I actually feel sorry for our kids. They were playing hard today and, honestly, AoA was just the better team on this occasion. When we did have some nice ball movement, we couldn't buy a shot. Les tried a lot of different combinations but nothing was working. I thought the Ags were pressing and it was making things worse. I'm sure Les has been reading them the riot act and now they're feeling the pressure. Tough time for the program.

To add a little perspective to this embarrassment here's what the Academy of Art has done so far this year:

Beat SF State 77-73
Beat Sonoma State 78-74 (OT)
Lost to Chico State 71-61
Lost to Stanislaus State 68-59
Beat St Martin's 90-78
Beat UCD 79-60

So by comparative scores we should be able to beat St Martin's in a close game... :chin:

The following information is from:

COLLEGE BASKETBALL OCTOBER 24, 2019

College Basketball Coaching Salary and Buyout Database for 2019-20 Season. It has Jim Les ranked as the 78th highest paid coach in D1 basketball as of the date of the article. Russell Turner of Irvine is ranked as #74 at $449,000.

78. Jim Les – UC Davis

Total Compensation: $403,333

Additional Compensation: Negotiable stipend for supervising a camp; coach is permitted to allocate the proceeds from the camps

Notes: $350,000 in base salary, $53,333 in deferred compensation in the form of a retention bonus to be paid on October 1 if coach is still at school, school hasn’t committed a major NCAA infraction, program’s multi-year APR score is at least 943 and program generated at least $300,000 from guarantee games the previous season.

Max Bonus: $192,500

Buyout if Fired Without Cause: Roughly $1,078,000 (including 2019-20 compensation) – 100% of remaining $350,000 for this season, 80% of the next year’s $350,000, 60% of 2021-22’s $370,000, 40% of 2022-23’s $370,000, 20% of 2023-24’s $390,000

Buyout if Coach Terminates Contract: $150,000

Contract Term Ends: June 30, 2024

https://watchstadium.com/college-basketball-coaching-salary-and-buyout-database-for-2019-20-season-10-24-2019/

Well, we should have stayed home and watched the 49ers. We left the game with 5 minutes to go and the game was out of reach.

No doubt that this is the low point of the Jim Les era at UC Davis. I think Les is a good coach of the game and he's respected and well connected among college basketball coaches. However, I don't think he's a particularly good recruiter. Remember, this is the team that he and his staff have assembled and put on the floor. I don't question the players will to win or play hard. I think it's more a question of not having the level of overall talent that's needed to be consistently successful at this level.

Jim expects his teams to win with hard effort and aggressiveness and I think they do play hard but you can't win on effort and aggressiveness alone. The game is also about quickness, length and pure basketball skills. Perennially, the best teams in the Big West like Irvine and Santa Barbara have several impact players like that on their teams each year as does Hawaii. We've had some players like that too but not very often: Corey Hawkins, Chima Moneke and TJ Shorts come to mind. These are players who can take over the game with their overall basketball abilities. Other teams in the Big West are getting impact players much more often than us and the best teams have some on their teams each year and that's about recruiting.

Now down 20 with 10:53 to go 60-40.

We are currently playing the worst basketball of any team in the BW Conference from what I’ve seen so far this season.

This doesn’t seem to be an anomaly…just awful basketball. Brace yourself for a very long season if this continues…

Behind 38-26 at the half.

Down 12. Totally out played on both ends of the floor. 12 TO’s already.

Yes, I'd like to see some much better shooting from the perimeter and better offensive ball movement all around. I think 4-0 was a real possibility also. We played pretty good basketball against Utah State and EWU but started poorly against both Pepperdine and Sac. We're not the kind of offensive team that is going to come back from 12-15 point deficits very often.

By the way, our loses don't look so good: Pepperdine is now 2-6 for the season and Sac (3-3) just got drilled at Arizona 105-59.

That's got to be a misprint.

Not about the game but this is very cool. This is what football can do for some young men like Chubba Maae:

The attendance in Brookings was only 3681. I think we would have haD 10,000+. I'm kind of shocked that SDSU didn't have more support for a home playoff game considering how good they are.

Some good games next Friday and Saturday:

Friday Games 12/3:

Holy Cross at #5 Villanova 4 PM
EWU at #5 Montana 6 PM

Saturday Games 12/4:

Kennesaw State at #7 Eastern Tennessee State 11 AM
Southeastern Louisiana at #3 James Madison 11 AM
Incarnate Word at #1 Sam Houston State 12 PM
Southern Illinois at #2 NDSU 12:30 PM
Tennessee-Martin at #6 Montana State 1 PM
SDSU at #4 Sac State 6 PM

Thanks, SloStang. You're absolutely right. I think it's easy for us fans to not really appreciate just how tough it is to be successful at this level of competition. I'm proud of this team and where the program is headed. I think Poly has a lot to look forward too also. I'm already looking forward to next season.

6 picks! Have we ever thrown 6 picks in a game?

32-31. Heck of a game.

EWU 19 Northern Iowa 9 Final