PASADENA, Calif. — Moving vans have come and gone. Rooms have been settled into. The leaves are changing.
And basketball is back at Braun Athletic Center. The 2024-25 Caltech men's basketball season is upon us.
Caltech head coach
Dr. Oliver Eslinger adds three first-year players to a team that returns nine sophomores, one junior, and three seniors.
With two exhibition games against local Division I programs in the rear view — road games at Cal Poly, on Oct. 25, and at Long Beach State, on Oct. 28 — the Beavers kickstart the season with two games in Santa Cruz, where they face UC Santa Cruz on Nov. 8 and George Fox University on Nov. 9.
The Beavers' offense will be helmed again this season by junior
Noah Hicks ('26), who led the team in points, assists, three-pointers made, and free throw percentage. Hicks, who also topped the SCIAC in overall free throw percentage (90% on 120 attempts) and ranked fourth in the SCIAC in points per game (17.9), is joined by senior
Riley Wood ('25), an Information and Data Science major from Virginia. Wood, whose 7.8 rebounds per game ranked first in conference last season, is within striking distance of Caltech's 500 Rebound Club. Senior
James Downs ('25), an Applied and Computational Mathematics major from Huntington Beach, enters his fourth year with the program with 53 games played. After spending the summer as an analytics Intern at a company doing research for the US Air Force, Downs brings a whip-smart knowledge of the playbook and a keen sense of leadership to the program. Rounding out the three-player senior class is
Evan Portnoi ('25), an Astrophysics major from New Jersey, who started 16 games last season and continues to be one of the team's best defenders. Portnoi spent the summer working at MIT's Kavli Institute studying exoplanets.
Caltech also expects big things this season from sophomore
Ryan Hu ('27), who tallied 10.9 points per game his rookie season. Sophomore class standouts also include
Matt Cantor ('27), from New York, who started 17 games, averaged over five rebounds a game and notched double-digit points twice;
Andrew Koclanes ('27), from Colorado, who played in all 25 games and tallied a season-high 11 points against Cal Lutheran; and
Pranit Gunjal ('27), out of Delaware, whose scored a season-high 11 points against Pomona-Pitzer Colleges. Also returning as sophomores are
Stephen Lo ('27), a guard from the Bay Area with grit and hustle;
Dagemawi Getachew ('27), from Maryland, and
Robert Jackson ('27), from Chicago.
Beaver basketball is especially excited about the
three newcomers this season, first years
Chase Williamson ('28),
Josh Balami ('28), and
Stuart Florescu ('28). Williamson is a 6'3" high-energy ball handler and dynamic scorer, out of Georgia. Balami, also 6'3", is a standout scoring guard from Minnesota, and at 6'8", Florescu, from Toronto, adds size, shooting, and playmaking to the squad.
The Beavers' non-conference schedule is shaping up to be rigorous, beginning with its first two games against experienced teams from Santa Cruz and George Fox. Other notable non-conference home games include Whitworth University (Nov. 23), Willamette University (Nov. 25), the University of Chicago (Dec. 19), and Saint Mary's University (Minnesota) on Dec. 31.
The men's basketball alumni event this year will coincide with the Beavers' home game against Chapman University on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. The Jan. 11, 2025 game against Claremont Mudd-Scripps Colleges will serve as part of the yearly Caltech Atheltics "Orange Out" event. Senior Day lands on the Beavers' last conference game of the season, a home game on Feb. 22, 2025 against Cal Lutheran University.
Caltech men's basketball's head coach,
Dr. Oliver Eslinger, enters his 17th season in Pasadena, and he's joined on the bench by Assistant Coach
Seamus McKiernan and Volunteer Assistant Coach
Aiden Williams. Prof.
Mike Alvarez will return as the Beavers' Faculty Liaison.
Follow Caltech Men's Basketball on Instagram at
@caltechmbb.
