MBB: UC Santa Barbara (16-8, 5-4) at UCD (10-15, 4-5) 7 pm Thursday, February 13th i was really impressed by our play on both ends. Fuller and Manjon were very aggressive going to the hoop which opened things up. good ball movement, making that one good extra pass to get the good shot. Gonzalez was very aggressive at the hoop, which is something we haven't seen from him. we outrebounded them by a bunch which is very surprising at first glance, but i would think much of that was helped by the fact that they were 7-16 from the free throw line (lots of easy rebounds there) vs our 21-24. i was also impressed by how we dealt with their runs. in the first half, we were up something like 20-8 midway through, UCSB called a time, and came out POUNDING the boards resulting in several second (and third) chances. i was thinking 'uh-oh, well, that was fun while it lasted'. but, lo and behold, we kept at it and maintained that 10 point lead through the half. got to 20 until Heidegger went berserk to get it down to 8 or so...but....we stayed tough, hit all our free throws and didn't turn the ball over. fun game, good crowd with the student staying after their dinner!
i was listening to Les on the post-game. i kind of sensed that Nuefeld might be out awhile, just from his tone about the team 'embracing the small ball concept earlier in the week when they could have hung their heads'. nothing else was said, and maybe there's nothing there, but sounded like we might be playing small out of necessity for awhile.