2 point underdogs; many of offensive numbers for the two teams are remarkably similar. Hopefully our defense travels well

This will be an interesting gage since Pepperdine will also play the Beach, Irvine and Santa Barbara during the preseason.

ESPN was showing it as even right now.

Hoping the tendency to foul out is reduced.

Kind of surprised we've never played Pepperdine before. You'd think we would've played every D1 CA team at least once. Are the Waves the only one left? I guess Cal Baptist since they just completed their transfer to D1. Any others that we haven't played? I think that's it...

I think you're right.

Here's a link that shows the history of all the teams we have played over the years:

https://ucdavisaggies.com/sports/mens-basketball/opponent-history

That's a nice page. Thanks for the info.

I just stumbled upon it today. Never knew it existed before.

That is cool--used to have to glean it out of the 187439-page media guide!

Pepperdine is rated to come in 7th place in the WCC according to Lindy's. They lost a scoring machine in Colbey Ross and hoped that they would have Braun Hartfield, a transfer from San Diego, to fill that role, but he must be injured because there are no stats for him this season. The guard that is leading them in scoring is Houston Malette, a 6' 5" freshman from Alameda. His height might give the Aggie guards some problems. I think it could be a close game win if our guys bring it like they did against Utah State.

Ags relying too much on the 3-pt. shot, 5 of their first 7, hitting on 2 of them, though.

10-6 Pepperdine at the first media break. The Ags are going to have to step up their defense. The Waves have size and speed.

The Ags can't buy a shot. Cold as ice. Shooting 31% to Pepperdine's 58%.

29-19 Pepperdine with 6:10 to go in the half.

Very sloppy game so far by both teams. Waves are making some tough shots over decent defense by UCD. BlueGoldAg is right. Problem for the Ags is the cold shooting.

43-30 Pepperdine at the half. The Waves have been red hot the whole half shooting 67%. We're lucky to only be down 13 since we're only shooting 35%. If we don't slow them down in the second half and also make a few shots, they will win by at least 25.

Good to see Ba back on the floor. At least he can shoot a good percentage.

The 6'9" forward, Zidek, has made 3 of 4 from beyond the arc. Ags can't stop that. They have to hope he and the waves cool off in the 2nd half and they almost certainly will since they can't shoot 71.4% from 3 for the whole game. Also, the officials are calling it close, especially on offensive fouls. Aggies need to shoot better and pass more. Pepperdine has twice as many assists.

Ags were a 1.5 point favorite? Tuition at Pepperdine is over $70,000?!

We have had a tough time scoring with consistency for the past couple of years. I know Les emphasizes defense but you can't win on defense alone. We've had a bunch of good looks in the first half but can't score.

Looks like we're coming back. Unfortunately, the game runs into my dinnertime, so I can't watch the end, but I hope they pull it out.

Nice! Ags up 1. Timeout Waves.

Got up, then went scoreless on three straight possessions. Pepperdine made two huge shots at end of shot clock to finish us off

Game over 70-65 Waves
Their 2 guards are playing great with that PF from Czech shooting the light out from beyond the arc

They came up big down the stretch after we got up 3 with under 5 to go. Blame me : I switched from live stats to video at that time, and it was all downhill from there

I liked the way our defense brought us back after Pepperdine shot lights out in the first half. Their 2 freshmen guards, Mike Mitchell Jr and Houston Mallette are impressive and pretty much did us in. Mitchell is from San Jose and we recruited him. Mallette is from Alameda and we should have recruited him!

Anigwe, Pepper and Manjon continue to be the offense for the Ags. We're not getting much offensive production from anyone else and our 3 point shooting was not good again 5-17.

Well, at least we don't have to worry about going undefeated! :smirk:

I missed the last 12 minutes or so, but when I left the Ags were up by one, so it's my fault. Next time I go hungry. One observation: Milling's shot seems to have disappeared on him since Utah State.

Yeah Milling has missed a few open shots that I would've expected him to make. Good to see Ba back on the court. Always been a fan of his outside shot, so maybe he can inject some life in the perimeter game. Mallette was just unstoppable. As a true freshman, he has a huge career ahead of him.

I’d really like to see Manjon get off to a fast start. He was something like. 2-7 in the first half, similar to first two games. His scoring opens things for others.

It was 59-56 us with 5:25 to go; they went on 10-0 in next couple minutes to go up 66-59 and we couldn’t recover. They pushed it inside for FTs and got a couple inside shots. We missed the front end of one-and-one, turnover, a couple misses on open 3’s, and a miss down low on a setup post play. Tough end to a solid second half effort

Mitchell and Mallette were daggers down the stretch hitting big shots that doomed the Ags. Mitchell is from San Jose and we offered him. Mallette is from Alameda and we did not offer him. He's an elite player and he originally committed to Penn State before decommitting and signing with Pepperdine a few months later. I wish Les would have offered Mallette. He's the type of impact player that can come in as a true freshman and elevate the play of the whole team.

It’ll be interesting to see how they perform against Irvine on Saturday

Irvine trounced Pepperdine 82-48...I guess that puts things in perspective!

One difference is that the game was at UCI. Still the Anteaters must be pretty good on D. They held Mallette to 4 points on 1/5 shooting and shut out Zidek.

I watched part of the game, Toke. Irvine was impressive on both ends of the floor. They have some very good D1 talent and they are very disciplined. They looked better to me than what I've seen of UCSB so far this year. Long Beach is much improved this year also.