SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (KEYT) – Hamad Mousa finished with a game high 29 points and Cayden Ward matched his career best with 28 Thursday evening as the Cal Poly men\u2019s basketball program clinched a spot in the 2026 Big West Championship with a 102-92 victory against Long Beach State inside Mott Athletics Center.<\/p>\n
Freshman Jess Esso Essis enjoyed a career high 15 points for Cal Poly (13-16, 9-8), which extended its winning streak to four straight after sinking 13 three-pointers, shooting 95.5 (21-for-22) percent from the free throw line and recording its highest regulation point total since a 102-89 victory at Hawai\u2019i on Feb. 20, 2010.<\/p>\n
Ward added a game high nine rebounds for Cal Poly, which matched a season low with just eight turnovers.<\/p>\n
Cal Poly\u2019s Thursday victory confirmed all eight Big West Championship programs \u2013 with three regular season matchups remaining. Long Beach State (8-21, 4-13) was eliminated from postseason contention with the loss.<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s matchup featured 10 lead changes during the opening 10-and-a-half minutes before a jumper from sophomore Guzman Vasilic handed Cal Poly a 29-27 edge. Cal Poly then produced a 15-7 run to go up by double digits with three minutes remaining in the half.<\/p>\n
The Mustangs took a 48-40 lead into the break before a jumper and three-pointer from Long Beach State guard Shaquil Bender to open the second half cut Cal Poly\u2019s advantage to three.<\/p>\n
Cal Poly, however, scored on four of its next five possessions to reestablish a double-digit lead for the remainder of the night.<\/p>\n
Notes:<\/p>\n
Despite a four-game win streak, Cal Poly remained in eighth place in the Big West standings \u2013 but just three games behind co-leaders UC Irvine and Hawai\u2019i.<\/p>\n
Up Next: Cal Poly visits UC San Diego on Saturday, Feb. 28 at 7 p.m. The Tritons, sharing fifth place alongside Cal State Fullerton, reside just one game ahead of Cal Poly.<\/p>\n
With 29 points Thursday, Hamad Mousa improved his season point total to 574 \u2013 the fourth highest single season total in program history.<\/p>\n
Cal Poly\u2019s nine Big West victories are the program\u2019s highest total since finishing 12-6 to close the 2012-13 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (KEYT) – Hamad Mousa finished with a game high 29 points and Cayden Ward…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-196229","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-long-beach","9":"tag-long-beach-headlines","10":"tag-long-beach-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}