Ironically, USF beat us by 34 at home last year in our home opener 76-42 and we lost tonight by 34.

And now for a shocker: Riverside just beat Nebraska on the road 66-47. It was the Cornhuskers first opener loss in 28 years...last time they lost a opener was 1981. Riverside is extremely athletic and can shoot the 3 as well.

When it rains, it pours....

We were soundly beaten in every phase of the game by a much, much better basketball team. I didn't expect to win but I didn't expect a complete beat down either.

Les builds his teams around defense but that was seriously lacking tonight. LOC owned the paint...58-28! I don't think I've ever seen a team score so many layups on backdoor cuts. Do we have any tough, interior defenders at all on this team? The Ramblers shot 56% for the game. Allowing 56% shooting will generally get you beat against anybody.

We typically struggle to score consistently and, unfortunately, we saw a lot of that tonight. Gonzalez and Mooney have to be able to score from the perimeter. They both struggled last year with consistency but TJ was able to fill in for them when they struggled. Now that TJ is gone...where is the scoring going to come from when Joe and Gonzo are ice cold?

Les was remarkably calm on the sideline and in the post-game interview. He said he that Loyola was just much more physical and aggressive and we just didn't respond. He wasn't happy with how we competed.

Bright spots: Neufeld's offense...beautiful, soft hook shots. I also thought that Manjon showed a ton of athletic potential and Pepper is going to be a baller for us. Manjon did leave the game late favoring his right knee after he landed awkward on a layup.

We struggled on offense a lot last year. We're getting decent looks but we are missing badly on a lot of shots. The team seems tight.

39-22 Ramblers at the half. The only bright spot so far for the Ags has been Neufeld with 11 points. Other than that...nada. Terrible interior defense...28 points in the paint for Loyola and 56% shooting overall. The other disappointing stat is 33% shooting for the Ags...including 1 of 11 from 3.

Loyola leads 12-8 with 14:31 to go in the first half. Ags getting beat off the Loyola drives and backdoor cuts.

Welcome to the AST Forum, Firefan17. I think you're completely right about how all the early losses affected the team emotionally last year. We had some great efforts against some power conference schools like Indiana, USC and Arizona, but a loss is still a loss and it took its toll after a while. The team was pressing, Les was unhappy and the many fans lost interest early.

This year's OOC schedule is more balanced yet still challenging especially the fact that we play 12 of our first 16 games on the road. I'd love to see us go at least 8-8 and head into the conference games with some confidence and momentum. There are a lot of unknowns about the team this year but I'm always an early season optimist and have my fingers crossed. Go Ags!

Click on the photo to enlarge

I think this team has some real potential. We've got some good, experienced players with our 4 seniors to provide leadership. Mooney and Gonzalez can both be streaky shooters from deep. I'm hoping for more consistency from them. Neufeld began hitting his stride offensively last year but had trouble staying out of early foul trouble. We need more minutes on the floor from him. Printup is just a solid player all around. He can get hot from 3 but, generally, he's more of a tough defender and hustle player. This could be a good year for him to step up even more.

Squire has some big shoes to fill at PG but he's loaded with potential. He should be more of an all around player for us this year with the experience he has now under his belt. We'll need some production from our JC transfers too. Hopefully, they'll be able to come in and contribute well. Fuller looked promising early on last year and then just seemed to fade away. I think he was hampered with injuries. He's a big, strong guy and I hope he can adjust more to the American D1 game this year. We can use his size and strength. The wild cards are all the new players. Hopefully, we'll be pleasantly surprised with them.

If he Thomson hadn't gotten injured this would have been a very close game. The Hornets certainly played Weber much tougher than we did even though the score doesn't show it.

36-17 Weber beats Sac. Sac's QB, Thompson, did not play in the second half due to an injury.

23-10 Weber at the half

That's for the updates, Russ. :up:

By comparison, we played CS East Bay exactly one year ago to the day and won 94-41. It's going to take some time for this team to come together...the loss of the Twins and Morgan is huge...

It seems like this team could be vulnerable to being harassing, pressing defenses from what I hearing from this game and the last exhibition.

Keep the posts coming. I'm interested to hear how the team looks in their second exhibition game. I wish they had some radio and/or live stats coverage...

I had a chance to talk quite a bit with Coach Les at the MBB season ticket pick-up event yesterday evening and you pretty much nailed the reasons we don't have that many OOC home games. I asked Jim if having only 4 pre-conference home games was by design. He was very open and candid and said that we have difficulty getting teams to come here to play.

He went on to explain that scheduling is all about RPI and finances. Teams are always looking to keep their RPI's high and, since, in the last few years, we had a good home winning record, teams started shying away from coming to Davis for fear of getting beat and lowering their RPI.

When I asked him about scheduling home and home series with UOP, Santa Clara, and St Mary's etc, he said we want those games but they just won't do it. He said part of the reason is that Gonzaga puts a lot of pressure on the WCC teams to schedule a lot of home games because they have a better chance of winning at home and that helps them keep their RPI's up. That that makes the Zags look better when they play those teams in the conference games. Again...money and RPI's...

Another obstacle that the Aggies have is that the Pavilion is not administered by the Athletics Department and it is booked first come first serve. So, if Les is negotiating with a team to come to come Davis, he can't hold a date on the Pavilion calendar waiting for the team to confirm. He has to have firm commitment from another team for a specific date and then hope that date is available before he can reserve the Pavilion. So, for example, if a possible opponent is has a couple of dates they are looking at, we can't hold those dates for the Pavilion until a deal can be worked out. It's simply first come, first served at the Pavilion.

Interestingly, this is also the last year in the contract for the Causeway game to be played at the Golden One Center. He said Kevin Blue is working on it but, at this point, there isn't a new contract yet. Jim would like to play Sac in a home and home if the Golden One Center game is no longer available but, when he suggested this to Sac State, they said they really don't want to do that.

On the upside, Les is happy to see the conference expanding next year when Bakersfield and San Diego come onboard, and that will automatically give us two more home games each year.

I really enjoyed talking with Jim. He's open and easy to talk with and is genuinely interested in talking with Aggie fans. He only spoke briefly and, in general, said that he thinks everyone will really enjoy this year's team. He said everybody is working hard and there is a really good team chemistry and he's also really pleased with his recruiting class.

I'm excited to see how this team comes together. I don't mind being picked near the bottom of the conference by the media. You know Les will have his team playing with 100% effort and I think we just may surprise some folks. Go Ags!

That's an outstanding analysis of each team in the Big West. I like it that he sees so much potential in Squire. I think that TJ was the perhaps the best PG ever to wear an Aggie uniform so replacing him is a tall order. We'll really need Squire to shine for us and so I'm happy that the author likes what he sees in him.

The author's reference to the 2014-15 team that lead the nation in 3 point shooting took me down memory lane. I don't think we have that kind of deep firepower this year but Mooney and Gonzalez have shown that they can catch fire. We just need more consistency from both of them.

Thanks for the link; it's an excellent and informative article about scheduling. One paragraph that stood out to me was the one that talked about "over scheduling" and ending up with a demoralized team. I think that happened with us last year.

Playing a tough schedule that includes many pre-conference road games in order to "toughen up" the team makes sense in a one bid conference like the Big West where winning the Big West Conference Tournament is the only way to get to the Big Dance. A lofty overall record won't get you a second bid in the Big West so it's the conference games that matter the most for sure.

However, the problem with playing lots of road games and only a 4 home games in the OOC schedule is that it does nothing to get the fan base excited and familiar with the team. Then we generally start the conference with a poor record and the many fans have already lost interest. I think there needs to be a better balance in the Aggie pre-conference schedule; a schedule that challenges the team on the road but also brings some excitement to the Pavilion during the OOC games.

https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2019/10/29/mens-basketball-senior-spotlight-rogers-printup.aspx