Cal Poly Pomona starts fast to reach semifinals
Cal Poly Pomona’s Austin Swift walked off the floor of the MassMutual Center with his heart broken the last time he played here at the NCAA Division II Elite Eight.
He and his teammates took a big first step toward making sure that doesn’t happen again.
The Broncos, stung by an overtime loss to Findlay in the 2009 national final, blasted St. Joseph’s College (Ind.), 69-48, Wednesday night in a national quarterfinal.
Cal Poly moves on to play Bentley (26-6) of Waltham, Mass., on Thursday night in a semifinal featuring unranked teams. A spot in Saturday’s nationally televised championship game will be on the line.
“Losing last year was a key motivating factor for us,” Swift said. “Dahir [Nasser] and I stayed over the summer and worked hard to get back to this point. We don’t want to come up short again.”
Cal Poly left little doubt about the outcome of this game. The Broncos (26-6) opened with a commanding 28-7 lead, forcing the Pumas (20-12) to take bad shots and scoring easy baskets off turnovers.
The Broncos, who shot 52.7% overall from the field and had 36 points in the paint, went into halftime with a 36-14 lead and made the second half little more than a formality.
They forced St. Joseph’s to shoot 28.3% (15 of 53) from the field.
“It’s the best defense we have seen all year,” Pumas Coach Richard Davis said. “You can’t simulate that kind of defensive effort in practice.”
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