In the Mountain West official notice, there is the following line:

"With the move to Mountain West, UC Davis has committed to continuing to invest in its basketball program, which will parallel its new conference brethren."
https://themw.com/news/2024/12/10/mountain-west-welcomes-uc-davis/

So definitely an increase in basketball recruiting budgets.

Personally I'm psyched about it, mostly from a men's basketball perspective. Can't wait to welcome UNLV, Nevada, SJST, CGU to the RecHall/Arc/Pavilion/U each year. I would think attendance would ramp up. I would also hope that the recruiting budget will increase.

I'm guessing that the MW wants UCD football too, but we probably need to show that we can move to FBS before that agreement can be made.

2026 basketball conference would be:
New Mexico
Nevada
UNLV
Air Force
Wyoming
San Jose St
UTEP
Hawaii
Grand Canyon
UC Davis

Pretty competitive league.

Still in Big Sky for now, but this seems to be a step towards maybe moving the football program to the MW too.

In Men's basketball, MW has traditionally been a step up from BW, but of course, that includes teams like San Diego St that are moving out of the MW.

I just saw this. Wow!

no doubt. I see a lot of quotes from players saying that the reason they came to Davis, and/or stayed here, is because Les knows what it takes to play in the NBA and they want learn from him. As for Sevilla, he’s starting to remind me of Stephan Gonzalez. Gonzo had a little more size, and developed a better interior game (not just a spot up shooter), and was a higher recruit, going to St Mary’s before transferring, but Connor’s game has taken huge steps in such a short amount of time. It’ll be really interesting to see how his game continues to develop.

Good point. I guess it takes a certain type of player to not go somewhere that is solely one on one or screen and rolls all day long, but rather ball movement, cutting, sharing. And you’re going to find a bunch of time on the bench if you miss your defensive assignment.

Les runs a very complex offense and defense, and it usually takes months for the players to all learn the schemes and become comfortable. Last year the out of conference games were rough, then the Big West games were like a different team. Not sure we’ve seen the best yet from this team, but it’s clear they are starting to put it all together. Go Ags!

I’m doing the general admission thing too. The rest of the family has prior obligations.

Take a few minutes to listen to our newest defensive lineman's recruiting journey.
Sounds like a lot of his offers (Notre Dame, Miami, others) dried up because he's only 6'0"
instead of 6'3". Came down to UCD and New Mexico State.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt03TBqTnVk

my understanding is that with byes and the number of teams in the conference and when the BW tournament has to start by, the regular season would have started the week before new years, when no students would be around. Instead, they schedule those two games before winter break so more people could attend.

frustrating to watch

Those were the day!

Coach Nosek was not at the game. The PA announcer before the game said he was MIA.

Really rough second half. As with a lot of Aggie teams from the past, the difference between a great game (vs GCU) and a terrible one (last night) is razor thin. Give Norfolk credit, they moved the ball on offense, hit open shots, and played with a very controlled energy. The ags looked very tentative on both sides of the ball.

I'm wondering if it's time to alter the starting lineup a bit. Lose is a decent defender and plays hard, but he's limited on offense, to the point where it almost feels like it's 4 on 5. I know we've had defensive "stoppers" in the past that don't look to score much (Adebayo and Michael Onyebalu come to mind), but both could contribute on offense when left open (Ade could finish around the rim when he had his confidence going, and Michael developed a pretty solid 3 point shot). Teams have sloughed off Sione so much (basically begging him to shoot), which allows them to get into our passing lanes, resulting in not just steals but in keeping us out of a nice offensive flow. Daugherty seems to be getting his shot back a bit and is also a pretty tough on ball defender, or maybe Cooper (though he seems to be needed to replace Tomba on the front court). Not saying that Lose needs to score 10 a game, but just hit the occasional open 3, or even consistently get fouled on drives to the basic. Anything that would force the defense to take him seriously.

We may be planning to tailgate before the game, and I'm definitely heading to the basketball game afterwards.

Good win by the Ags in Ot 74-70. Norris lead the way with 30, 28 came after halftime

I think there was some overlooking initially, but the Ags kept the pressure on. Certainly by the second half, the ‘yotes knew they were in for a fight. Just judging by the commentary, the issues that we saw with GCU, stagnant offense, lazy defense, have been a trend so far this year. Ags were able to hold and make enough plays down the stretch.