Big Way Out West : Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Brings Quite a Different Flavor, Style to the Conference

Business seems to be good at the Madonna Inn, just off U.S. 101, where visitors can spend the night in a room that might look like a cave, a jungle safari tent or something out of a sultan’s palace.

It’s not Caesars Palace, but if you’re really interested, Hearst Castle is less than an hour away.

A farmers’ market takes over San Luis Obispo’s quaint downtown every Thursday night on Higuera Street. The cars are rolling in, and huge grills are loaded with chicken, beef and pork, producing some of the best barbecue this side of Memphis.

On the Cal Poly campus a few miles away, the gymnasium is newly decorated with a bright Big West Conference banner. Separate flags for each member school hang above the floor. The school’s 37-year-old basketball coach, Jeff Schneider, has practice going at a fever pitch.

Welcome to life in one corner of the new Big West, the restructured conference about to emerge this season without the glitter of Nevada Las Vegas basketball for the first time since 1983.

Cal Poly is one of the conference’s four new teams after UNLV left with the glamour of its 12 NCAA tournament trips, four appearances in the Final Four and 1990 national championship and moved to the Western Athletic Conference along with San Jose State.

The opportunity to play in the Big West is heady stuff here.

Only three years ago, the Mustangs were playing Division II basketball in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. And two years ago, in their first year in Division I, they won only once of 27 games and were outscored by an average of more than 25 points.

But last year, Cal Poly fans started getting a touch of basketball fever, thanks to the arrival of the energetic and gregarious Schneider. Cal Poly went 16-13, the second-best improvement in Division I under a first-year coach.

By the time the season ended, students were camping out to get tickets in 3,500-seat Mott Gym, and more of the same is expected this year.

“Two years ago we had 13 people who had season tickets,” Schneider said. “This year we’ve sold 13 VIP corporate sideline boxes at $5,000 each. We may not have the biggest or the best building, but we want to have the best environment. The crowds will be really important for us. We want to have a Duke-type crowd.”

John McCutcheon, in his fifth year as athletic director, remembers how it was in his early days as an assistant at Boston College. “We had a facility there much like ours here when the Big East was still a new conference,” McCutcheon said. “But before long, when teams like St. John’s and Georgetown came in, we were literally pushing kids back out of the restroom windows. It was exciting. I think we saw the tip of the iceberg here last year.”

McCutcheon, however, is realistic about what it takes to turn students into fervent fans. “Students today are pretty sophisticated,” he said. “They’re not going to come just because their college team is playing. They can watch all kinds of sports events on television. You have to give them a reason to come to games.”

Schneider says he’s determined to do that.

“We play Rick Pitino-style basketball,” Schneider said. “We press the whole game, and we want our players shooting the ball, not passing it.”

On Schneider’s office wall is a large, framed “3.”

“People around here probably thought that stood for my I.Q. for a while,” Schneider said, laughing.

Actually, Schneider and a booster came up with the idea of putting the enlarged No. 3 on the back of white T-shirts as a sort of unofficial symbol of the new playing style. A year ago, cheerleaders tossed them into the crowd three at a time whenever the Mustangs made a three-point shot.

Now, Schneider says, when students see him on campus, they’ll sometimes throw both hands above their head and shout, “Three!” in the way of a greeting.

“That T-shirt has become the most popular one in San Luis Obispo,” Schneider said. “Someone told me the other day they saw someone wearing one on television on the ‘Price is Right.’ ”

Schneider feigns astonishment: “I mean, can you believe that? On the ‘The Price is Right.’ ”

At the Firestone Grill, a downtown restaurant where Schneider likes to eat and talk basketball, a scoreboard is ready to keep a game-by-game count of this year’s three-point baskets.

A year ago, the Mustangs launched 696 three-point shots, making 32% of them, and Schneider promises there will be more this year. In an exhibition game last week, Cal Poly put up 53, making 22. Both would have approached NCAA records had it been an official game.

Ben Larson, a sophomore guard from Elkhart, Ind., led the team in three-pointers with 94, but others are certain to be rivals for that honor this season.

Newcomer Rick Kinner made 125 for Western Nebraska Community College, and he’ll be the guy wearing the real No. 3 on his back this year. Opponents shouldn’t need a scouting report to figure out that one.

And then there’s Mike Wozniak, who shot 51% from three-point range as a high school senior in Carmel, Ind. “He was 11 for 19 on three-pointers in one game last year,” Schneider said. “He reminds me a lot of Travis Ford, who played at Kentucky.”

Another recruit, guard Mitch Ohnstad, was “Mr. Basketball” in Minnesota last year. That’s not Indiana, or Kentucky, but his Fairbault High team was 23-2, and he averaged 30 points and seven assists a game.

Schneider had earned a reputation as a good recruiter well before McCutcheon picked him from a pool of 80 candidates for the job. “I was impressed by his enthusiasm first of all, and that he understood the kind of athletes we needed here,” McCutcheon said.

Schneider recruited at Tulsa for five years, then was an assistant in 1995 at Washington State. He was on Tubby Smith’s staff in 1994 when Tulsa won the Missouri Valley title and defeated UCLA and Oklahoma State in the NCAA playoffs before losing to Arkansas.

At Cal Poly, Schneider quickly put an emphasis on recruiting cold-weather climates.

“Those players come out here and love it,” he said. “It’s warm all year, and Pismo Beach is only 10 or so minutes away. We know it’s going to be more difficult to get the great 6-9 player here, but we’re looking for guards who can shoot.”

Schneider says the move to the Big West is helping.

“I think it’s going to be great,” said Josh Porter, a junior transfer from Irvine Valley who played at Mater Dei High. “That was one of the main reasons I decided to come here. You can tell the fans are getting excited about it too. When you’re in class, people recognize you and want to talk about the team.”

Senior Damien Levesque, who has played at Cal Poly three years, says the atmosphere is much different than two years ago. “This is going to be a nice way to cap off my career here.” he said. “I used to watch the the Big West on TV, and it will be great to be a part of it.”

McCutcheon says Cal Poly’s budget ranks in the upper half of Big West members.

“There are a couple of schools that might have a little more resources because of their geographical needs,” McCutcheon said. “We haven’t restricted our basketball recruiting. We feel we have to be able to attract top players from the cold-weather states.”

The emphasis also is on recruiting players who will fit in academically. Cal Poly is highly regarded from that standpoint, and nationally known for its programs in engineering, agriculture and architecture. A recent U.S. News and World Report survey ranked Cal Poly among the nation’s top public universities for the third consecutive year.

Big West Commissioner Dennis Farrell says that reputation, and the strong financial support of athletics by students, were important factors in Cal Poly being chosen by the Big West along with North Texas, Idaho and Boise State. “We looked at their potential, and they fit the geographical footprint for the conference well,” he said. “And the way their students stepped up financially showed they had great potential.”

The 16,000 students pay $43 per quarter to help support the program after a referendum passed five years ago.

“We were at the crossroads then when state allocations were cut severely,” McCutcheon said. It became a matter of continuing in Division II in most sports, possibly dropping some of the 17 programs, or moving into Division I in all except football. The football program remains a Division I-AA independent.

Later, the student government also approved an additional $7 per quarter fee that will help build a $9 million baseball and softball complex. Ground is expected to be broken next summer.

About the only down side for Cal Poly since it joined the Big West is the quandary created by an NCAA rule that makes the school ineligible to accept an automatic bid to the NCAA basketball tournament until it has been in Division I for eight years, even though it can be chosen for an at-large berth.

So Cal Poly won’t be allowed to play in the postseason conference tournament this season. The top four teams in each of the two divisions are supposed to qualify, but if Cal Poly finishes that high, a fifth-place team in the division would replace the Mustangs.

It seems an inhospitable way to welcome a new member, but McCutcheon says he can appreciate the conference’s dilemma.

The concern is that if Cal Poly plays in the tournament and wins it, the Big West, whose national prestige took a blow from UNLV’s defection, could be shut out of an NCAA bid entirely.

“I regret it, but we feel it’s unavoidable under the circumstances,” Farrell said. “If we were in a position of being guaranteed multiple teams, we’d probably let them play. But we feel we have no other recourse.”

Schneider, opportunist that he is, put together a schedule for this season that will include extra games from an exempt tournament at Hawaii in mid-December. They will count on the won-lost record but not toward the maximum games allowed under NCAA rules. Cal Poly will play host Hawaii in the first game, then either Alabama Birmingham or Ball State in the second. “To get an at-large bid you have to get as close to 20 victories as you can,” Schneider said. “Playing in exempt tournaments might help us if we get to that point.”

Schneider also talked his way into the late-December Fresno State tournament, where the Mustangs might have an opportunity to play Jerry Tarkanian’s team in the second round if they can get past Liberty in the opener. Cal Poly also will play in the Golden Bear tournament at California after Christmas.

Schneider relishes competing against basketball’s big names. Last year, he got North Carolina State to play at Cal Poly through his friendship with Coach Les Robinson. Surprisingly, the Mustangs made it a game much of the way before the Wolfpack finally pulled away, 102-83.

“I know we weren’t ready [to play in the Big West] last year,” Schneider said. “The bar has definitely been raised for us. We’ll be playing some teams in the Big West that have been to a lot of NCAA tournaments.”

But Schneider recoils at the suggestion the Big West might be a considerably lesser league this year with a team like Cal Poly, in particular, replacing UNLV.

“I think so much of UNLV was Tark,” Schneider said. “He was a huge part of all that . . . and, well, he’s not there anymore. This league is going to continue to get good players.”

Schneider says the new teams will be able to hold their own.

The preseason coaches’ poll indicates the Mustangs are being taken seriously. Cal Poly was picked to finish fourth in the Western Division, ahead of UC Irvine and Cal State Fullerton, and Schneider believes his team will continue to gain strength with each recruiting class.

“Who would have thought Maryland fans would one day be yelling, ‘Bring on UMass . . .,” Schneider said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Expanding Conference

This year’s version of the Big West will include four new teams. Here’s a look at the conference, with particular attention to the new basketball programs:

1. BOISE STATE

Location: Boise, Idaho

Enrollment: 15,000

History: The Broncos have advanced to postseason play six times in the last 10 years, three times to the NCAA playoffs and three times to the NIT. Former Cal State Fullerton coach Bobby Dye was head coach at Boise State from 1983-1995.

2. IDAHO

Location: Moscow, Idaho

Enrollment: 13,043

History: Idaho had eight consecutive winning seasons and made two NCAA tournament appearances before falling on hard times the last two seasons. Junior forward Kevin Byrne from Estancia High is on this year’s team.

3. NORTH TEXAS

Location: Denton, Texas

Enrollment: 26,400

History: The Eagles reached the Southland Conference title game twice in the past three years.

4. CAL POLY SAN LUIS OBISPO

Location: San Luis Obispo

Enrollment: 15,400

History: Cal Poly is in only its third season in Division I, but had one of the nation’s most successful Division II Athletic programs, winning 35 national titles in all.

Returning conference members

5. Long Beach State

6. UC Irvine

7. Cal State Fullerton

8. UC Santa Barbara

9. Pacific

10. Nevada

11. Utah State

12. New Mexico State

Researched by LON EUBANKS / Los Angeles Times