I thought it would be nice to have an ongoing thread where we can post scores and comments for all of the Big West MBB teams and follow their progress throughout the entire season. Feel free to post about other future Aggie opponents also.
Final scores for 11/06:
Cal Poly 80, La Verne (Calif.) 62
CSU Bakersfield 73, Southern Utah 72
UC Davis 86, Jessup (Calif.) 51
UC San Diego 95, Denver 87
San Diego State 83, Cal State Fullerton 57
Stanford 88, CSUN 79
Portland 78, Long Beach State 73
I watched portions of 3 games involving Big West teams after I got home from the Aggie game: Fullerton @ San Diego State, CSUN @ Stanford and LB State @ Portland.
All 3 teams were impressive especially CSUN. The Matadors had a 4 point lead with under 2 minutes to play before fouls and a late Stanford rally pulled the game out for the Cardinal. Fullerton was hanging tough with #17 SD State for the first 30 minutes and LB State is loaded with long, athletic players but they squandered the game away in the final couple of minutes with fouls and TO's. All 3 of these teams feature length and athleticism and all three will be tough match ups for the guard heavy Aggies.
I watched a good portion of the game and it was a close battle between to evenly matched teams. Poor 3 point shooting, 2-12, hurt the Anteaters.
Irvine lost their two top scorers from last year via the transfer portal. Their leading scorer, Dawson Baker 15.3 ppg, transferred to BYU and DJ Davis 15.0 ppg transferred to Butler. Both were good 3 point shooters also. They do have a 7'1 post, Brent Leuchten, returning. He led them in scoring last against SJSU and they have a very good looking true freshman 6'4 G from Istanbul, Derin Saran, who showed a lot of talent and poise last night as well.
CSUN 76, Idaho 73
UC Davis 79, Pepperdine 78
Portland State 82, UC Santa Barbara 76
USC 85, CSU Bakersfield 59
Denver 97, Cal Poly 76
I watched the second half of the PSU win at Santa Barbara. I thought that SB would dominate this game especially with the two, highly rated players the got through the portal from Creighton and Auburn. Both teams were impressive with big, athletic players but PSU was clutch down the stretch and hung on for the win.
Hawai`i played a very early game against St. Mary's on Oct. 20 and I had no idea it was on. The Gaels pounded UH 92-58, which was a bit surprising since it was in Honolulu and the Rainbow Warriors return 4 starters including their leading scorer, Noel Coleman, and leading rebounder, Bernardo da Silva. Oddly, they don't play again until next Tuesday.
The Saint Mary's game was an exhibition game so it won't count against their season record.
Saint Mary's has built a powerhouse program by recruiting heavily in Australia and has now established a yearly pipeline to the best players down under. Their current roster has 5 players from Australian plus a transfer from Utah and Harvard. They don't have rebuilding years anymore, they just reload every year.
Recruiting in college basketball has changed a lot in the past few years. We are seeing more and more programs recruiting internationally especially Europe, Australia and even Africa.
Of course, the transfer portal has also figured largely in the way many programs are now building their teams. Portland State, who just beat Santa Barbara, for example, has 10 transfer players out of their roster of 13 total. It's not all that uncommon nowadays to see players in their senior year who have played at 4 different colleges.
Yes, I'm familiar with St. Mary's recent dominance (behind Gonzaga) in the West Coast Conference. Still, I don't think they're 34 points better than Hawai`i in Hawai`i. I suspect that Randy Bennett did a better job of getting his team ready for the game than Eran Ganot.
I watched the second half of the Montana @ Oregon game and the game was much closer than the final score indicates. Montana went toe-to-toe with the Ducks for the first 30 minutes of the game before Oregon's superior size took over. Montana will be a very tough game for the Aggies. They were impressive against Oregon.
Aggies 69 North Dakota State 53
CSUN 74 Chicago State 64
San Diego State 88 Long Beach State 76
Irvine 70 #16 USC 60
Hawaii 82 Hawaii-Hilo 66
Irvine's upset of #16 USC is a big win for the Anteaters and the conference. It was a very physical game with neither team shooting well and USC was without their #2 & #3 scorers who combine for 35 ppg. Nevertheless, it was an impressive win for Irvine given how big and deep USC is.
Long Beach stayed within reach of a very talented San Diego State team. The Beach has lots of length and athleticism.
North Dakota State defeated Montana 78-69 yesterday in the final game of the Basketball Travelers Mike Montgomery Classic in Missoula. All 3 teams, Aggies, Montana, and NDSU, ended up going 1-1 in the Classic.
Funny, Montana looked so much better than NDSU. One reason why I don't bet on college sports. No telling how a bunch of 20 year olds will play on any given day.
Long Beach State 94 Michigan 86 - huge win for LB and the Big West Conference.
North Carolina 77 Riverside52
Cal Poly 61 St Thomas 60
CSUN 98 Life Pacific 67
Irvine 111 Occidental 51
Bakersfield 75 Sac State 71
Fullerton 74 Southern Mississippi 67
Illinois State 61 Long Beach 52 - big let down for The Beach after their upset win over Michigan.