Not hoping for any miracle tonight...I've seen much much better Aggie teams go into Berkeley and totally fall apart. But, it would be nice to see a full 40 minutes of effort, especially on the defensive side, and continued growth by Manjon and Peppers.

Big game, nice venue.

My first chance to see this year's Aggie Men's b-ball team. I'm not expecting the Ags to win, but I hope they are competitive. Last year, they could have beaten a Cal team that was not well disciplined. Their new coach has them playing a lot better and they have a lot more talent than UC Davis.

The Ags have come back from 18 down to trail by two 48-46 with 9:30 to go.

My man Gonzo on fire!

Cal starting to pull away. Up 6 with 3 to go

Man I feel this one slipping away

Watched the last 3 mins and the execution is beyond worst. Why shoot 3 when you have 3 mins on the clock? Drives to the rim and gets fouled, esp in the bonus!

I thought the second half was the best basketball this team has played this year.

I hope this will be a confidence booster for the Ags. They were the aggressor in the second half and it paid off. The defense was solid and we were getting good looks on offense because of great ball movement. Manjon is going to be special as he keeps getting more experience. He has some tremendous moves and is lightening quick. Good to see Gonzo finally get dialed in.

No let up in the schedule as the Aggies head to Utah for another Pac12 opponent of Friday.

Most fun I’ve had at a Berkeley game. When we get some combination of gonzo Mooney pepper and Manjon shooting well this team is fun to watch. Loved to see adebayo and gerhke getting some productive minutes. Adebayo is a very good defender. Still have to get more consistent but things are coming together

We generally play pretty good defense but our offense is so inconsistent. It's fun to watch when some shots are actually falling!

I turned it off at halftime and was catching up on some recordings (big interview with Dan rather is a really good show). Checked my phone and it was a three point game! Back to the pac12 network. Gonzo, Manjon, Mooney looked really confident and the young guts finally looked calm. We need someone beside Manjon that can drive; else we had to rely on the long ball.

Stats were weird. They shot 57%(we were around 40%) and killed us on the boards try it was tied down the stretch. I guess the 3’s and the turnover edge got us back in? We had FOUR turnovers to their 13. Utah is going to be really tough. Then a couple back at our level. I’m looking forward to going on Dec 7 to see the improvement from Sac

Looking at the stats would make you wonder how we were even in the game but the 3 ball is a great equalizer. A lot of good mid-major teams rely on the 3 to be the difference maker. We were a team like that during the years we had players like Corey Hawkins, Ryan Sypkens, Josh Ritchart, Tyler Les and Brynton Lemar. When those players got it going they lit up the scoreboard.

We been lacking consistently good perimeter shooters of late though. Siler Schneider could get hot from deep at times but he's gone now. Not that the ability isn't there with Mooney and Gonzalez but they've both been so inconsistent and we haven't seen much of Rogers Printup at all this season...not sure what's up with him.

It seems like some games we only play 7 or 8.

Printup played 28 minutes with 11 points v Portland; sat last night. Makes you wonder if there is some illness going around; Mooney’s minutes we’re down v Portland. Rogers is a solid perimeter defense who we could have used last night

The shots right around halftime were very important. If my memory serves me (it was last night after-all) Manjon hit a three on our last possession before half to get it down to 11. Then Mooney hit the first bucket in the second half to get it down to 8. That six point swing definitely kept us in the game and gave us confidence and momentum. Without those, we could be talking about a mid 20 point blowout.

Yeah, Printup didn't get off the bench last night. Don't know if it was a matchup thing or injury/illness (though he did go through warm-ups without any problems) or if Les was just trying different combinations. As for the 3 point shooting, I think we know what we are going to get from Mooney and Gonzalez, some good games but also some clunkers. Honestly, I think this team is a mid BW team IF those two guys could just hit open 3's on a consistent basis (all else being equal). And with the emergence of Manjon and Pepper, both of whom I think will get better at the 3, we've got a good core. And one guy to watch out for is Gehrke. He's got a really nice looking shot (and hit a big one last night), so if the rest of his game comes around, he could be a very nice contributor once BW starts.

I had to record and watch the game today, but I was pretty impressed by what the Aggies were doing against Cal. Cal is no Utah, but they are not likely to finish 12th in the Pac-12 as everyone in the national media thinks. Neither will UC Davis finish 8th in the Big West. Ezra Manjon reminds me of T. J. Shorts in a lot of ways (pardon me if some of you have posted this observation before but this was the first time I've seen an Aggie game this season). He's very quick, very smart, has some great moves to the hoop and handles the ball as a point guard should. I was pretty excited when the Ags took a lead but did not expect them to win even then. Cal has too much size. Given that disadvantage, I was a bit surprised that Neufeld played so little and that Koehler played so much. I did notice that we took the lead while Koehler was in there so maybe Coach Les liked the chemistry of that five-some.

I should mention what a treat it is to have Ted Robinson do that game. Knowable and very favorable words about the Ags. As for Don MacLean.......did you know he’s the Pac12 career scoring leader? You do if you listened to him last night. Wow. Mentioned his storied career at least 5 times. Robinson is very underrated.

Our recent JC recruit Jonah Underwood, 6'9", 20 PPG, 10.7 RPG and 2.9 BPG at SJCC, couldn't get off the bench. He had 3 rebounds, a bucket and a steal vs Arizona, but rarely (never?) played in league. A player with that size can be developed, and at least provide interior defense and rebounding.

Maybe something else is going on.

You're right, Underwood rarely got any playing time, but when he did, he seemed very uncomfortable and unsure of himself. I'm sure they worked a lot with him and hoped he'd bet able to adjust to the speed and physicality of the D1 game but he never did really adapt. I'm not sure that he was going to develop enough to get significant minutes. It's extremely tough for big guys at the mid-major level.

They did a little video piece on the 1998 Aggie National Championship Team. They mentioned a comment by Ray Harper, the Kentucky Wesleyan head coach, that I had never heard before. After the Ags beat the Panthers for the National Championship, Harper said, "Davis does not have the most talented players we played this year but the are the best team we have played this year." That's quite a compliment to Bob Williams and the 1998 team!

Bill Walton chimed in and said, "Imagine that, playing as a team can win you a championship."

I think you meant Don MacLean.

Les has had some high player turnover. He doesn't normally recruit bigs, and then they often don't see the floor. Bozner, one Mormon young man, etc. Lengthy wings would help his system, but they're tough to get.

Big players who are very agile and skilled generally end up playing in power conferences.

are you thinking Neil monson? He left for med school ( with wife and child) using a NCAA scholarship. I don’t think anyone who left ended up playing at a similar competition level.

I thought Monson went to law school and Tyler Ott was the only other Mormon kid I player I can remember who left but he was only 6'5. Ott was here in 2012-13 after serving a mission. He only played in 4 games as an Aggie and then transferred to Utah Valley and played in 13 games in 2015-16 averaging 2.2 ppg. He transferred again to Dixie State and was on their roster for 2017-18.

https://dixiestateathletics.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/tyler-ott/4096

that’s right, law school.

We had Nolan Berry which didn’t work out; he’s playing for a small school back near St. Louis, I think

Spencer Clayton, and the young man who went back to Australia prematurely.