The Ags will take the win but it was by the skin of their teeth. Surviving would be a more appropriate way to describe this win. The Ags were up 24 with 8 minutes to go in the game and Riverside cut the lead to 2 with under a minute to go. The Highlanders had 17 points off 19 Aggie TO's.

Riverside simply out played and out hustled the Ags the entire 4th quarter. The Aggie coaches can't be happy with that.

Huge 83-63 win by the Aggies.

The Aggie smothering defense was on full display especially in the first half and the Ags ended up holding Riverside to just 27% shooting for the game. The Aggies primarily play man but they played quite a bit of zone tonight as well and it was very effective. On the offensive end, the Aggies shot 60% overall along with 42% from 3 and 75% from the line. Pepper had 31 and DeBruhl, starting in place of TY who was out, had 14.

Riverside has some very quick guards that make their press tough for us especially with TY out. He's our quickest guard and we need him when team's press us.

Current Big West Standings:

12/30 games:

Aggies 71 Cal Poly 46
Irvine 75 Bakersfield 56
Riverside 79 Santa Barbara 77
CSUN 84 Long Beach 68
Fullerton 63 Hawaii 61 in OT on the island

The Aggies need to be much more aggressive rebounding and blocking out too. Too often they are just standing flat-footed under the basket when an opponent crashes in and grabs the rebound.

The Ags lost a tough one at Poly 57-54 today that was right there for the taking.

Norris hit a 3 with 10 seconds to go to put the Aggies up 54-53 but, after a time out, Poly scored an easy layup when no Aggie defenders cut off the drive. The Ags called time out and had the ball at midcourt with 6.7 seconds left. Sabel got fouled with 1.9 second to go but, unfortunately, she missed both FT's and Poly escaped with a win. 24 TO's didn't help the Aggies either.

The Aggie defense was excellent again. I haven't seen all the BW teams play this year but I've seen the front runners and I haven't seen anyone play tougher defense yet. I'm also glad to see Milling scoring more and looking more confident with each game. Rocak and Borra are making good progress also. Things are looking up!

33-27 Aggies at the half. The Ags got off to a fast start but then went through a scoring drought and Poly cut the lead to one before the Aggies created a little separation again. Pepper with 17.

Most coaches routinely step into the court or go past the black line that they are supposed to stay behind near the scorer's table but they don't go 6 feet onto the court, waving their arms and shouting at their players. It's ridiculous how the officials repeatedly allowed that.

Did anyone notice how often the Gauchos' head coach, Joe Pasternack, would actually go 5 or 6 feet into the court during the game. I've never seen a coach go that far onto the court and not get a technical or at least get a warning. At one point, he was went onto the court not far from the baseline and jogged up towards half court while yelling instructions to his players. The official nearly had to push him out of the way to get by him. I can't believe the officials allowed that.

That was an amazing game!

The Aggies forced 21 TO's and still lost the game primarily because we got hammered on the boards 35-24 which included allowing 12 offensive boards by UCSB which led to the Gauchos scoring 15 second chance points.

The Gauchos certainly did not play like the team I was expecting to see given the talent they have. However, I think a whole lot of them being "out of sync" was due to the excellent Aggie defense.

We couldn't stop Traore but we pretty much shut down the rest of the team. UCSB came into the game with 5 players averaging double figures and the Aggie D limited them to just 2 players in double figures. Mitchell was averaging 19 ppg and we held him to just 12. The Gauchos also had a +9 rebounding advantage per game and we out rebounded them by 5 boards. It was just a great whole team effort by the Aggies.

FROM HEAD COACH JOE PASTERNACK

"Tonight was a tough game for our team. It's hard to win on the road when you get 16 turnovers and only seven assists. I will give credit to UC Davis, they out-rebounded us 35 to 30. Defensively, giving up 76 points on the road is not a recipe for a victory."

https://ucsbgauchos.com/news/2023/12/28/mens-basketball-traore-mitchell-lead-scoring-in-62-76-loss-to-aggies.aspx

TY only had 9 points tonight but he dished out 10 assists and his defense really disrupted AJ Mitchell's game. That's the most assists by an Aggie since TJ Shorts had 11 back in 2019.

12/28 scores:

Aggies 76 UCSB 62
San Diego 76 Bakersfield 64
Irvine 73 Riverside 66
CSUN 83 Cal Poly 73
Long Beach 81 Fullerton 71

Aggies fall 60-49.

This was a great, total team win by the Aggies 76-62.

The Aggie defense was outstanding tonight. UCSB came into the game averaging 83 ppg and we held them to just 62. The Ags forced 16 TO's which led to 22 points off TO's. We also had 9 steals, 5 blocks and 7 offensive boards. Offensively, we had good ball movement, 18 assists and shot 46% overall and 73% from the line...only 6-20 from 3 though. This game was a perfect example of how the Aggies need to play to be a contender in the Big West.

39-34 Ags at the half. Pretty good defense by the Aggies and Pepper with 20. We’re having a tough time defending the 6’ 11 Auburn transfer, Yohan Traore, in the paint.