Mustangs rally in the first half, but fall New Year’s Eve in Hawaii

HONOLULU Seniors Trevon Taylor and Alimamy Crown(above) each finished with a team-leading 10 points on New Year’s Eve, but the Cal Poly men’s basketball program cut a 16-point deficit to five at halftime to open Saturday’s game at Hawaii, falling at SimpliFi Arena at the Stan Sheriff Center. 57-48.

Koroma added a team-best six rebounds for Cal Poly (7-7, 1-1), which started its final Division I game of the 2023 calendar year 0-for-11 from the floor before finishing the first half with 9 goals. -13 shows for the break 27-22.

A pass from the junior guard for the second half Kobe Sanders cut Hawaii’s lead to 52-48 with two minutes to play. Guard Jovon McClanahan missed two 3-pointers as he had a chance to extend Hawaii’s lead late. However, Koroma missed a layup with 47 seconds left, and with Cal Poly forced to foul to regain possession, the Warriors (11-3, 2-0) knocked down five of six free throw attempts.

Cal Poly played on New Year’s Eve for just the fifth time in program history and first since the 2016 visit to Princeton. He had a goal mark of 37.2 (16-43) percent in Hawaii.

Cal Poly remains in action and opens 2023 on Thursday, January 5th at 7pm at CSU Bakersfield.

Cal Poly started Saturday’s game by holding Hawaii to 0-3 shooting before the Warriors knocked down their next three attempts, including forward Kamaka Hepa’s 3-pointer and making seven of eight free throws to go up 12-12-0 after six minutes.

The Warriors eventually stretched the lead to 16-0 and held Cal Poly to an 0-11 start from the floor before the graduate guard. Nick Fleming got the Mustangs on the scoreboard with a jumper after nine minutes.

However, the Mustangs dropped five of their next seven attempts on dunks by the junior forward Bryan Penn-Johnson cutting Cal Poly’s deficit to single digits five and a half minutes before the break.

Cal Poly then ended the half by limiting Hawaii to one field goal on two free throws by the junior guard Brantly Stevenson and the jerseys of Sanders and the sophomore guard Aidan Prukop cut Hawaii’s halftime lead to 27-22.

Hepa completed a three-point play to open the second-half scoring, Stevenson answered with a jumper and Cal Poly moved within six points of Hawaii’s lead five more times until a Sanders layup put Cal Poly up four late.