The non-conference road tour for Weber State men’s basketball took the Wildcats to San Luis Obispo on Friday night to face an up-and-coming Cal Poly squad.

The Mustangs, after all, had Washington on the ropes earlier in the week. Cal Poly beat a formidable Cal Baptist team by double digits at home, won at Pacific, and hammered a hopeful Portland State team by 23 points just six days prior.

Weber State, on the other hand, was looking for its first true road win of the season. And all the road-weary Wildcats delivered was a complete, dominant wipeout of the home team.

Weber State used a scathing 30-4 run early in the first half to knock Cal Poly on its heels on the way to a 74-45 victory.

“I thought we were really good on both ends of the floor tonight,” WSU head coach Eric Duft said. “Defensively, our guys were really locked in, did a great job … we had a lot of guys contribute tonight.”

Cal Poly (5-5) started in a flash, going ahead 9-2 when lefty Trevon Taylor hit a corner 3 and then scored at the rim in the game’s first two minutes.

After that? Weber State (4-7) controlled the game on both ends.

The Wildcats scrambled and stifled on post defense against Cal Poly big Ali Koroma, who entered the night leading his team at 12.8 points per game but totaled just six points in the game’s first 35 minutes. He later scored at the rim and from 3 in the final stretch.

At one point early in the second half, with Alex Tew sitting with foul trouble, WSU freshman Handje Tamba rejected two Koroma shots in the paint in the space of a couple minutes.

Duft said he thought maybe the young Tamba hit a wall early in the season after taking most of the reps during the fall and scrimmages as Tew was sidelined with an ankle injury.

“Now he’s relaxed a little bit, we got him some rest, and now he’s come back — and a really good effort by him tonight,” Duft said.

After the 9-2 lead, the Mustangs scored just four points in the next 12 minutes and 28 seconds. WSU gave Cal Poly no good looks and cleaned up nearly every miss in the stretch, allowing just one offensive rebound on CP’s 13 missed field goals.

“They have a good team. I just thought we had a good game plan, coach (Eric) Daniels had a good plan against them defensively and guys executed it well,” Duft said.

Weber State, meanwhile, launched into a 30-point burst over the same timeframe.

KJ Cunningham and Steven Verplancken Jr. began the run with 3-pointers and the Wildcats were off to the races. When the big man Tew faced up and launched in a 10-foot push shot against the shot clock for a 23-11 lead, it seemed the writing was on the wall that WSU had pried the lid off the basket that has plagued it so far this season.

Verplancken Jr. ended the eruption with what he does best, following a 3 from Junior Ballard with two consecutive treys that put the Wildcats up 32-13 with 6:29 left in the first half.

Southern Utah transfer guard Nick Fleming hit a buzzer-beating 3 to get Cal Poly to within 40-25 at halftime but when WSU’s Dillon Jones and Dyson Koehler hit consecutive 3s early in the second half for a 50-29 advantage, the rest was a matter of time.

Verplancken is 21 of 36 from the 3-point line in the last seven games and led Weber State with 15 points, going 6 of 8 overall and 3 of 4 from deep Friday. Jones racked up 13 points, 10 rebounds and five assists for his sixth double-double of the season.

Ballard (14 points) and Koehler (10 points, five rebounds) each returned to face Cal Poly after beginning their college careers there.

“Both those guys played terrific tonight,” Duft said of the two players who traded spots in and out of the starting lineup a few games ago. “I’m proud of (Ballard), he was pressing way too much and I asked him to play simpler. He just has bought in (coming off the bench).”

Cunningham totaled eight points and four assists. Tamba added four rebounds to his two blocks.

Weber State shot 27 of 51 (52.9%) overall and 50% from the 3-point line (11 of 22) for the second consecutive game after going 12 of 24 against Saint Martin’s.

Koroma’s 11 points led Cal Poly and Taylor scored 10. The Mustangs shot 13 of 33 (39.4%) on two-point shots and were outscored 24-22 in the paint despite spending much of the game trying to feed their offense through the post.

WSU remains on the road next week for two tough matchups to conclude non-conference play, visiting undefeated Utah State (looking for their first 10-0 start in school history) on Monday in Logan, then playing BYU on Thursday in Provo.

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