The Big West has concluded their non-conference slates and now look to the start of the conference season as a new beginning. Here’s a look at where each team stands as they begin the road to the Big West championship.
Cal State Northridge (9-3)
Signature win: Dec. 21, 76-71 at Utah
Biggest loss: 82-56 at UCLA
The Matadors 6-0 start was the program's best start since 1990-91 - the year that CSUN began Division I play. And their 9-3 mark is also the fastest that the Matadors have gotten to nine wins in the history of the program.
Little was expected of a team that was picked to finish eighth in the Big West, but behind the deft shooting of Stephan Hicks and the veteran coaching of Bobby Braswell, the Matadors are poised to be a breakout contender in this season’s conference race.
Faced with a challenging schedule, the Matadors - the youngest team in Division I - have played beyond their years in games against BYU, Arizona State and Utah.
While Hicks has been the most dominant Matador this season, he has had some offensive assistance. Stephen Maxwell has added 12 points and seven rebounds per game and Josh Greene, the veteran of the group, has averaged 12.8 points and 4.8 assists. Freshman Landon Drew has developed well, helping run the offense off the bench. The Matadors also move the ball well, with 16.4 assists per game, third in the conference, and have had more than 20 on three occasions this season, all of which were wins.
Cal State Fullerton (6-5)
Signature win: Nov. 18, 93-82 vs. Wisconsin-Green Bay
Biggest loss: Dec. 2, 74-72 at Washington
Cal State Fullerton has long been a program based on strong guard play. The Titans have always recruited and developed crafty, high-scoring guards that cross up opposing defenders and fly down the court. Coming into this season, the Titans were poised to have one of the most complete teams in the conference.
Steven McClellan, a 6-foot-7 junior forward was transferring in from Louisiana-Monroe to be closer to his ailing mother in Fresno, and was to be granted an NCAA waiver that would have made him eligible for most of the season. John Underwood, a true center who came from Missouri last season, was battling minor injuries but still expected to make a contribution. And Marquis Horne and Darius Nelson were going to provide frontcourt depth.
But interim head coach Andy Newman quickly learned that things don’t always go according to plan.
All of those big men are now gone. Underwood quit, Horne and Nelson are out with injuries and McClellan fell victim to an NCAA rule change and will be
forced to sit out the season.
“This is not how I drew it up,” said the first-year head coach. “You talk about really not going the way you had it planned…This has been as tough as it gets.”
Fullerton is now forced to go back to its guard-oriented ways.
“We’re playing a two-guard at the five right now,” Newman said.
The lack of size and post players was quickly exposed. Rebounding has been the biggest challenge with such a small lineup, and while the Titans have been able to keep scores close, late-game collapses have been the culprit.
A heartbreaking, two-point loss at Washington came down to the wire and the Titans’ inability to get on the glass was what ultimately cost them in the closing stretch.
“To play (the Huskies) to one possession, you look back at it and go, ‘Oh, that was a good game,’” Newman said. “But it just comes down to the last six minutes. We had open shots and we didn’t make them and then we just couldn’t get a defensive rebound to save our life.”
The Titans have one of the highest-scoring offenses in Division I - ranking fifth in the country with 83.2 points per game - and boast two of the best guards in the conference in Kwame Vaughn and D.J. Seeley. Fullerton will rely on an up-tempo game and hard pressure through the rest of the season.
Newman is hoping these early season tribulations will make the Titans a better team come March, and himself a better head coach.
“We’re taking our lumps,” Newman said. “You don’t build character by everything going your way. You build character by getting through adversity and fighting through it.
“And that’s what this team has done.”
Hawaii (6-5)
Signature win: Dec. 23, 84-61 against East Tennessee State
Biggest loss: Dec. 1, 77-63 at No. 24 UNLV
New to the Big West this season, the ‘Bows led a ranked UNLV team on the road before running out of gas, and at 6-5 their wins have been over some unimpressive opponents. Still in the midst of head coach Gib Arnold’s rebuilding project, Hawaii has had the luxury of playing at home for most of the non-conference season, hosting the Outrigger Hotels and Resorts Rainbow Classic and the Diamondhead Classic. The Warriors won just one game in the latter tournament, which was the more difficult of the two.
What Hawaii does have is solid big men in Vander Joaquim and Christian Standhardinger, both averaging roughly 15 points and eight rebounds per game.
Pacific (6-6)
Signature win: Nov. 23, 76-66 vs. St. Mary’s
Biggest loss: Dec. 19, 74-46 at St. Mary’s
The Tigers appear to be one of the most complete units in the Big West - Pacific shoots well, defends well, moves the ball well and rebounds well. There isn’t one aspect of the Tigers’ game that is particularly overpowering, but there also aren’t a lot of holes.
It should come as no surprise that a star has yet to really emerge in Stockton. Lorenzo McCloud is the only player to average double-digits with 12.3 points per game, but a balanced offense is collectively shooting .478, ranked No. 31 in the country. Depth has also played a role in the early success, as head coach Bob Thomason currently has the luxury of running a nine-man rotation.
Should the Tigers continue to play at this level, their final year in the Big West could be their best.
UC Irvine (6-7)
Signature win: Dec. 20, 61-54 at USC
Biggest loss: Dec. 18, 66-60 against LSU
A young but talented UC Irvine team ended the non-conference season on a high note with a win at USC. The Anteaters have played to the level of their opponents in games against LSU and UCLA, but they've struggled against lesser teams like Sam Houston State and Weber State. It’s a team that is still growing and going through a significant transition with 11 underclassmen.
Unlike other young teams in the Big West, Irvine’s roster still features four seniors, including all-conference guard Michael Wilder. Three of those four seniors lead the team in scoring and two lead in rebounding, but it’s their contributions in the locker room that have been invaluable to the development of this young team.
“When people ask about the leadership of this team, our leadership comes from our group of four seniors,” said head coach Russell Turner. “We’ll go as far as they take us.”
Cal Poly (4-6)
Signature win: Nov. 25, 70-68 at No. 11 UCLA
Biggest loss: Nov. 9, 53-46 at TCU
The Mustangs have played exceptionally well this season, although their record may not show it. Cal Poly managed to knock UCLA out of the rankings with a gutsy win at the new Pauley Pavilion last month, and the Mustangs played well against two-loss Santa Clara and Washington to close out the non-conference schedule.
The Mustangs are accurate from the field, shooting .427, but their defense has struggled. Against St. Mary’s, the Mustangs shot over 50 percent from the field but allowed the Gaels to shoot over 60 percent in what turned out to be an offensive shootout. The Mustangs currently rank last in the Big West in field goal defense.
Long Beach State (4-7)
Signature win: Nov. 5, 69-61 at Fresno State
Biggest loss: Dec. 8, 89-55 at No. 7 Ohio State
The theme of the season for the defending champs has been the identity crisis they seem to be suffering since losing six seniors last season. A brutal schedule, which is an annual occurrence with head coach Dan Monson, has been difficult to face and injuries have thinned the bench out significantly. Help is on the way with prominent Division I transfers Keala King (Arizona State) and Tony Freeland (DePaul), but now the challenge is finding the chemistry with those two.
Sophomore point guard Mike Caffey has shined, but at times has tried to do too much. Senior forward James Ennis leads the team scoring 16.9 points per game, fifth in the Big West, but seems more content playing his game then managing the games of others.
Dan Jennings has lived up to expectations, torching UCLA last week and bringing a much-needed post presence to The Beach.
But issues with the energy in practice, lackluster perimeter defense and an exhausting schedule has led to some less-than-stellar performances and diminished the 49ers' status as the conference favorites.
“We’ve got to get ourselves playing more consistent and more together,” Monson said.
UC Davis (4-7)
Signature win: Nov. 20, 87-76 at Sacramento State
Biggest loss: Nov. 28, 84-83 at Nevada
The Aggies have two big pieces in Corey Hawkins - the conference’s fourth-leading scorer (17.5 PPG) - and the leading rebounder in Ryan Hawley (10.5 RPG), but has yet to really put their pieces all together.
Hawkins, the son of 13-year NBA veteran Hersey Hawkins, is a multi-dimensional point guard who can score and find other scorers. Playing his first season in Davis after transferring from Arizona State, the one area the offensive guard could use work on is from behind the arc. Hawkins is just 12-for-49 from the perimeter (.245). Despite Hawkins' poor shooting from long distance, Davis is the second-best 3-point team in the Big West, and most of the credit goes to Ryan Sypkens, who is shooting .522.
UC Santa Barbara (4-7)
Signature win: Dec. 1, 83-80 (OT) at Santa Clara
Biggest loss: Dec. 21, 56-40 at Wyoming
The Gauchos are in the midst of a rebuilding season, and while they have shown flashes of high-level play, such as an overtime win against Santa Clara, their only other Division I win this season was over a struggling San Diego squad.
UCSB ended the non-conference season with a cold shooting performance at Wyoming, a team that head coach Bob Williams initially thought the Gauchos matched up well against.
Williams admits that rebuilding is a slow process, saying the Gauchos are still in “Phase One,” but said they have already come a long way since the first week of play.
“Every week it’s eliminating part of the problem and we’ve been doing that,” Williams said. “It’s acceptance of your role and knowing where you stand and what you need to do to make the team better.”
UC Riverside (3-9)
Signature win: Dec. 1, 69-63 against Northern Colorado
Biggest loss: Dec. 15, 70-26 at USC
All of the promise that the Highlanders had this season seems to have disappeared, as UC Riverside had been dismal thus far. Northern Colorado is the only Division I team the Highlanders have defeated. Two weeks ago in Los Angeles, the Highlanders shot just 19 percent and scored just 26 points, a record low for the school.
Chris Harriel and Chris Patton are each averaging 10 points per game and Harriel’s fast hands have yielded 23 steals this season, but both have looked tired at times, being forced to carry the entire team on their backs.
