From the Big West Banter by Gauchodan. (Note: Stephan Swenson hit a buzzer beater 3 in each of the Gaucho's last two games beating Riverside and Cal Poly).

Every time you think the Aggies (10-8, 4-3) are finished they bounce back with a good performance. UC Davis shot just .414 at Cal Poly, but that was its best shooting outing vs. a Division I team in almost a month. The Aggies are 9-1 when they shoot 40% or better. UC Davis stays in games with its ball-hawking defense, which forces 16.3 turnovers per game. TY Johnson is leading the conference at 20.4 points per game.

Stephan Swenson, we are getting bored by your one-dimensional game. Tie-breaking, game-winning three-pointers from the left wing as the clock expires? Yawn. In all seriousness, it’s uncanny. It’s like Swenson has some song in his head that helps him beat the buzzer. The Gauchos (12-5, 4-2) have needed Swenson’s last tick heroics because they have not gotten consistent offense or rebounding from the rest of the team. One player who is red-hot again is Cole Anderson, who would be leading the nation in 3-point field goal percentage (.513) if he qualified (he falls short with 2.4 threes per game when you need 2.5). Anderson is 14 for 18 (.778) from distance over the last 3 games.

https://bigwestbanter.substack.com/p/swenson-the-timekeeper?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3137908&post_id=154997090&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=31ratq&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

I'll probably have the Aggie game going on my laptop with the NFL game on the TV. I often do that when the men's and women's games overlap. Sometimes I'll skip the one or the other live and watch it recorded or on demand later. Sports are about the only thing I can multi-task all at once!

They were so careless with the ball the first game; same thing tonight? — DrMike

They were sloppy at times but a lot of the TO's were due to our defensive intensity. We had very active hands. TY had a critical steal when they were about to make a breakaway basket late in the 2nd half which would have got them within 6. A Poly assistant coach said the magic words to a ref and got T'ed up which resulted in Sevilla hitting both FT's and stretching the lead to 8.

They really held the Mustangs with their defense. I mean 20 turnovers! — Toke69

Poly was averaging 81.1 ppg so the Ags held them 27 points under their average. Les was really proud of the defense and said that it was a challenge to get getting ready for Poly because does some things that you don't see very often. TY and Les both praised the scout team in practice this week and TY said that, because of them, "we knew what Poly was going to do and we were ready for it defensively."

Ags win 65-54. The loss by Poly was their 45th conference loss in a row which tied an NCAA record.

I don't know if he travels on the road games. I think DrMike said that he had a season ending injury before the season started.

Aggies take down Poly 63-51. Great defense by the Ags as they hold Poly to just 29% shooting for the game. Norris had 17 and Sabel 16 to lead the way.

Yep, our poor shooting continues but Poly isn't much better either. Ags are shooting 33% and Poly 36%. Leo, TY and Daughtery are a combined 4-22.

Wasn't it being hyped that SAC12 had $50 million ready for NIL? Looks like they're looking for a little more...

Evan Kiely has committed to Boise State:

From the Big West Banter by Gauchodan:

The Aggies (9-8, 3-3) make the Central Coast trip this week in a horrible shooting slump. UC Davis is making just 33.5% of its shots from the field in its last 5 games vs. Division I opponents. The Aggies have made 24.8% of their 3-point shots during those same 5 matches. Overall, the Aggies are last in the conference and 21st-worst in the country in field goal percentage. A loss at home to Long Beach State puts extra pressure on the Aggies to get a road win this week.

The Mustangs (6-12, 0-6) have five losses of less than 5 points or in overtime this season after a gut-wrenching loss to UC Santa Barbara, a game they never led but tied up in the waning moments. Cal Poly has lost 8 of its last 9 games and has a 44-game Big West regular-season losing streak in progress. There was some talk last week of Grambling State having a 45-game SWAC streak about 11 years ago, but that losing skid was to all Division I opponents and was just 28 games long in the conference. D3 Caltech lost 310 straight Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference games from 1985 to 2011. My research continues.

https://bigwestbanter.substack.com/p/two-team-race-or-not?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3137908&post_id=154934402&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=31ratq&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

No one wants to be the team that Poly finally beats which breaks their eye-popping, 44 game, losing streak in the BW conference..

You can scroll to the 7:41 mark in the video to listen to what he has to say about UC Davis football and two more FCS schools he thinks the MWC might consider.

Welcome back, ccuop99. I hope you'll stay around and join in our conversations about Aggie sports. There a lot of exciting things in the works for the future of Aggie Athletics and the activity in our forum has gone way up this year. By the way, I think Pacific and the Ags should be playing each other every year in basketball too.

We all know that Les puts a premium on defense first and foremost. I get it, defense travels and defense can keep you in a game when the shots aren't dropping. There will also certainly be games where players get lots of open shots and they just don't go down. However, you've got to be able to score too because you simply can't win on defense alone. I think the Aggies generally play pretty good defense and they often play great defense but they continue to struggle mightily on offense and they haven't been able to take advantage of the TO's they force on defense.

These offensive stats illustrate our offensive problems:

Average FG percentage: 40.67% which is 10th in the BW and 334th out of 355 teams in D1.
Average 3 point percentage: 31.23% which is 10th in the BW and 298th in the nation.
Assists /TO ratio: 10th in the BW and 345th in the nation.
Assists per game: 10.6 which is 9th in the BW and 342nd in the nation.

The Pavilion certainly isn't a thing of beauty on the outside but I don't think enhancing the exterior would one of the first priorities for renovations. The inside is looking worn in places and could use some painting to freshen it up. Big improvements are needed for concessions and the restrooms could use some upgrading including privacy partitions between the urinals in the men's restrooms. All major sports arenas have much better restroom facilities. I'd like to see a merch area too.

The big Daktronics video screen is nice but I wish we had a 4 sided scoreboard that hung down from above over the center of the court. If it had video too that would be awesome. I think that having a centrally located scoreboard and clock like that would improve the fan experience.

Overall, I think the arena is pretty good as is but it is getting worn. However, since the Aggies have made a commitment to increase levels of financing in the MWC for men's basketball, I do think that we'll have to put a significant amount of money into the program including NIL funds in order to compete well. Playing against MWC opponents plus improvements to the Pavilion should help build a good fan base and increase ticket sale revenues.

Turner came up with a great defense against the Tritons who can't shoot well from outside tonight. — abridge

UCSD shoots a good percentage as a team: 46% overall and they were averaging 11 threes per game which was 14th in the nation. Tyler McGhie is their top 3 point shooter and he was averaging 4 made per game. Turner dialed up a box and one zone and they had a player glued to McGhie the whole game and shut him down. McGhie was averaging 17.4 ppg and Irvine held him to 4. Great defensive strategy by Turner.