“It’s find a way February,” enthused UC Davis head coach Jim Les after his men’s basketball team rallied in the second half for a dramatic 67-58 Big West Conference win over Cal Poly before a crowd of 1,521 Saturday afternoon at the University Credit Union Center.

“I thought we gutted out a win and battled through some tough stretches with a winning effort,” Les added.

“Things don’t always go your way and our shots weren’t falling, even though we had some good looks, but we found some different ways to win. I’m really proud of how our guys did it today.”

“It was really an unbelievable effort down the stretch,” Les went on.

“Good teams find ways to win games when things are tough. As we move up in the standings, teams are going to bring their ‘A’ game against us and we have to be ready.”

“I was frustrated when I went out so early with three fouls, but it was a blessing in disguise because all that time on the bench gave me fresh legs and I was able to get to my spots more quickly,” Sevilla explained.

“Every day we come in with the same mentality, to play for each other.”

“He’s steady and his demeanor never changes,” said Les of Sevilla.

“He did it on both ends of the floor today.”

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Man, the first half was not pretty but the Ags hung in there and pulled out a gritty, hard fought win. Games like this go a long way in long run because the players learn that, if they just keep grinding when the shots aren't falling, they can still pull out a win if they can just keep game within reach.

Another great game from Marcus Wilson and Connor Sevilla has ice in his veins at crunch time but it was our defensive pressure and rebounding in the second half that saved the day for us. The unsung heroes in this game were players like Jalen Stokes and Nils Cooper who did the tough, physical work in the paint boxing out and scrapping for rebounds. Jalen is tough as nails and battles hard for the 50-50 balls. Braydon Fagbemi came up with that crucial steal that set up Sevilla for a beautiful 3 that put us up 4 with 4 minutes to go. Total team effort today.

Poly shot 21% and still has the lead 22-21 at the half…we obviously don’t have a shootout today!

That was one of the ugliest halves of basketball I’ve seen in a long time. The Ags look really tired. I hope they have energy drinks in the locker room. Hope we can pull out an ugly win.

Ugly basketball by both teams.

The crowd has filled in a little but the energy in the building is flat.

I don’t see them, Toke.

Really small crowd.

It sounds like Miro Little is a key player for them at PG.

The Gauchos (15-8, 8-4) were the hottest team in the Big West but were missing starting point guard Miro Little and key reserve Marvin McGhee IV in Thursday’s 10-point loss at UC Davis. Head coach Joe Pasternack simply said the players “were not able to play tonight…that’s it.” UCSB is 2-5 when Little doesn’t play.

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Sac State supposedly offering $10 mil plus forgoing media money for anyone to take them. Where is this money coming from? — ucdtim17

Shaq? Indian Casinos...Wilton Rancheria?

That's a pretty good comparison, Toke!

UC Davis 85, UC Santa Barbara 75: DAVIS — Marcus Wilson scored a career-high 24 points, grabbed 6 rebounds and handed out 6 assists to carry the Aggies (14-9, 7-5) past the depleted Gauchos (15-8, 8-4). UCSB, playing without Miro Little, Marvin McGhee IV and Koat Keat Tong, led 56-54 with 12:02 remaining. UC Davis rallied by making 8 of its final 11 shots from the field and all 12 free throw attempts, scoring 12 points off of Santa Barbara turnovers in the final 11 minutes. CJ Shaw scored 18 points for UCSB, which saw its 6-game winning streak end. NEXT UP: UC Davis hosts Cal Poly and UCSB hosts UC Irvine, both on Saturday.

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This was a super fun game to at and one of the best wins of the season for this team against a very good SB team who came in on a 6 game winning streak. The thing that impressed me the most was that this was a complete game by the Ags from start to finish on both sides of the ball: tough, hard working, physical defense and great 3 point shooting and FT shooting. Watching our defense when the players are locked in and communicating is a thing of beauty. They pressure the ball relentlessly and create disruption as well or better than any team in the league.

I feel like the team is beginning to hit their stride with our younger players settling into a good fit with our more experienced players. Les is doing a great job of substituting for matchups and giving players a blow.

You can clearly see the growth of some of our younger players too. Jalen Stokes brings a tough physicality to the lineup especially for a true freshman and is getting better by the game. Marcus Wilson had one of his best games ever and is really beginning to shine offensively. He scoring through contact on his drives to the basket. Omer Suljanovic looks more confident and is playing more physical in the paint in his limited time on the floor also.

Braydon Fagbemi is as good an on-ball defender as there is in the league. His ability to keep his man in front of him and play harassing defense is a lessen on how to play great defense. And, how about Carl Daugherty? He's playing as well as he ever has as an Aggie at the moment.

I don't think I've ever seen a coach as revved up as Joe Pasternack was during this game. He was an absolute maniac from the get go screaming at his players, the officials, his assistants and his bench, jumping up and down, running up the sideline to half court frantically waving his arms...it was like watching someone go completely bonkers. Irvine's coach, Russ Turner, takes the cake for his constant complaining to the officials but Pasternack is the wildest most animated coach I think I've ever seen when it comes to just pure, manic energy. Crazy!

Current standings after the 2/5 games:

I didn't realize that we were the 2nd best 3 point shooting team in the conference at 36.2%. Guess who #1 is? Yep, UCSB at 38.7%. The Gauchos also lead the conference overall in shooting at 48.1% compared to the Ags at 45.9%. Generally speaking, neither team dominates statistically on paper comparatively. This could be a nail biter with a close finish if the Ags can keep the game within reach late in the second half.

6:00 PM: UC Santa Barbara at UC Davis — GAME OF THE NIGHT. The Gauchos (15-7, 8-3) have the 17th longest winning streak in the nation at 6 games. Santa Barbara’s last loss was to UC Davis on Jan. 8, blowing a 33-15 lead. UCSB is averaging a 15.4-point margin of victory and conceding just 64.3 points per game since that first Davis game. Aidan Mahaney (14.3 points per game) has made 13 of his last 24 three-point attempts (.542) and has made multiple 3’s in 5 straight games. The Aggies (13-9, 6-5) have just 4 home games remaining in the season, with 2 of them coming this week. UC Davis is a solid 5-7 vs. non-Quad 4 opponents but a disappointing 7-6 vs. teams outside the NET top 150. The Aggies are 2nd in the conference in 3-point shooting percentage (.362) and force an average of 14.55 turnovers per game, which ranks 39th in the NCAA and 2nd in the Big West.

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55 yard range for FG's would be awesome as well!

I'm a bit of an eternal optimist and, consequently, I generally believe that our best game is yet to come. We seem to play to the level of our competition with the exception of a couple of games this season. We've only been "blown out" a couple of times: at Oregon and, most recently, at CSUN. We lost at Colorado by double digits too but we actually led in that one with 9 minutes to go before we faded down the stretch.

We're a young team and I feel like we are still learning game by game and there are some important stats that indicate that we are trending in the right direction:

- We force 14.55 TO's per game, 40th in the nation and 2nd in the Big West
- We share the ball: 16.3 assists per game, 63rd in the nation with an assist-to-field-goal-made-ratio of
61.3% which is 23rd in the nation
- We are a very unselfish team: we have 6 players averaging 9.5 ppg or more

Like Mike said, we have to be disruptive on defense and and "muck" things up a bit and, to be able to do that, we'll need some good minutes from the bench so that we can keep up the defensive intensity. Good offense can sometimes simply be better than good defense and, when that happens, you just have to tip your hat to the opponent. However, we can't have numerous defensive breakdowns against a team playing as well as the Gauchos are playing right now; we have to make them "earn their points" in order to have a chance to win this one.

Your annual football recruiting topic is one of the most popular threads on our forum. The suspense of who the coaches are trying to get and who we lose is always fun to follow. Thanks for keeping us thoroughly informed each year. Go Ags!