Super small crowd too!

Yikes..I was hoping to see Mani today too. Super small ball!

I thought so too. I remember Les saying that it was Kansas head coach, Bill Self, that told him to never let your team become thin at guard. It certainly has worked for him!

I think that's a very generous spread. We'll need to play much better to than we did against Jessop to win this one. I'm hopeful that we show a lot of improvement today.

I watched a good portion of the game and it was a close battle between to evenly matched teams. Poor 3 point shooting, 2-12, hurt the Anteaters.

Irvine lost their two top scorers from last year via the transfer portal. Their leading scorer, Dawson Baker 15.3 ppg, transferred to BYU and DJ Davis 15.0 ppg transferred to Butler. Both were good 3 point shooters also. They do have a 7'1 post, Brent Leuchten, returning. He led them in scoring last against SJSU and they have a very good looking true freshman 6'4 G from Istanbul, Derin Saran, who showed a lot of talent and poise last night as well.

How so? I watched the women's game live and the replay of the men's game on ESPN+ and the video seemed just fine to me.

Tuesday, 11/07 games:

Riverside 76 UC Merced 69
San Jose State 72 Irvine 64

It's a great look! They did a great job on the new floor. They eliminated the step up to the main court level so it's entirely one level now. The also put in new baskets and shot clocks. Now all we need to do is win a bunch of games and fill the place up!

You don't even want to go over to and read about the Causeway on the Hornets forum when the few members they have over there start posting about the game. It gets crude and nasty fast. Heck, they're even nasty with each other over there!

The Big West Conference is getting better and better which is a good thing. The big question to me is how will our continued reliance on being guard heavy be able to match up with the best Big West teams that are bringing in talented big men?

Santa Barbara may have one of their best teams ever as Coach Pasternack continues to bring is highly rated players through the portal that have Power 5 experience. Long Beach is loaded with athleticism and length and Irvine has always been known for developing good big men. CSUN looks to be totally revamped and talented and it looks like Fullerton just reloaded.

The Aggies obviously must win out to have any chance at all for the playoffs. Realistically, even if they beat ISU and then upset Sac, I think our chances to be selected from the bubble teams nationally are slim to none given what we've seen in the past from the selection committee.

If we win out, Sac would then have 4 conference loses to the best Big Sky teams with only Stanford as a signature win and the Aggies' only signature win would then be over a fast fading Sac team. The selection committee showed no respect for the Aggies last year and I don't think they will do anything differently this year even if we win out. The loss at NAU pretty much took us out of the equation.

The Aggies continue to not be ranked in any of the Top 25 polls.

FCS Coaches Poll for Week 10:

#3 Montana
#4 Idaho
#5 Montana State
#11 Sac State

STATS Perform Top 25 for Week 10:

#3 Montana
#4 Idaho
#5 Montana State
#9 Sac State

AGS Poll for Week 10:

#3 Idaho
#4 Montana
#5 Montana State
#7 Sac State

I watched the replay because I really like to hear Bob Williams comments during the game. His commentary is so insightful and listeners can learn a lot about game and coaching strategies listening to him.

About 10 minutes into the half with the Aggies behind and playing awful basketball, he said, "I expect the Aggies will start to roll in the last 5 minutes of the half and then really take over in the second half as their strength and athleticism wears Jessop down" and that's exactly what happened. He has amazing knowledge and insight about basketball.

He also said that the Aggies will need for Milling to step up offensively in addition to Pepper and Johnson this year. He thinks that it will be interesting to see how Drew Carter develops and mentioned that he is a talented athlete but there are concerns about how he can adapt to the speed college basketball compared to football. Apparently, Jac Mani was injured in a bike crash similar to what happened to Borra last year. He said that those two need to be riding bikes with 3 wheels! :rofl:

Bummer to hear that Connors and Chubba will be out again this week.

It's going to be interesting to see if we can compete with teams that have talented bigs. It looks like we're going to play small so we'll definitely have to shoot better from beyond the arc than 7-27 for 26%. Our defense caused 29 TO's but then we gave the ball away 23 times ourselves.

Positives:
-Pepper doing what Pepper does...scoring, hustling and creating steals.
-Adebayo looks like he will contribute more offensively this year. We'll need that.
-Scrappy defense
.
New players show potential:
-Connor Sevilla has speed and quickness and is quite poised for a true Freshman.
-Pablo Tamba has some length and looks like a good defender.
-Drew Carter played only 4 minutes but hit two 3's...he has a beautiful shot...great rotation on the ball and nothing but net.

The game against Pepperdine on Thursday will tell us a lot more.

TY’s 3rd foul was an obvious push with both arms. Totally unnecessary and took himself out of the game. He has to be smarter than that.

36-30 Ags at the half. That half was pretty much a mess. No offense other than Pepper with 19 and a press that caused a bunch of TO’s that got us back in the game, it was not good at all. We lack size and presence in the interior.

Small ball tonight for sure.