I remember when Santa Clara was a national power, ranked as high as #2 in the country behind UCLA. They actually came to Davis and stomped all over the Ags, which got a mention in Sports Illustrated where they wrote that the Broncos had stooped to swat such flies as UC Davis. This team is a far cry from that one, but the Broncos had little trouble with Idaho State. Snata Clara features a big front court, featuring 6' 8" forward Jesip Vrankic and 6' 10" center Jaden Bediake. The Aggies will match up better at the guard positions, but I don't see how they can win this game. Maybe someone can post where to watch this game on streaming video?
Watching this lineup try to score in the paint is kinda like watching an undergrad hunt for a bike rack at the Silo: fruitless, but oddly inspirational
The Ags are hanging tough despite getting pounded on the boards. SC had 9 offensive rebounds to our none and scored 11 second chance points to our none as a result.
Overall not a bad half. Benefited a little by some missed open shots from scu. They are picking on Ba’s defense. But he is showing that he’s more than just a spot up shooter. Need another scrappy effort in the second half
Yikes, didn't realize it was quite that stark. Though I think maybe ORs are slightly less relevant for us if Les sticks with the small ball gameplan. If our goal is to score on easy runners and threes, there won't be much to contest in the paint.
Aggies just need to clean up the defensive rebounds, but that will be hard with the size disadvantage
First off, this is going to be a tough year. We have nothing in the paint. No rebounds or defense against big men. Who is going to score outside of Ezra? Growing year for sure...
The Ags made a game of it despite no interior presence offensively or defensively and poor 3 point shooting. Unfortunately, our final 3 possessions will be something Manjon will want to forget...offensive foul, turnover and an airball. Our FT defense was outstanding though: we held the Broncos to 16-29.
Jim Les teams always seem to start the season slow for the most part. I expect this team will improve but we got some glaring deficiencies to try and shore up that's for sure.
Definitely need to figure out how to play down the stretch. We have a lot of close games so we need to have some go to plays (or players). Positives, Manjon is still clearly the man, Ba is a complete surprise, and I like what I see so far from Murphy and McGill (it will be a year before they really contribute, though). Negatives, no interior play, no consistent offensive threat other than Ezra, and both Fuller and Pepper need to find their game.
Tough loss. Big improvement on defense. Offense is a bit of work in progress, although we did put up 90+ Wednesday. Ba has been a pleasant surprise. Fuller and Pepper showed they can score last season so I expect them to come around. Get a win tomorrow and put together complete game.
Nuts, I couldn't watch this game due to an important appointment I had to keep, but it sounds like the Ags played pretty well. Not sure if Santa Clara is simply not that great, just big. It's starting to look like they don't have any long range shooters the way they have for the last decade or so. If the ESPN box score is right, UCD shot only 5 for 23 from beyond the arc, 21.8%, but 16 for 39 (41%) otherwise.