It was more of a typically, quiet, small Aggie crowd but, then again, there wasn't much to get excited about...

Excellent article illustrating why Lan Larison should be the Walter Peyton Award winner this year:

https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2024/11/25/football-the-case-for-lan-larison-it-really-is-a-no-brainer.aspx

Here are some other eye opening low lights that were mentioned in Dunning"s column:

Three free throws by Niko Rocak to start the second half gave the Aggies a 36-34 advantage, but then disaster struck.

For the next 15 minutes, the Aggies had more turnovers than Betty Crocker, incredibly managing just one field goal in that span as their visitors raced away to a 53-39 lead and never looked back. Their biggest lead was 24 points entering the final minute.

...and this illustrates just how bad it got:

The Aggies made just four field goals in the second half, three of them by Connor Sevilla who led UCD with 15 points.

I'm going to assume that we won't see anything this poor again this season and that the second half last night was just one of those games that became a slow-motion train wreck for the Aggies. However, this team has some glaring weaknesses and I'm not sure where the help is going to come from.

By the way, Bob Dunning's Substack column, The Wary One, is well worth $5 a month to subscribe. His write ups following Aggie basketball and football games are usually online within a few hours after the game and he covers other Aggie sports as well. Of course, he keeps you up-to-date on things happening in the community too with his keen, wry sense of humor.

https://www.thewaryone.com

We left with about 3 minutes to go. We like to listen to the post-game, radio interview with Les after each game on the drive back to Sac but we can't seem to find the radio station that carries the Aggie game when KHTK 1140 AM is doing the Kings game. So we didn't get to hear Les but Bob Dunning had some quotes from Les in his Substack column:

"Our response was just not very good," said Aggie head coach Jim Les about Norfolk's second-half dominance.

"Instead of staying together as a team, we kind of splintered, but give them credit, they took advantage. That's a very good team that will probably win their conference and play in the NCAA tournament."

"It was their quickness and our carelessness," Les added.

"I hoped we would have put up a better fight, but this game will humble you."

https://www.thewaryone.com/p/norfolk-state-uses-second-half-burst?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2582284&post_id=152178784&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=31ratq&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

I don't disagree that the Spartans took TY out of his game, but the whole team contributed to the prat fall that was tonight with 17 turnovers in addition to TY's 6. — Toke69

I think we are saying essentially the same thing, Toke. We are going to struggle mightily on offense if we can't get much offensive production from other players when teams are effective in slowing down TY. Last year we had Pepper and TY and that was a double barreled offensive punch along with Milling as well so, if either Pepper or TY was off their game, we didn't fall off much offensively. This year, we don't seem to have that kind of offensive support for TY so teams are going to make things as difficult as possible for him like NSU did tonight with the thinking that the Ags won't be able to make up for his loss of scoring if they slow him down.

The second half of this game was perhaps the poorest half of basketball I've seen an Aggie team play in quite a while. NSU had the Aggies frustrated and discombobulated...totally out of sync.

NSU exposed some glaring problems for the Ags tonight and future opponents who see the tape of this game will try and play us in a similar way. They essentially took TY out of the game by hounding him on defense and clogging up the middle so he couldn't drive the ball to the hoop. They played him very physical and, the more frustrated he became, the more he pressed and turned the ball over. TY has 14 TO's in the last two games and the Ags as a whole had 23 TO's tonight. GCU did the same thing in the second half but several other Ags filled in for the loss of his offense. They didn't do that tonight.

Teams are going to do whatever it takes to stop TY and, if they do and nobody else offers much of an offensive punch, we're going to struggle to win games. Teams are also going to try and make us beat them from the outside also because we have not shown that we shoot well from the perimeter. We also don't have help for Rocak with Borra and Mani injured and, so far, we've seen very little from the 4 transfers that Les brought in this year so depth appears to be an issue too.

It's early in the season and we've seen the Ags play really well at GCU followed by this mess tonight. So I hope this was just a bad night for the Aggies and Les gets things straightened out soon.

Ags down 16…really playing poorly …20 T0’s and counting.

Aggies have been out played on both ends of the court so far in the second half.

Whew!!

He slipped and fell flat on his face…weird fall…definitely hurt…

TY got injured on a freak fall and was in some significant pain.

I was surprised to see us picked to be in the championship game. However, I actually like our chances if we get a game at MSU in the semis. The weather would probably be a big factor with possible high wind, snow, sleet and/or frigid temperatures which would make the passing game difficult and that would make the running game more important for both sides. We played excellent defense against their run in the first game and I think we could do that again. So, if we make them more one-dimensional and dependent on the run and the weather makes their passing game difficult, I like our chances.

One of the two ESPN commentators on the Selection Show picked the Aggies to be in the championship game vs NDSU and the other had us making it to the semis against MSU.

We have a parking pass for the garage for the basketball games but, like you said, we'd have to get there REALLY EARLY!

Got it. Thanks.

No, Mike, I missed seeing that email and just bought the tickets on the Buy Tickets tab. I thought the Season Renewal tab was for season tickets. I just read the email and it's as you say. You can get your original season ticket seats and there's also an option to buy the $5 tickets for the students. I'll call the ticket office tomorrow and see if I can straighten it out but I may be stuck with the tickets I just bought and not sure if I'll be able to get our parking pass unless the one we have for the regular season will be good for the playoffs.

I just went ahead and bought the seats that were automatically selected for us. We'll be in section 121 Row N.

We're season tickets holders to mens basketball also so we're really happy that they moved the start time for game against Santa Barbara. I've never been to a football - basketball double header! Great idea by the Athletics Department. Now they just need to advertise the hell out of this double header!

I just checked the ticket sales for the game and it's confusing. We are Team Aggie members and season ticket holders but it seems like you can only select a ticket price and then you are assigned seats. We are usually able to select where we want to sit but the site isn't given us that option. Has anybody else been able to select where you want to sit?

So what do you do with the student tickets that you buy? How do you distribute them?

Ags trailed by 12 in the 3rd Q but went on a 10-0 run to close the gap. Amazing second half by Norris. Nice win for the Aggies on the road.