This is the first Aggie game since their win over Gonzaga on December 16th due to the cancellation of the Hawaii and UCR games. It will be interesting to see if the Ags have gathered any rust a result of the long stretch of no games.The Ags are now ranked #10 in the Women's Mid-Major Poll. LB State is #12 and San Diego is listed as also receiving votes.
Ugly 2nd quarter has the Aggies in a deep hole 25 - 41.
Svanholm leading the scoring for the Aggies with 7; Hall the leading rebounder with 6. Irvine took 15 more shots than the Aggies--it's a miracle they aren't down by more.
Take some deep breaths in the locker room and come back out with a plan!
Turnovers are killing us. Some because Irvine is aggressive but we are very sloppy. 3 TOs by simply not being aware of who was behind us. Just really poor awareness. Need to refocus
Tough game for the Ags coming off a long, Covid break and playing without Stobbart and Burns. Irvine got hot in the second quarter draining several long 3's and the TO bug struck the Ags again. As a result, the Ags got themselves in a hole that they couldn't climb out of.
Stobbart and Burns being out really hurt, but of course we have to play with whoever is healthy. I liked to see both Harris and Brine make a few shots. We could use some more reliable shooters
I was pleased to see the team pull itself together in the 2nd half of the game. Loss of a point guard hurts as does poor situational awareness by the Ags. The tendency to make passes as if there were no opponents or to force passes when there's no way the pass will be completed continues. Some of this is good coaching by the opponents who have figured out the basics of the Ags' offense and come up with some defensive strategies. But other times it's just poor discipline.
Svanholm had a reasonable game. I thought Hall was absolutely HAMMERED throughout the first half and well into the 3rd quarter. This seemed a rougher game than the Washington State game.
QUESTION: I've heard conflicting reports about games that were cancelled/postponed. Will they be made up or not?
TO's have been a big problem for this team this year. As you stated, poor, hurried, forced passes are the biggest culprit. Irvine was very aggressive and pressed the the Aggies the whole game. I think we'll see more of that by our opponents. The Ags handled the press pretty well but the pressure seems to get us playing faster, almost frantic at times, and that leads to poor passes and TO's.
Yes, Hall was hammered a lot and the officials let the game get very physical which was Irvine's advantage. Hall can can handle the physicality because she's so competitive and tough as is Turner. However, they both can try to do too much at times in reaction to the physicality and turn the ball over.
We'll likely see more pressure and physical play from our conference opponents since it worked for Irvine and since the teams know we have a tendency to get careless with the basketball.
The BW conference is apparently trying to reschedule the cancelled games. We'll have to wait and see.