Mousa garners All-Big West First Team honors

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (KEYT) - Highlighted by Hamad Mousa’s All-Big West first team inclusion and the addition of Cayden Ward and Peter Bandelj as honorable mention selections, the Cal Poly men’s basketball program enjoyed its best all-conference showing 19 years on Tuesday.

Mousa, the Big West’s leading scorer at 20.4 points per game and just the second Mustang in program history to reach 600 points in one season, became Cal Poly’s first All-Big West first team selection since Chris Eversley during the 2012-13 season.

Ward and Bandelj, meanwhile, provided Cal Poly its highest total of All-Big West selections since four Mustangs earned honors for the program’s 2006-07 Big West Championship runner-up season.

Mousa, a double-digit scorer in all but one of his 31 appearances, ranks 26th among NCAA Division I players with 20.4 points per game. He’s also 20th nationally with 175 total free throws and 67th with 84 three-pointers.

Enjoying four 30-plus point games and 13 of 20-plus points, Mousa – with 15 points at UC Irvine (March 5) – became just the second Mustang and first since Stuart Thomas during the 1990-91 season to surpass 600 points in one year. He next requires just 28 points to overtake Thomas’s single season record of 658 points. Mousa also ranks second in single season history with 175 free throws – three behind the program record of 178 by Thomas (1990-91) – fourth with 84 three-pointers, fifth with 220 three-point attempts, eighth with an 87.6 percent free throw mark and 11th with 186 field goals.

Ward has scored in double digits 25 times this year and ranks 10th among Big West players with 14.6 per game. He scored a career best 28 points in Cal Poly’s Nov. 20 win at Utah, matched the total versus Long Beach State (Feb. 26) and produced a pair of double-doubles during the regular season. Cal Poly’s co-leading rebounder with 6.3 boards per game, Ward ranks seventh among Big West players alongside Mousa.

Bandelj, Cal Poly’s third leading scorer at 13.2 points per game, also ranks fifth among Big West performers with an 86.5 (109-for-126) percent free throw mark. A 21-time double-digit scorer, Bandelj’s career high 37-point performance at Cal State Fullerton (Dec. 4) included a program record nine three-pointers. He’s also Cal Poly’s top distributor, ranking seventh in the Big West at 3.4 assists per game.

As a program, eighth-seeded Cal Poly – winners of five of its last seven to close the regular season – faces No. 5 UC San Diego in the Big West Championship opening round on Wednesday, March 11 at 6 p.m. on ESPN+.

(Article courtesy of Cal Poly Athletics)