Hawaii basketball team faces difficult court challenge vs. Cal Poly

The Mott Athletics Center is 59 years old, named after the late head of the physical education department, and has flooring commonly known as “Southern white pine.”

But for the Cal Poly basketball team, Mott is a supreme court.

This season, the Mustangs are 6-3 at Mott and 0-13 when playing anywhere else. In Big West games, they are 3-0 at home, 0-5 on the road.

“They’re playing really well at home,” said Hawaii assistant coach Chris Gerlufsen, whose Rainbow Warriors will play the Mustangs today in Mott. Tip-off is set for 5 p.m.

UH head coach Eran Ganot noted the Mustangs “gave us all we can handle” in Hawaii. “This will be a tough game.”

The Mustangs are averaging 89 points in their three league home games. They racked up 101 points against Cal State Fullerton and 92 against Long Beach State.

In his first season as Poly head coach, John Smith has implemented a quick-paced offense that was successful at Fullerton, where he previously worked as an associate head coach. Fullerton used that style to reach the championship game of the Big West Tournament the previous two years.

“This is the style we’ve been trying to get to,” Smith said. “When I took over the job, I talked about our pace. We wanted to play with a faster pace. It’s taken a while to get in a rhythm because of injuries and different rotations.”

Smith said the Mustangs were short-handed in many of the nonconference practices. One of their best post players, Hank Hollingsworth, played the first three games before suffering a season-ending injury.

Smith has embraced a strategy of using a deep rotation, at least in the first half. “The second half, we shorten the rotation a little bit,” Smith said. Eleven Mustangs are averaging double-digit minutes.

It was in the second week of league play, Smith acknowledged, “the light bulb started flickering.”

The Mustangs faltered in the second half of the game against UH, and a week later, “we’ve gotten back in stride, back in rhythm,” Smith said. “We’re just trying to play with pace, and as fast as we can play well. We don’t want to play too fast where we’re turning the ball over too much. That was what was happening in the early process. Taking over a team that played the opposite style for the last three or four years, it was going to take some time.”

The ’Bows are seeking to rebound from Thursday’s 76-66 loss to UC Santa Barbara, the first leg on this two-game road trip. UCSB’s Amadou Sow scored 30. The game was tightly officiated, and the ’Bows were called a few times for moving screens.

On Friday morning, the ’Bows departed Santa Barbara for the two-hour drive to San Luis Obispo. They then had a light practice ahead of today’s game.