I'm not surprised. Poly has been playing very well and is coming off the upset over Stanford whereas the Ags have not been playing well lately and are coming off a blowout loss at Oregon State...two teams going in different directions at the moment. I do expect that the Ags are going to come out very hungry for this one though.

Well, they gave Bob Dunning the boot so I'm not surprised that they can't get their sports writing has gone downhill...

There's so much pressure and uncertainty on these athletes at such a young age especially when the big programs are already contacting them when they are 14 or even younger. It sounds like it's been long journey for him with a lot of ups and downs but he's grown a lot as a result over the years and now he has certainly made a wise decision in choosing to become an Aggie.

You always have to wonder if there are any players she might take with her. Coaches who leave for bigger programs often take players with them if they think they can compete at the higher level.

Arragh! Doesn't anyone check out the links before they officially post them?

The Bows made a game out of it after being down big at the half.

He'd be a great recruit for us.

I wonder if there will be any pleasant surprises?

The voting bias in awards like this is ridiculous. Wouldn't it be amazing if Lan led this team to a national championship and the voters end up with egg on their faces...

in Les’ defense, two bigs we were counting on (Borra and Mani) are MIA. Mani was supposed to provide scoring, Francisco defense and rebounding. That hurts — DrMike

That's true, Mike, I hear what you're saying. Having Mani and Borra out hurts.

Les is well known for developing guards. Bob Williams has said he feels like Les does as good a job with guards as any coach on the west coast and it seems like he builds his teams with guards along with defensive minded players first and foremost. I think if we are going to be able to compete at the top of the conference every year and grow the program, we have to have better offensive production and rebounding from the 4 and 5 positions. Otherwise, we pretty much have to have exceptional 3 point shooters to offset our lack of interior scoring and to overcome getting beat on the boards.

Irvine has built a very strong program and they generally have some very good bigs. This year they are a very balanced and disciplined team and currently ranked as the #1 mid-major. Santa Barbara often has talented size as well and Pasternack often recruits 4 star high school players and transfers from major programs. I think we have to do the same here in order to keep pace.

Every time I hear Tim Plough at one of these pressers it makes me realize just how lucky we are to have him as our HC. That's gotta be tough for Main not being able to suit up for the playoffs too. Hope he heals up well.

Whoops...

It would be great if Montana upset South Dakota State but, like everyone is saying, we take care of business against Illinois State first.

Remarkable turnaround for Poly this year. They're the real deal. The Aggies have been slumping in the last couple of games. Teams have figured out that the best way to beat the Ags is play TY very physical and sag into the middle to make it very difficult for him to drive to the basket. Until we can figure out a way to get some balanced scoring help from our "bigs," we are going to struggle on offense. That makes us have to rely heavily on keeping the game within reach with our defense game in and game out.

We've seen this pattern quite often in the Les era where the team is highly dependent on guard play. Gauchodan, who closely follows and writes about Big West basketball, recently had this to say in his Substack column:

In the years since Davis won the Big West back in 2018, their biggest deficiency has been the frontcourt, wasting years of some of the best guard play the Big West has had. Last year was not much different in that the Aggies were one of the worst rebounding teams in the conference and the bulk of offensive production was from the 1-3 positions.

https://bigwestbanter.substack.com/p/big-west-countdown-5-uc-davis

The AGS forum has a poll going for each second round game and the Aggie game currently has the most competitive vote as well. All the rest of the games have lopsided vote counts with the higher seeded teams being voted as very heavy favorites.

I doubt that I would keep it current and timely all the time. So I'm happy for anyone to post up the scores as soon as they know them. Maybe the scores will be posted more consistently if there are a few of us trying to keep them up to date.

Poly has made a remarkable turnaround from last year. They're the real deal and they'll be very hungry to beat the Ags.

Griz 41 TSU 27 - Final

Cal Poly 97 Stanford 90 at Stanford
Idaho 80 Riverside 68
San Diego 109 La Verne 33
Pacific 64 Fullerton 55
Southern Utah 74 Bakersfield 64
Irvine 67 Towson 60 - Irvine is 8-0

Les didn't come out for the radio, post-game interview and, when that happens, you can bet your bottom dollar that he is extremely unhappy with the team. The team that beat Grand Canyon has disappeared in the last two games and it is not going to get any easier with Cal Poly. The Mustangs just beat Stanford 97-90 on the road. The Mustangs out scored Stanford 63-47 in the second half.