud of them. I’m not happy about losing, but I’m proud of who I get to coach.”

On paper, Cal Poly, sitting eighth in the nine-team Big West standings, has only been outmatched three times against conference opponents.

Both games against Hawaii were decided by an average of 14 points, and there was the somewhat surprising 14-point setback at UC Davis to close out a tough month of January.

In the six games since, the Mustangs are 2-4, with two of those losses coming in overtime on their home floor. And though Cal Poly is 5-6 inside Mott Athletics Center this season, Callero and the players said the fan support has never wavered.

“People vote with their feet,” Callero said. “If they like your effort, they’re going to come back and support your product. They love our effort. I think that’s what people are seeing.

“Cal Poly’s not winning all those close games, but they’re never quitting.”

It will take that sort of mentality over the next two weeks to put something special together. The pieces are in place, particularly with the recent emergence of freshmen Jaylen Shead and Josh Martin. Having played fewer minutes throughout the season, the two freshmen have provided extra energy and elevated Cal Poly’s level of play late in the season.

Against CSUN, Shead added five points, seven assists and a career-high 10 rebounds in another strong all-around performance. Martin recorded his second consecutive double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds in a season-high 30 minutes.

“He’s a really hard worker and I think that’s what’s been big for us right now,” Morgan said of the 6-foot-8 Martin. “That’s just an aggressive, tall, athletic guy that’s just going and making plays. I think the future is really bright for him if he keeps his motor up.”

The same could be said for the Mustangs in the coming weeks.

This story was originally published February 21, 2016 at 12:27 PM with the headline "Coach says effort is there, is optimistic results will come for Cal Poly men’s basketball team."