The Daily Cinderella, Day 4: JOIN THE CAL POLY-CULE
A daily March Madness Minutiae roundup, featuring your new favorite mid-major and a lot of clutch.
The Thursday of Champ Week is a strange day. After about a week of handing out multiple tournament bids every day, most tournaments were at the quarterfinal stage as they try to wrap up Saturday before Selection Sunday.
There was only one conference championship game—congrats to the Stephen F. Austin Ladyjacks on winning the Southland, although I do have to once again raise my objection that “Ladyjack” is not really a thing “Lumberjill” is right there.
As a result, this is probably the lightest Daily Cinderella entry you’re going to get.
BUT GUESS WHAT. IT WAS STILL GOOD.
Your Daily Cinderella: Cal Poly
March is about getting hot at the right time. Cal Poly could not have possibly been colder in recent years, but but they’re starting to simmer. They’ve won more games in the 2025 Big West Tournament than they did in the 2023 and 2024 Big West seasons.
After going a combined 1-38 in the last two years, the Mustangs have beaten UC-Davis and UC-Riverside in back to back days to advance to the semis, putting the Mustangs just two wins away from the NCAA Tournament:
The Mustangs are INCREDIBLY happy. Which is to be expected, considering they went 0-20 in Big West play last year and lost their final 18 games the year before that. (I’m guessing the meeting to fire head coach John Smith was not particularly contentious.)
They changed things up this year under Mike DeGeorge, a successful Division II coach at Colorado Mesa who brought aboard several players from his winning DII team to the DI level. (Starting to hear this story a lot.) Degeorge implemented an entirely new style, playing at the fastest tempo in Division I… and Cal Poly continued to suck, losing their first seven games of Big West play under DeGeorge. That brought their conference losing streak to forty-six, the third-longest in Division I history. The longest? That belongs to the University of Chicago, back when the Maroons were in the Big Ten before dropping down to Division III.
But eventually, the new system started to click. Cal Poly won eight of their last 12 games, and have now essentially played five consecutive win-or-go-home games. The Big West Tournament only features the top eight teams, and the Mustangs were solidly in ninth place on March 1st. But they won their final three games while Hawai’i lost their last two, allowing the Mustangs to squeak into the tournament at 8-12 while the Rainbow Warriors had to stay home on the islands at 7-13.
I’ve already established that I’m rooting for UC-San Diego in the Big West—but I am switching my allegiance. I will pull for Cal Poly tonight against UC-Irvine and in the conference championship, even at the expense of the Tritons. I am now part of the Polycule. I love each and every member of the team and they love me back.
Buzzer-Beaters of the Day
Sometimes I’m a bit loose with my definition of “buzzer-beater.” Sometimes I’ll use that term talking about a game-winning shot that goes in with seven seconds left, and technically does not go in after the game clock expires. Thursday, there were three honest-to-god buzzer-beaters in 48 men’s basketball games.
The funniest came when a gaggle of Stanford players got confused about the difference between “Cardinal” and “Cardinals” and booped a rebound directly to Louisville’s Chucky Hepburn, giving him an uncontested mid-range look to win the game. Stanford’s only hope as the ball went directly into the hands of one of the best scorers in the conference was that Hepburn might be too stunned by his luck to hit the shot.
The best celebration came in the MEAC. After Delaware State hit a game-tying three with seven seconds left, NC Central’s Isaac Parson took an inbounds pass, took it 94 feet, and bounced a sky-high reverse layup off every part of the rim and in. One of Parson’s teammates launched the ball in celebration and there’s no video evidence it ever came down. Good job by the Central cheerleaders hopping over the Delaware State player who collapsed to the floor under the basket.
And after committing back-to-back turnovers to help Oklahoma take the lead, Kentucky won on this coast-to-coast layup by Otega Oweh.
We don’t even get to include this incredible three by Ole Miss’ Sean Pedulla to beat Arkansas. Sorry, pal, not a buzzer-beater!
Bummer-Beater of the Day: Fran’s perfect exit
Iowa coach Fran McCaffery appears at first glance to be a normal basketball coach, but much like Superman or any number of suburban residents conversing with a customer service worker, McCaffery can suddenly shed his mild-mannered alter ego. McCaffery can turn into a reddish-purple inferno of incandescent rage, fuming with anger about some perceived fault with the referees. Predictably, he got tossed in the second half of Thursday’s loss to Illinois, which ended Iowa’s season. Probably his tamest ejection ever, to be honest.
There’s speculation that McCaffery’s time at Iowa is likely over, considering the Hawkeyes missed the NCAA Tournament last year and got worse this year. (Update: Iowa did, in fact, fire McCaffery right after I pubbed this.) Despite generally being successful under McCaffery, but have never made the Sweet 16 and seem to be trending down. A pretty good sign things are over is when your son is an elite prospect who chooses to play for another school.
And if you’ve gotta go, why not make sure everyone remembers you at your finest: shaking with rage,, spewing spittle, being held back by his fed-up assistants realizing their team is about to face an even bigger deficit. Why wait for the final buzzer when you can create your own perfect ending?