I don’t see them, Toke.

Really small crowd.

It sounds like Miro Little is a key player for them at PG.

The Gauchos (15-8, 8-4) were the hottest team in the Big West but were missing starting point guard Miro Little and key reserve Marvin McGhee IV in Thursday’s 10-point loss at UC Davis. Head coach Joe Pasternack simply said the players “were not able to play tonight…that’s it.” UCSB is 2-5 when Little doesn’t play.

https://bigwesthoops.substack.com/p/mystery-theater?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2973109&post_id=187174754&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=31ratq&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Sac State supposedly offering $10 mil plus forgoing media money for anyone to take them. Where is this money coming from? — ucdtim17

Shaq? Indian Casinos...Wilton Rancheria?

That's a pretty good comparison, Toke!

UC Davis 85, UC Santa Barbara 75: DAVIS — Marcus Wilson scored a career-high 24 points, grabbed 6 rebounds and handed out 6 assists to carry the Aggies (14-9, 7-5) past the depleted Gauchos (15-8, 8-4). UCSB, playing without Miro Little, Marvin McGhee IV and Koat Keat Tong, led 56-54 with 12:02 remaining. UC Davis rallied by making 8 of its final 11 shots from the field and all 12 free throw attempts, scoring 12 points off of Santa Barbara turnovers in the final 11 minutes. CJ Shaw scored 18 points for UCSB, which saw its 6-game winning streak end. NEXT UP: UC Davis hosts Cal Poly and UCSB hosts UC Irvine, both on Saturday.

https://bigwesthoops.substack.com/p/recovery-mode-564?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2973109&post_id=187064546&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=31ratq&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

This was a super fun game to at and one of the best wins of the season for this team against a very good SB team who came in on a 6 game winning streak. The thing that impressed me the most was that this was a complete game by the Ags from start to finish on both sides of the ball: tough, hard working, physical defense and great 3 point shooting and FT shooting. Watching our defense when the players are locked in and communicating is a thing of beauty. They pressure the ball relentlessly and create disruption as well or better than any team in the league.

I feel like the team is beginning to hit their stride with our younger players settling into a good fit with our more experienced players. Les is doing a great job of substituting for matchups and giving players a blow.

You can clearly see the growth of some of our younger players too. Jalen Stokes brings a tough physicality to the lineup especially for a true freshman and is getting better by the game. Marcus Wilson had one of his best games ever and is really beginning to shine offensively. He scoring through contact on his drives to the basket. Omer Suljanovic looks more confident and is playing more physical in the paint in his limited time on the floor also.

Braydon Fagbemi is as good an on-ball defender as there is in the league. His ability to keep his man in front of him and play harassing defense is a lessen on how to play great defense. And, how about Carl Daugherty? He's playing as well as he ever has as an Aggie at the moment.

I don't think I've ever seen a coach as revved up as Joe Pasternack was during this game. He was an absolute maniac from the get go screaming at his players, the officials, his assistants and his bench, jumping up and down, running up the sideline to half court frantically waving his arms...it was like watching someone go completely bonkers. Irvine's coach, Russ Turner, takes the cake for his constant complaining to the officials but Pasternack is the wildest most animated coach I think I've ever seen when it comes to just pure, manic energy. Crazy!

Current standings after the 2/5 games:

I didn't realize that we were the 2nd best 3 point shooting team in the conference at 36.2%. Guess who #1 is? Yep, UCSB at 38.7%. The Gauchos also lead the conference overall in shooting at 48.1% compared to the Ags at 45.9%. Generally speaking, neither team dominates statistically on paper comparatively. This could be a nail biter with a close finish if the Ags can keep the game within reach late in the second half.

6:00 PM: UC Santa Barbara at UC Davis — GAME OF THE NIGHT. The Gauchos (15-7, 8-3) have the 17th longest winning streak in the nation at 6 games. Santa Barbara’s last loss was to UC Davis on Jan. 8, blowing a 33-15 lead. UCSB is averaging a 15.4-point margin of victory and conceding just 64.3 points per game since that first Davis game. Aidan Mahaney (14.3 points per game) has made 13 of his last 24 three-point attempts (.542) and has made multiple 3’s in 5 straight games. The Aggies (13-9, 6-5) have just 4 home games remaining in the season, with 2 of them coming this week. UC Davis is a solid 5-7 vs. non-Quad 4 opponents but a disappointing 7-6 vs. teams outside the NET top 150. The Aggies are 2nd in the conference in 3-point shooting percentage (.362) and force an average of 14.55 turnovers per game, which ranks 39th in the NCAA and 2nd in the Big West.

https://bigwesthoops.substack.com/p/streaking?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2973109&post_id=186949139&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=31ratq&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

55 yard range for FG's would be awesome as well!

I'm a bit of an eternal optimist and, consequently, I generally believe that our best game is yet to come. We seem to play to the level of our competition with the exception of a couple of games this season. We've only been "blown out" a couple of times: at Oregon and, most recently, at CSUN. We lost at Colorado by double digits too but we actually led in that one with 9 minutes to go before we faded down the stretch.

We're a young team and I feel like we are still learning game by game and there are some important stats that indicate that we are trending in the right direction:

- We force 14.55 TO's per game, 40th in the nation and 2nd in the Big West
- We share the ball: 16.3 assists per game, 63rd in the nation with an assist-to-field-goal-made-ratio of
61.3% which is 23rd in the nation
- We are a very unselfish team: we have 6 players averaging 9.5 ppg or more

Like Mike said, we have to be disruptive on defense and and "muck" things up a bit and, to be able to do that, we'll need some good minutes from the bench so that we can keep up the defensive intensity. Good offense can sometimes simply be better than good defense and, when that happens, you just have to tip your hat to the opponent. However, we can't have numerous defensive breakdowns against a team playing as well as the Gauchos are playing right now; we have to make them "earn their points" in order to have a chance to win this one.

Your annual football recruiting topic is one of the most popular threads on our forum. The suspense of who the coaches are trying to get and who we lose is always fun to follow. Thanks for keeping us thoroughly informed each year. Go Ags!

Thanks for the write up about the Gauchos. No doubt we'll be definite underdogs going into this one even though it's in Davis given the way the Gauchos have been playing of late. I wasn't aware that the Aggies had beaten SB 5 straight but we'll be hard pressed to make it 6 in a row. It seems that just about every team has an opponent that consistently gives them trouble year in and year out. Our nemesis, embarrassingly, has been Bakersfield who had beaten us 4 straight until we finally broke the streak at Bake last week.

I'll miss playing the top teams in the Big West like UCSB each year. Playing in the Mountain West will bring in some exciting new opponents for us but I hope we continue to play the best teams in the Big West like Santa Barbara, Irvine and San Diego in our pre-conference schedule.

Five-Star Kicker Robert Meyer Enters Transfer Portal After Freshman Struggles at Missouri
Meyer arrived at Missouri as a highly-touted five-star prospect with 55+ yard range and strong kickoff ability, but his 2025 freshman season proved challenging. He converted 10 of 14 field goals (71%) and 36 of 38 extra points while splitting duties with walk-on Oliver Robbins on longer attempts. After inconsistency in practice and competition, Meyer was benched mid-season. His competitive fire and work ethic remain evident, but he needs a fresh start to prove his elite high school pedigree translates to college success. Best fit: Program seeking a developmental kicker with proven leg talent and resilience to bounce back from adversity.
JAN 21, 2026

https://fanstake.com/athletes/53508/s/robert-meyer

More from the NY Times article:

Many people around college sports have questioned why the Mountain West and the Pac-12 leftovers didn’t simply merge amid the wave of conference realignment that caused four Pac-12 schools to leave for the Big Ten, four more to join the Big 12 and two to join the ACC. Ultimately, after scheduling negotiations between the Mountain West and Oregon State/Washington State broke down, some of the highest-resourced MW schools preferred to join the Pac-12 remnants, believing they could build a better league with leaner numbers. As a result, the set of FBS conferences outside the Power 4 previously known as the Group of 5 will grow to a Group of 6 in 2026.

“I think one league in the west would be stronger, make more sense,” Nevarez said. “But competition can also make folks stronger and lead to more. It is what it is, and we’re ready for it.”

In the YouTube video, Wood says that Sac "will be playing an FBS schedule in 2026" and the reporter says that apparently another big announcement about football is coming soon.

I like Stokes a lot as well for all the reasons you mentioned and, as a true freshman, he's going to get better and better for a long time ahead. I hated seeing him get a T after he made a tough shot in the paint with 2:30 to go that put us up by 6. Les gave him an earful but left him in the game and he continued to play well all the way to the end of the game.