Fast turnarounds?

Soon after Thursday night’s game, the Cal Poly basketball team made the 3-hour, 9-minute bus ride to Los Angeles, stayed for a few hours in a hotel, then made the 51⁄2-hour flight to Honolulu ahead of tonight’s game against Hawaii.

“It wasn’t the easiest,” Cal Poly coach Mike DeGeorge said.

The Mustangs made the adjustment, as they have done since DeGeorge was hired 10 months ago. After all, they are quick learners.

The Mustangs did not take long to pick up the intricacies of the nation’s quickest offense. The Mustangs average 13.9 seconds per offensive possession, shortest among 352 Division I teams. The Mustangs have parlayed the rat-a-tat pace into 84.3 points per game — 18.8 more than last season’s scoring average after 15 games.

“They spread you out,” UH coach Eran Ganot said of the Mustangs. “They play fast. They’re No. 1 in the country in tempo. They can play inside-out. Their guards can get into the paint. Their 5s and their 4s can shoot the ball. Heck of a challenge. It’ll really challenge our discipline and our prep.”

In building rosters at Division II Colorado Mesa, where he won 141 games and qualified for the NCAA tournament five times in six seasons, and now at Cal Poly, DeGeorge has sought versatile and “position-less” players for his improv offense.

“We’ll be much smaller than Hawaii,” said DeGeorge, who has started 6-foot-5 Owen Koonce at center four times this season. “But we do put five guys on the floor most of the time that can shoot, pass and dribble. If you combine that with the pace, it does create problems for opponents. And for our players, it is pretty natural how we play.”

DeGeorge said practices focus on “habits, fundamentals and the habit of playing fast.” The Mustangs do not run set offensive plays. “We play in flow,” said DeGeorge, noting “structured sequences” might be called if opponents disrupt the Mustangs’ rhythm.

The goal, according to DeGeorge, is to “stretch the floor out. We’re shooting 3s and trying to get to the rim for a layup. It’s definitely a fun style.”

The Mustangs are ranked 14th nationally in 3-pointers made (10.39 per game) and eighth in shots launched from behind the arc (31.7). Koonce averages 18.1 points while draining 40% of his 3s. Point guard Jarred Hyde has buried 44 3-point shots, and guard Isaac Jessup has connected on 45.8% of his 3s.

Hyde and Jessup were injured during the Mustangs’ Nov. 30 upset of Stanford. After winning five of their first nine games, the Mustangs are 1-5 since the injuries to the starting backcourt. Both are back in the lineup and shooting well.

“It hasn’t affected their shooting as much as their defense and just our ability to move and react to somebody else,” DeGeorge said. “They’re both really good defenders and they haven’t quite been themselves.”

DeGeorge said the Mustangs rely heavily on analytics to create and attack mismatches. “We want to do the opposite on defense,” DeGeorge said. “We want to get back and create a pack around the basket and try to keep them out of the paint.”

DeGeorge’s tactics are traced to when he was head coach at Division III Rhodes College in Memphis. The Memphis Grizzlies underwent a coaching change in 2015, and Ron Dubois was among the staff seeking new employment. DeGeorge hired Dubois, who had an extensive background in analytics. The Grizzlies continue to share data with DuBois. DeGeorge, DuBois and assistant coach Kyle Bossier have been able to apply analytics on basketball trends toward game plans.

“For the last 15 years, the three of us have been working through the analytics we get from the NBA and G League and try to apply it at these small schools to see what worked and what’s the best way to do it,” DeGeorge said. “We certainly haven’t figured it all out. But it’s been a fun journey for the three of us trying to work on that.”