Photos – Mustangs lose pre-conference finale at Texas A&M

Cal Poly had a rough time getting to College Station, and once they got there, they had a pretty rough time as well, losing to Texas A&M 82-63 Tuesday night as The Aggies jumped out to a 15 point lead at halftime.

Reese Morgan led Cal Poly with 16 points on Tuesday night. By Kim Sutlive

The Mustangs played better to start the second half. With 9:40 left in the game, Cal Poly had cut the lead to nine points and had the ball. On the possession, Taylor Sutlive — arguably the team’s best three-point shooter — got a clean look at a three from the wing. He missed, but Zach Gordon grabbed the offensive rebound and kicked it to Sutlive for another try. The sophomore missed again. On the next possession, A&M made a three-pointer, increasing the lead to 12. It would never be smaller than that.

If either of Sutlive’s three-pointers would have fallen, a six-point game could have put a little pressure on the Aggies. Instead, Texas A&M cruised the rest of the way en route to a 19-point lead.

For an upset like a Cal Poly win to happen, possessions like this would have ended with the three-pointer going down. At that point in the game, I’m sure any Cal Poly fan who pays attention would have taken two wide open three-point attempts from Sutlive to try to close the gap.

For Sutlive and the Mustangs, the shots didn’t fall and now Cal Poly has Big West Conference play to look forward to. They’ll have a lot of time to hone their game too. The Texas A&M game and their conference opener –at Hawai’i — are the only two games for Cal Poly in a span of over three weeks.

Awich goes down

Joel Awich went down with what looked like an ankle injury and was seen in a boot on the end of the bench as the game wound-down. Awich was Cal Poly’s best player early in the season and, though the Mustangs front line is deep enough to withstand a short-term injury, losing him would be a blow to the Mustangs long-term. I’ll try to update about his injury in the next week or so.

Photos by Kim Sutlive