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.

Ags lose 90-57. OSU shot 60% overall including 57% from 3 and 24-27 from the line. We were clearly outmatched but our defense was awful and that helped them with those lofty stats.

The wheels have come flying off the cart...74-49 with 8 minutes to go. The Aggie defense has left the building...

Teams are played TY very physical and, when he gets frustrated, he generally doesn't play well.

Stingy FT defense by OSU!

...that's what I'm seeing as well. We're missing the few easy shots when we can get a couple and not making our FT's...can't stay close doing that..

Simply great defense by the Beavers...probably the best we'll face all season. They only allow their opponents 58 points a game and they shoot 3's lights out on top of that.

We're going to be severely undersized in this game so we have to be able to hit a good percentage from 3 to offset the disadvantage we'll have in the interior. I expect OSU to try and bottle up TY and make the rest of the team try and beat them. Let's hope the Aggies play a whole lot better than they did in the second half of the Norfolk State game or it will be a very long night with a lopsided loss.

Ags lose 66-61. The Aggies had a 9 point lead early in the 4th quarter and managed to give it away when the Vikings turned up the defensive pressure and the Ags failed to match their intensity and that's what I think the coaches will not be happy with. You don't want to lose games where your opponent simply plays harder when it counts.

Jen must be beside herself when she watches her team turn the ball over again and again with sloppy passes almost all of which are unforced errors.

Yes it is but the the Tower Records store has been long gone.

The Tower Records store on Broadway also went out of business and was sold in 2006. The spot became a Dimple Records store until the owners retired and shut down the location in 2019, along with seven other stores. Months later, the building was demolished.

Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article287561710.html#storylink=cpy

Irvine, Santa Barbara and San Diego are off to impressive starts this season and Irvine is looking particularly strong.