Yeah I think Toole definitely deferred to the seniors last year. She certainly has emerged as the leader. Not sure I’ve seen an Aggie guard/wing who finishes drives as well as she does in a long time.

trpcic is definitely at her best when she can get out and run

Ags up 47-37 at half. Good overall effort. A couple of defensive breakdowns but overall not bad.

The next time I go to a bbq joint to try the brussel sprouts will be the first time :smile:

I'm sure some of my posts go back and forth on the talent level of this team. Sometimes I think we just need more time together and the staff needs to figure out who should be on the court with whom, other times I think we are worlds below comparable teams talent-wise. I probably wouldn't be in such a pessimistic mood if the football team had had a better season, and if the WBB hadn't also started off so slowly.

Too bad you missed the ribs at Sauced...pretty good, though I usually go for the brisket chili!

I think you hit the nail with your comment about Stefan and Mooney. They are role players that we are asking to be major cogs on this team and that's tough expectations to meet. Add in Majon and Pepper, who are getting big time minutes but are just not quite ready yet. Obviously, the hope is that all this experience in the OOC gets them ready for BW play and we see a dramatically better team with players who know, and can excel at, their roles.

Feels like the time to address the talent level over the past couple of years. After 20 win years and post season success, you'd expect a step up in talent. But our seniors are struggling (with the exception of Neufeld), the only junior is a JC transfer (Jackson, Hewitt, and Henn all left), our remaining sophomores are two players whose futures are still to be determined (Nelson and Strom transferred out, leaving Squire and Fuller, plus red-shirts Shaw and Ba who haven't seen many minutes). This seems like a quality freshman class, but that's still to be seen for sure. I'm a fan of this coaching staff over the years, but it's hard not to see the disparity in talent in comparison to the other 3 mid-major programs at the Golden 1 last night. We have an appalling lack of interior depth, we have shooters who can't get open, we are limited in being able to create off the dribble, and our only sure fire offensive player usually has to sit for long stretches because of foul trouble. And our only real hope is that we play defense so well that our offense scores just enough to win. I hope that is enough.

Having said all that, I just purchased my tickets to the Berkeley game next Tuesday. I want to see, in person, the leadership of the seniors, the growth of Fuller and Koehler, and the potential of Pepper, Manjon and Adebayo. Go Ags!

The first Golden 1 game I'm going to miss. I'm confident that we'll see a big step forward from this team at some point in this season...don't know if it'll come tonight, but fingers crossed.

By the way, do we know the extent of Squire's injury? I'm assuming it's potentially season long, just hadn't heard for sure.

Thank god for Toole

tough one to watch. It looks like we are moving in slow motion.

That's a good point about the one-bid conference. While we (well at least me), live and die with each win/loss, there may be other objectives for some of these early season games. Yes, I'm sure the staff and players want to win every game, but maybe you take a risk and sit your senior just to see how the freshman react, because eventually you'll need them in an important moment. The last game sucked, but maybe the players learn and grow from the loss. The games in Anaheim in March are really all that matter. And a win or loss in November isn't going to effect that.

I wonder if we'll start to see some additional shifting of the lineups. Stobbart didn't start against SC, but still played 24 minutes. Bessalo was firmly planted on the bench down the stretch, and once Toole fouled out, she wasn't put back in, leaving two freshman in there during crunch time (Gray and Turner). Not sure if there was a message there, or if the coach was just seeing how some of the new players reacted during critical moments. Lots of continued growth for this team.

rebounding is an issue as scu has the height advantage. But the Ags are hustling and Toole is locked in

Let’s go Ags!

I was busy for most of the game so just caught bits and pieces. We’ll need to come out at the beginning of the game with the same energy as we do after half. A win on Sunday would be nice.

Well, looks like not stream for this game either. From the Arkansas St facebook page:

Tonight’s game will tip off at 7:52. Due to technical difficulties we will be unable to provide a live stream

I guess I just assumed based on the fact that we didn't see her at either of the first two games. But yeah, if she was out because of her illness, then she might still be in the plans for this year. We'll know more tomorrow.

Wow, 5'10", 6'1", and 6'2" to go along with current redshirts of 6'3, 6'5" and 6'6"! I know height alone is everything, but you know Coach Gross wouldn't be after these players if they didn't fit the Aggie mold.

Not to get too inside b-ball here, but I've rewatched the last two plays a couple of times now and it's amazing how the little things can be the difference between winning and losing. For our last bucket, after running the offense, Manjon backs out for the last shot. He gets a Neufeld screen, but the big man guarding Neufeld doesn't show - meaning he doesn't get high up on the screen. He sits back and allows Manjon to come around the screen with momentum towards the basket. A high show (which the Ags do...more on that in a bit) would have forced Manjon to go a couple of steps further to his left to get around the big guy, giving his original defender time to get off the screen and back into position. Plus once Manjon made the turn towards the basket, the week-side defender (guarding Mooney) just stands there. He needed to come over and force either a tough shot, or a drop pass to Neufeld. We might still have scored, but that's terrible defense on both the big guy and the week-side guy and allowed our true freshman to win the game on an easy layup.

Now, on our last defensive play the ball handler uses a screen (more of a running screen) to go to his right and to get a shot off. BUT Peppers shows high, cuts him off and forces him back to Adabayo who gets the game saving block. Perfect smart defense! And the best part, the three guys that made the crucial plays are all true freshman. If they can continue this effort, and expand it to 40 minutes and not just minutes here and there, we've got ourselves the makings of a great Aggie team.

Look like great additions

Manjon is a star and only a freshman. As marsh said after the Jessup game, he’s tj shorts with a jump shot.

Mooney was the man down the stretch. Very nice second half. Wish it was being streamed