This is really interesting:

STANFORD, Calif. (AP) -- In May, Tara VanDerveer brought UC Davis coach Jennifer Gross and top assistant Joe Teramoto to campus for a third time to teach the Cardinal the Princeton offense. They spent seven hours instructing the Hall of Fame coach, who then treated them to a night in San Francisco for the big assist.

Six months later Stanford used all of that knowledge to beat the Aggies.

"I told Jen before the game, `If we play well it's a credit to you," VanDerveer said. "... I almost felt like I was playing my sister. We're learning from the best."

More here: https://gostanford.com/news/2018/11/8/womens-basketball-opening-statement.aspx

Jen Gross comments on the game:

"I thought we competed pretty well for the first half, but we've still got a lot of growing to do with this team," Head Coach Jennifer Gross said. "Our goal was to compete for 40 minutes. I thought we competed well in stretches, but we still have some work to do. Our team knows our mission is just to get better every single day and that's what we're going to continue to do."

"Stanford is really long, they're tough to score on, and they've got great length at every single position," Gross said. "I thought our offense was flowing a lot better in the first half. I thought we got pretty stagnant in the second half and were trying to take really tough shots. Part of that is Stanford's defense is really good, they were pressuring us a little bit."

"Everybody was disappointed, obviously, with the result, but we have a group that's really hungry to get better and there wasn't a lot of moping. It was 'hey, let's get back to work tomorrow' and we'll continue to get better and, hopefully, we can pick up a 'W' on Sunday."

https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2018/11/7/womens-basketball-record-tying-night-for-bertsch-leads-aggies-at-no-7-stanford.aspx

Stanford routs the Ags 71-43. So both the men and the women have had very rough starts. While the women will not be happy with their performance, I don't think it was unexpected whereas the way the men lost was shocking.

Stanford has too much size and athleticism for the Aggies to handle and essentially took away everything inside. They outscored the Ags 38-12 in the paint and won the boards 50-25. The Ags had to settle for 3's and they only knocked down 8 of 31. Live by the 3, die by the 3.

There's a lot of work to be done if this team is going to contend for the Big West title. They have big shoes to fill with the loss of Gianotti, Nafekh and Nagel. This trio was poised, confident and deadly shooters. Tonight the Ags got only 11 points from their bench and 5 of those came in the final minute when both teams cleared their benches.

Stanford is running away with it. 57-34 after the 3rd.

I miss 6th on the forum.

36-24 Stanford at the half. Jen Gross can not be happy with her team so far. Sloppy play (13 TO's) and sub-zero shooting 23%...it's a small miracle they are within 12. Stanford does not look head and shoulders better than the Ags; it's just poor play by the Aggies so far.

The Ags are really missing Nagel, Nafekh and Glianotti as no one can hit a 3 other than Bertsch and McKeown who are 2-2 each...everyone else is 1-13.

17-14 Stanford after one quarter. The Ags are staying close despite some sloppy play...7 TO's already. Morgan Bertsch has 9.

The size we have this year is very typical of Les teams. In fact, with Neufeld at 6'11, Russell at 6'10, John at 6'8, Underwood at 6'8 and Goode at 6'7 we have more size that we normally do. Les tends to build his teams around guards first and foremost.

I'm going to say that the mess we saw last night was a perfect storm of everything thing that could go wrong went wrong. I'm not sure we could play any worse. Last year, as far as scoring goes, TJ averaged 14.8 ppg and Siler averaged 13.9 and those are decent numbers. AJ John came on late last year and ended up averaging 7.9 but I would expect more from him this year if he can overcome his leg injury.

We don't know that much about our newcomers but Stephan Gonzalez looks like he can put up some numbers and Matt Neufeld looks like he is agile enough to score in the paint if he can stay out of foul trouble.

We need to shut the door on that miserable performance against USF and focus on playing hard nosed defense and cohesive offense against San Diego on Friday. The Torreros were picked to finish ahead of USF in the WCC preseason poll so, if we don't make some big changes by Friday, we could see us get blown out again.

As many of you on the forum can tell I'm a big Aggie basketball fan too. I'm loving all the well-deserved excitement around the football team and, even though we laid a rotten egg in the opener last night, if you get the time, show some love for the men's and women's basketball teams and post up your thoughts as well. I'm not trying to dampen the football party...just trying to pump up some basketball interest as well...

It amazing how far Hawkins has taken this program in just his second year. If that doesn't get him FCS Coach of the Year I don't know what will. The team and the forum has a pulse again!

The lead for Hawk is up to 61 votes!

From the Enterprise article:

“That was not up to the standards of UC Davis basketball,” said a disappointed Aggie head coach Jim Les. “Our response to the haymaker they threw at us early in the game is concerning. We just didn’t handle it well at all. They had better pace, better toughness and better execution and we didn’t have an answer for it.”

Les added that he has noticed a lack of consistency on the practice floor and worried that it might carry over to game situations.

“You have to give USF a lot of credit,” he added. “That’s a good basketball team and they really took it to us. We’ll find out in a hurry if this is something we look back on as a blessing because it woke us up or is it something we need to be concerned about.”

https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/ucd-mens-basketball-falls-flat-against-usf/

Just got home from the game and I'm trying to find something positive but, truthfully, there isn't anything. This team and Coach Les got totally exposed tonight. It was the worst performance by an Aggie team in recent memory. There was no offensive flow, and some of that was due to very good defense by the Dons, but defensively we were awful and USF was lights out shooting.

USF is very talented and they played with poise and confidence. We quite simply do not have the talent to be competitive with a team like that and that's a scary thing considering the difficulty of the schedule ahead. If this game was indicative of who we are, then we will be in the basement of the Big West.

I have always thought that Les' teams are overachievers for the level of pure talent he is able to recruit. You would think that after 3 Big West titles in 4 years and a trip to the NCAA that Les would be able to recruit the kind of talent that you see on USF but it hasn't happened.

In the post-game interview, Les said he has been concerned with he quality of practice that Ags have been having and a game like this may be a wake up call or may indicate that something is missing. He'll get these players playing harder but, honestly, you aren't always going to be able to get a team to consistently overachieve when the pure talent isn't there.

I hope I'm dead wrong and the mess I saw out there tonight will somehow straighten itself out and come together as a cohesive, talented team but, from what I saw, I'm not optimistic.

SF looks like a really good team. The Ags were soundly beaten in every aspect of the game so far.

34-11 this is probably over already

24-6 Dons...wow

The crowd size and the lack of students must have been a big letdown for the team after coming off their huge win at Montana. They come into the stadium on a freakishly warm day for this time of the year and see 150 students and, except for the high school bands, essentially an empty east side.

Even after our fast start the crowd seemed tame to me. We were in section 124 and it filled up nicely as the game progressed but a lot of the fans just sit there and occasionally let their emotions get the better of themselves and clap a little. It's as if they just won't let themselves get into a real collegiate atmosphere...they just sit and observe and chat among their friends often paying little attention to the game. They won't even follow tradition and stand up for the kickoffs. I don't get it...