College Basketball: Cuesta is off to a fast start
There was almost a complete turnover of the Cuesta College men’s basketball team’s roster this offseason, and a recent NCAA rule change had the European prospects the Cougars usually recruit thinking twice about coming to San Luis Obispo.
So, even Cuesta head coach Rusty Blair has been surprised by the Cougars’ red-hot start, one that harkens back to the best days in program history.
Nobody was expecting as much with nine newcomers to go with two inexperienced returners. “I might say a total surprise,” said Blair in his 23rd year at Cuesta. “We were building our team around two of the bottom bench players from last year, a third-string post and third-string wing.
“I have a very young roster for this year’s team, and knowing that, no experience, not any real big names … This is what we had to get to work with, and we weren’t sure what to expect. And now after eight games, this team has some potential because this team shares the ball like you wouldn’t believe.”
The Cougars are 7-1 with their lone loss to Chaffey, which ranked fifth in the state in the latest poll, and Cuesta is coming off a Citrus Tournament championship victory over No. 15 East Los Angeles this past weekend.
The official state polls will not be updated until next week, but signalthelight basketball.com, a website dedicated to covering junior college basketball in California, jumped the Cougars to fourth in its Southern California power rankings.
If Cuesta can pull off another tournament title at Grossmont College in El Cajon this weekend, the Cougars are bound to make a make a similar splash when the official poll is released Monday.
With the Cuesta women’s program also having success heading into its 31st annual Phillips 66 Tournament beginning today, the men’s program is reminding Blair of the record-breaking Cougars team from 1996-97, which finished a program-best 33-5 and advanced to the state finals for the only time in program history.
“If we actually go down and go in this tournament and win it, you’re going to get instant respect,” Blair said. “We went from nowhere to the top 10 because of what happened over the weekend.”
Blair told the players “the sky’s the limit. You guys keep playing, supporting each other and not being selfish.”
The Cuesta women are 4-2 and have reached the finals of the two eight-team tournaments they have participated in, taking second in each. The Cougars will go for their first tournament title of the season hosting eight teams, including rival Allan Hancock College, for a three-day tournament that culminates on the first day with Cuesta’s 8 p.m. matchup with Victor Valley tonight.
Like the men’s team, the women did not have much experience returning, but they nearly knocked off No. 10 Mt. San Jacinto in a 55-50 loss Sunday where the Cougars had the lead with less than two minutes left, head coach Ron Barba said.
“The beginning of the season surrounds leadership, and it’s obviously an issue for us,” Barba said. “Some of it’s inexperience on our end, but I have been impressed with our defense.”
This weekend, Cuesta will be without sophomore leader Kaylee Williams, a former Mission Prep standout who had an emergency appendectomy, and injured 5-10 freshman forward Samantha Walker.
In addition to 12 points per game, sophomore forward and Morro Bay product Jerrica Crosby ranks second in the state with 20 blocks and is fifth with 13.7 rebounds per game.
“I just think right now it’s weathering through the injuries,” Barba said. “That’s what it’s going to take.”
Hancock, head coached by former longtime Morro Bay High multi-sport coach Cary Nerelli, will play Las Positas at 4 p.m. The championship game is scheduled for 4 p.m. Saturday. Perhaps adding to the shock of the Cougars men’s meteoric rise is the roster makeup. Many of the European players who have made up teams in recent years were students in their early 20s who were returning to school.
NCAA rule changes to the five-year Division I clock, Blair said, discourages those older students from the move to the United States, which is a costly expense, if they cannot become eligible for Division I recruitment.
As a result, Cuesta has just four international players when, in previous years, there might have been just that many players from the U.S.
The star so far has certainly been sophomore Rafael Casanova, a guard from Seville, Spain, who ranks seventh in the state with 21.5 points per game. Casanova appeared in just 16 games last season, averaging just 6.8 minutes.
Cuesta ranks sixth in the state converting 44.6 percent of its 3-pointers. The Cougars’ 50.1 percent from the field overall ranks seventh. It’s all due, Blair said, to the 18.2 assists per game, which ranks fifth in the state.
“I’ve had teams that always shared the ball,” Blair said, “but somewhere along the line, it’s stopped somewhere. We couldn’t get it past that one person.
“Not only are we shooting the ball well, but we’re getting wide-open shots because we keep making the extra pass.”
This story was originally published December 3, 2014 at 10:04 PM with the headline "College Basketball: Cuesta is off to a fast start."