Quotes from a nice write up about the game in The Herald Journal in Logan, Utah:

“Their physicality bothered us in the first half,” Coach Odom said. “We had 12 turnovers. That middle section of the first half was not very good for us. They were getting to the offensive glass on us a ton. They had nine in the first half, and from a free-throw perspective, we were fouling them, and it certainly wasn’t good for our team.”

“We lost that game in the first half,” guard Rylan Jones said. “We were up, started the game well, got up to a pretty big lead. Missed a lot of easy shots around the rim. We turned the ball over like six out of eight times in a possession and they scored like 12 points on those six possessions. That’s the lead right there.”

“You get in these highly contested games, you gotta be able to get the stop when you need it, and we weren't able to do that,” Odom said. “Obviously, Manjon made a couple of big shots right there at the end, and then Pepper knocks in the three. … You gotta give UC Davis and coach Les a lot of credit. They fought hard throughout the game.”

“I’ll tell you, big-time plays at the end of the game from a number of guys,” Les said. “Elijah hit some big shots. Kane (Milling) kept us in the game in the first half when we were a little bit erratic and a little bit discombobulated. And then Ezra is as good of a closer as there is, and he loves the moment.

“It wasn’t his best game but the best part about him is he has a short-term memory and he forgets everything that happened and he’s gonna close and we trust him and we’re gonna put the ball in his hands.

https://www.hjnews.com/sports/usu/utah-state-men-come-up-short-in-opener/article_8e829dd8-a81c-53ff-849a-b4c4afb40730.html

Great photo gallery:

https://www.hjnews.com/multimedia/photo-gallery-uc-davis-utah-state-basketball/collection_dea77ced-954d-53e0-a351-4d89d4865e6b.html

Tuesday results:

UCLA 95 Bakersfield 58
San Diego State 66 Riverside 53
Cal Poly 86 Westcliff University 53
Santa Clara 84 Fullerton 77
San Diego 80 Cal 67
USC 89 CSUN 49
New Mexico State 62 Irvine 51
Ags 72 Utah State 69

Wednesday games:

Long Beach at Idaho 6 pm ESPN+
San Francisco State at UCSB 7 pm ESPN+
UH - Hilo at Hawaii 9 pm ESPN+

Nice summary, abridge. I think Jen and her staff are as good as any staff in women's college basketball. I'm glad we signed her to a long term contract recently but I still wouldn't rule out some Power 5 program coming after her with big bucks in the offer if she continues to elevate the Aggie program.

The Ags aren't firing on all cylinders yet like you would expect from such an experienced group in the two games they've played so far against lower division teams. There have been some spurts of excellence but there have also been some long stretches of disjointed play. I don't think Jen has been all that happy with what she is seeing at time either. She was pretty animated during a the time out in the game last night when the Ags were in a funk. Like you said, the team will need play much better to win against St Mary's.

From the Davis Enterprise:

No. 4 UC Davis Prepares for Gridiron Grudge Match with No. 8 Eastern Washington by Bob Dunning

“To be in this position in November is what every team shoots for. Our success at this point is due to a lot of hard work and dedication, including all the staff people who support us.”

To that end Hawkins brought along UCD video coordinator and technical operations guru Tim Ornelas, heaping high praise on a man who started out as a volunteer in 2013.

“Tim is the gold standard, not just in our conference, but on the entire West Coast,” Hawkins noted. “He’s always there, ahead of schedule, puts in long hours and is invaluable to our program. We are a championship program because of people like Tim.”

Ornelas explained that his job is to coordinate film for “practices, games, fall camp and anything that will help us evaluate what we’re doing. I got my foot in the door as a volunteer and it led to this, which is just awesome.”

Hawkins also introduced tight end Garren O’Keefe, who prepped at Colfax High. O’Keefe, who said he always knew he would one day be an Aggie because of the academics and as well as football, caught a touchdown pass from Miles Hastings that gave the Aggies an insurmountable lead in last Saturday’s game at Northern Arizona.

“He’s one of the reasons we talk about Aggie Pride,” said Hawkins of O’Keefe. “He was a super athlete at Colfax and it’s great to have him here.”

https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/no-4-uc-davis-prepares-for-gridiron-grudge-match-with-no-8-eastern-washington/

I was surprised at the start time also. We'll be there but I'm sure the crowd will, unfortunately, be small. Hopefully, we'll get some families and a few students but it will probably be mostly old folks, like me, who don't have to work anymore! We'll probably go out to eat after the game since the traffic back to Sac is typically terrible at that time of day.

Burns is doing well for a true freshman.

I'm a bit surprised how difficult the first two games have been for the Ags playing two lower division teams at home. We returned just about everyone so we have a lot of experience but we haven't played cohesively yet and that's worrisome. You would have expected that this team would have buried ACA and CSUEB and Jen would have be able to get a lot of minutes from the bench but, instead, we've struggled to pull away in these games. That doesn't bode well for us against much better teams.

Ooops

Tough place to play. Utah State had won 24 of 27 of their previous home openers.

I thought Les was masterful in the way he used his players with all the foul trouble we had early and then losing Adebayo and Anigwe. Loved our defense!

Ags win 72-69! Wow...I wasn't expecting that. Gritty win by the Ags on the road in a tough environment.

What a BS call to foul out Adebayo!

It not going to be easy replacing Trpcic. She was an amazing floor general. It will take time for Burns.

Jen has a lot of work to do with this team to be able to compete with better teams than Academy of Art and CSU East Bay.

I thought Utah State was going to run us out of the arena the way they started off and the early foul trouble for Manjon too. Our aggressive defense got us back into the game though.

Ba and Shaw are on the bench but haven't played. I wonder if they may be nursing injuries.

50-41 Ags at the end of the third.

35-26 Ags at the half.

Slow start for the Aggies who only lead by 2 at 14-12 at the end of the first quarter. Sloppy play with 7 TO's already.

That is the football game.

I agree that Cal did not look good at all but I thought that SD was impressive. I was impressed with their ball movement and passing along with their ability to hit the 3. Rocak was a beast for the Tritons also. He's very physical. Cal continues to disappoint too.