Ags should have gone to a zone and not a matchup zone. Waves are getting a lot of mismatches. Their height advantage also shows on their defense. Pepperdine players on full scholarship are saving $77,000 in tuition! No wonder they're playing well.

Ags off to a rough start, especially Leo who has 3 turnovers and a foul in the first four minutes.

Out of curiosity, I googled Russell Turner and found he's been at UCI since 2010. He had a rough start but turned it around in the 2012-13 season going 21-16 and a spot in the CIT. I was surprised, though, to see that he's only taken the Anteaters to two NCAA tournaments in 2015 and 2019, despite 8 20+ win seasons. It shows how competitive the Big West has been.

Games of Dec. 19:

UC Irvine (away, 10-1/2-0) 92, Belmont (9-3) 80
Long Beach State (away, 5-8/2-0) 79, Pepperdine (5-8) 76

Anteaters roll all the way in Nashville.

The thing about Niko is that he gets up so quickly. He usually wins the opening tip over taller players and opponents misjudge his ability to block their shots. Of course, his timing and body control make him a quintessential shot blocker too. The other thing about the Aggie players is that they have a high basketball IQ--something Steve Kerr also looks for.

Of the 16 missed free throws, TY and Tamba accounted for 11 of them. The rest of the team shot 17 for 22, 77.3%. So what Coach said applies to the individual, it wasn't a team epidemic of bricks.

Games of Dec. 18:

UC Riverside (home, 8-4/2-0) 83, Montana State (5-7) 80
USC (8-4) 90, CSUN (away, 7-4/1-1) 69
CSU Bakersfield (away, 6-6/0-2) 81, Portland (4-8) 64
Loyola Marymount (6-4) 60, UC Santa Barbara (away, 7-4/0-2 ) 58

The end of this game is a lot more tense than it should have been. 16 missed free throws!

It's a very sloppy game, but the Aggies are playing very solid defense to offset the offense, which is clicking on zero cylinders. The D clamped down on Mitchell, #14 after he hit 3 treys early and he's been shut down since then. Likewise for their top scorers: Mims, Mrus and Payne, who have only 2 points between them at the 15:38 mark in the 2nd half.

The good news: Ags are taking it to the hoop and drawing lots of fouls, 5 before the 15 minute mark. Bad news: they're 4 of 8 from the foul line. Other good news: Vandals are 1 of 7 from the floor.

Correction: According to ESPN, the Aggies are not hosting Idaho this week, but Idho. :)

Note that both Tamba and DeBruhl are both averaging in double figures now, plus Sevilla is scoring at a 9.2 clip. We were looking for who would provide offensive support for TY and this looks like decent support. No one was going to do what Eli did last year.

For what it's worth, the Honolulu newspaper did not have a single article or even a score on any of the FCS games. I don't know if that illustrates the relative importance of the FCS nationally or a provincial ignorance of the paper.

Games of Dec. 14:

Oregon State (7-2) 67 , UC Irvine (away, 9-1/1-0) 55
UC Santa Barbara (home, 7-3/0-2) 86, Green Bay (2-10) 66
Hawai`i (home, 6-3/0-1) 71, Texas A&M Corpus Christi (6-5) 62
San Jose State (6-6) 107, Cal Poly (away, 5-7/0-2) 100 (OT)

It shouldn't have been this close but for the sluggish start. It was weird the way that Holt came out looking like a real force then tailed off pretty badly. Ags biggest problem was going 4 of 15 from 3.

Looks like the Ags have settled down and the Hornets are just down.

Looking like a game of runs: 11-8-8-9 so far. I like Sac State's TV guy Steve McElroy. He's both glib and aka mai. He must be familiar to you long term followers of Aggie sports on the radio.

Ugh! Holt is as good as advertised, but the Ags are looking like the long break has made them rusty. Only problem with that is that the Hornets also had a long break.

I think what makes today's game so depressing was that we had the ability to win against a very good team on the road and there were so many "what ifs" and not just the interceptions and the injury to Lan. It is not dissimilar to the loss 40 years ago (which I was not able to see) even though that was one big "what if." It's one thing to play poorly or just get beaten by a far superior team, but we were absolutely snake-beaten in a way that none of us could have expected. If you had told me that we would out-gain the Coyotes 433-378, make 32 of 3 fourth downs, gotten 3 turnovers and hold their best running back to 83 yards, I wold have said we would have won. But then...

Looks like we're losing a lot of talent on both offense and defense, even without transfers. Seems to me that if the returning players are looking for more playing time, they should stay in Davis with so many starters and key back-ups leaving. I counted 18, roughly, but Hastings, Larison, Williams, Tompkins, Hutton, Kennedy, Baines, Toki, etc. sheesh.