It is unfortunate that Ade struggles so much to score. He's so athletic and strong and is a fantastic defender but he just seems so unsure when he has a chance to score.

I'm a big fan of putting ball in the hands of your ace playmakers when the game is on the line and give them a chance to create a play and make a bucket and/or get fouled. That's exactly what Riverside did and it won the game for them.

Post-game comments from Les:

“We wanted to force them to the left at the end, but he managed to drive to the right, which is his strength,” said a disappointed Aggie head coach Jim Les afterward.

“We had a couple of defensive lapses there at the end that ended up being the difference. We have to stop shooting ourselves in the foot at the end of the half and the end of the game.”

“The nice part about this is we have about 12 hours to think about this one and then we get back at it with Cal Poly,” Les added.

“If we can learn from our mistakes and get better, we can be a pretty good basketball team.”

https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/basketball-uc-davis-men-3/

Do you foresee the Aggies bringing in any players from the portal this year?

Good for him...going out at the pinnacle of his career.

Anigwe has really developed into a wonderful basketball player and he's a pleasure to watch.

I think we can play with anybody in the league but we have to find a way to win these close games.

In other BW games today:

LB State 72 Fullerton 67
UCSB 72 CSUN 52
San Diego 71 Cal Poly 64
Irvine 76 Hawaii 68

This was a great game between two very good teams and a tough one to lose at home though. UCR is an impressive basketball team with good size and depth. After watching them beat SB and then seeing them today, I think they are a bona fide contender for the BW title...right up there with Irvine and UCSB.

I caught some of the radio, post-game interview with Les and he said that we had a couple of defensive mistakes in the final two minutes that really hurt us. He said they knew Pullin likes to drive to the right so they talked about forcing him to go left on that final possession but we allowed him to go to the right and make made the bucket. He also said that we have to stop going into the half behind.

The Ags are up 30-19 at the half.

33-28 Highlanders at the half. We’ve had some good ball movement but are having trouble getting the shots to fall. Riverside is a tough matchup for us inside when they go big.

I'm sure that Jen and her staff take everything into consideration when they bring in a transfer and our transfers have often had significant, previous playing experience and some have been starters here from the get go. Examples of experienced transfers who came here and were starters immediately are Tess Sussman from Harvard this year and Mackenzie Trpcic from Albany from a couple of years ago. Players like this have no trouble fitting right in to the Aggie offense.

Other transfers are often players who the coaches see as having a lot of potential and still have enough eligibility left to develop significantly. Lena Svanholm from Colorado State and Victoria Baker from Irvine are examples of players like this. Svanholm suffered a knee injury before the season this year and it appears that she will miss the entire season. She was expected to be our 6'6 post this year. Baker is only a RFr and she's a dynamic fireball on the court and, although she isn't starting, she is brings energy and dogged determination to the floor when she enters the game. She may well work her way into being a starter in the future.

So, overall, I think our transfers have fit in very well to the system that Jen runs.

I've had a chance to watch most of the BW teams a bit in the past two weeks and here's how I would rank them at this point with plenty of room for teams moving up or down in the coming weeks.

UCSB and Irvine are most definitely the front runners and I'd give a slight edge to SB for having a small, overall talent advantage.

I'd place Riverside just a dab above the Aggies, Hawaii and Fullerton. Any games between this group of 4 will be an absolute dogfight.

Cal Poly is the sleeper in my opinion and could upset anybody on a given night with the rest of the teams being capable of creating some havoc of their own when they're having a good game.

Of course, there will be upsets along the way as the BW always seems to be quite balanced and competitive with lots of close battles between any two teams.

I watched the second half of Riverside's 1 point win at UCSB last week. They opened a double digit lead by shooting over 70% in the second half before barely hanging on for the win which was their first in 25 games played at UCSB.

What impressed me the most was that, although SB clearly had the edge in talent and size, the Highlanders were extremely disciplined and deliberate and they stuck to their game plan beautifully. They knew they couldn't get in an up and down game with SB and win so they slowed it down and worked the ball until they got a good shot and then nailed it. They were also doing a great job on the defensive boards. The only downside for them was a high number of turnovers which they managed to negate with their hot shooting. They will certainly be a tough out when they come to town on Thursday evening.

I think this game will be a very evenly matched contest. Our defense will need to be energetic and aggressive for the whole game in order to prevent the Highlanders from getting on a prolonged, shooting hot streak like they are capable of and we'll need to continue our remarkable rebounding while shooting a good percentage. We're getting some very good contributions from Rocak, Milling, and DeBruhl off the bench right now and we'll need that to continue as well.

The Ags are playing some of their best basketball of the year right now so this game should be a battle royale.

Hawaii 58 CSUN 51 - Final
Fullerton 76 Bakersfield 46 - Final

In other BW games:

UCSB 73 Irvine 66 - the Gauchos pull away in the final 2 minutes for the win at Irvine.
Fullerton 27 Bakersfield 19 at the half in Fullerton.
Hawaii 33 CSUN 17 at the half in Hawaii.

Totally agree that the TO's mostly due to TY and Eli trying force the ball into the lane or to the hoop. However, I don't think it's too wise to try and split 2 or 3 defenders who are collapsing on the ball and 6 quick hands slapping at the ball. You might get through on occasion or get fouled but the likelihood of a TO is quite high leading to a loss of possession.

We've had so many years when we got out rebounded often so it's so nice to see this team work the boards.

Nice comeback for the win by the Aggies after a lackluster first half being down 7. We had 15 offensive boards...incredible! Milling and DeBruhl are really contributing coming off the bench. Only downside to this win is too many TO's by our guards: Johnson had 6 and Pepper had 5. Fortunately, it didn't hurt us too much but it could against the top BW teams.

I really liked listening to the the Triton announcers. They had a lot of good things to say about the Aggies during the game which was nice to hear instead of the usual homers. They both said they feel like the Ags are a team that could contend with the top of the BW.

This is a very fun team to watch and we have a huge game next Thursday when Riverside comes to town.

The Ags lose a tough one 65-63 to San Diego with 1.7 seconds to go on an inbounds play when the Aggie defense broke down and the Titans made an easy layup. Hard way to lose a back and forth game.

41-35 San Diego at the half.

Down 37-30 at the half. We look either tired and/or uninspired or both. 9 TO's already: TY has 5 and Pepper has 3. You really can't have your guards turning the ball that much. I hope we come to life in the second half.

In other BW action today:

Poly at Riverside at 5 pm
Santa Barbara at Irvine at 6 pm
Bakersfield at Fullerton at 7 pm
CSUN at Hawaii at 7 pm