SLO Reporter

For the first time since the opening game of the season, the Cal Poly women's basketball team will play on a Monday when hosting UC Riverside on Jan. 16.
 
The Mustangs (4-9, 1-4 BW) will face the Highlanders (4-11, 2-3 BW) at 5 p.m. inside Mott Athletics Center.
 
The game will be streamed live on ESPN+. Links to that as well as live stats to follow can be found on the schedule page.
 
Cal Poly will be seeking a bounce back win against the Highlanders after falling to Long Beach State in its lone game of this past week.
 
Sophomore guard Annika Shah continues to lead the team in scoring at 10.5 points per game while also leading the team is assists at 2.5 per game.
 
In all four of Cal Poly's wins this season, the Mustangs have held opponents to 53 points or less, led at halftime, had more rebounds and assists, and shot a higher percentage for the game.
 
Through the first 13 games of the season, the Mustangs rank third in the conference in offensive rebounds at 11.6 per game. They had a season-high 16 of them against NAU. They are also fourth in the Big West in turnovers forced per game at 16.7.
 
Monday's game starts a week that will see Cal Poly play three games. After facing the Highlanders, the Mustangs will travel down to La Jolla to take on UC San Diego on Thursday before returning home to host UC Davis on Saturday at 4 p.m.
 
Scouting UC Riverside: After finishing fourth in the Big West last season, the Highlanders are off to a 2-3 start in Big West play and are 4-11 overall. After dropping their first three games of conference play, they have now won their last two. Junior guard Jordan Webster leads the team in scoring at 12 points per game and has dropped double figures in four of the last five games. Cal Poly has won four of the last five meetings and leads the all-time series 39-38.
 
Shah Leads The Scoring: Sophomore guard Annika Shah leads the Mustangs in scoring this season at 10.5 points per game. That's an improvement of more than six points more than what she averaged as a freshman last season, the biggest jump of anyone on the team. She's scored in double figures five times, including over 20 twice and has led the team in scoring in six of the 13 games so far.
 
Block Party: Junior forward Natlia Ackerman leads the Mustangs in blocks with nine for the season. Six of those came two weeks ago when she had three blocks in each game against CSU Bakersfield and UCSB. She also leads the team in rebounding at 5.6 per game and set her season-high of 10 last week against UCSB.
 
Returning Mustangs: Despite losing two starters from last year, Cal Poly brings back plenty from last year's team. Two  of the team's top three scorers are back this year.
 
Senior guard Maddie Willett returns after being second on the team in scoring last year at 8.9 ppg while leading the team in made threes and three point percentage.
 
Senior forward Julia Nielacna is also back after averaging 8.3 ppg last season while playing in 24 of 25 games and starting 11.
 
In addition to those two, there are five players back this season who played in at least 22 games last year.
 
New Stangs: Cal Poly added seven newcomers to this year's team, four freshmen and three Division I transfers. The three transfers consist of graduate student Nikola Kovacikova, graduate student Oumou Toure, and junior Taylor Wu.
 
Kovacikova comes to Cal Poly after previously playing at both Penn and Georgetown. Last season at Penn, she played in 19 games with eight starts. Off the court, she earned Penn's Norman J. Goldring Prize and George H. Frazier Prize which is given to a senior female student-athlete with the highest GPA. She spent her first two collegiate seasons at Georgetown. As a sophomore in 2019-20, she appeared in 27 games with 12 starts and was the Hoyas' third-leading scorer, averaging 7.9 ppg.
 
Toure comes to Cal Poly after having spent the last three years at Butler. She played her freshman season before missing the next two due to injury and the COVID pandemic. As a freshman in 2019-20, she was named to the Big East All-Freshman Team. That season, she appeared in 27 games, making 20 starts and ranked second on the team in scoring at 9.1 points per game while shooting 46 percent from the field to go along with 6.1 rebounds per game. She also led the Big East and ranked 45th in the NCAA in steals per game at 2.33.
 
Wu spent the last three seasons at California Baptist University where she played in 70 career games. She made her mark as a freshman in 2019-20, averaging 6.6 ppg, 1.7 rpg, 1.7 apg in 18.4 minutes per game. She broke the program's freshman single game scoring record after dropping 37 points against Ottawa (AZ) and in the same game broke the program record for threes made in a game with 10.
 
As a sophomore, she started 19 of 27 games, averaging 8.9 ppg, 1.7 apg, and 21.9 minutes per game. She scored in double figures 11 times including a season-high 15 against Pepperdine. 

Original source can be found here.