Aggie D doing a great job of preventing CSUN from getting good shots in the paint. Plus, Kane Milling is playing great offense. TY, on the other hand seems to be lacking focus. Can't have everything, but UCD has a huge lead so far with 7:32 left in the first half.

47-32 Aggies at the half. Solid half of basketball on both ends of the floor by the Ags. Milling has 20.

Roy Williams is such a great color guy. He's a bit of a homer, but he explains in such great detail about what has, might or should happen on the court without being negative.

When was the last time the Aggies had three players with 20+ points in a game?

Ags keep cruising. What a change from the out of conference games. Just amazing. Great ball movement tonight. And per Scott Marsh, Jac Mani is supposed to come back next week. He’ll add some interior depth.

Go Ags!

Great win! What is it going to take to get some more people at the games?

I know. This team is playing really good basketball right now and they deserve a whole lot more fan support.

It really is remarkable how much better this team is playing since the conference began. I really didn't see that coming based on what I saw in the pre-conference games.

Our defense has been smothering in the first half of these games. Les mentioned that the team has really bought into playing extremely hard and smart on defense, so much so, that he said he has to give the players a blow every 5-8 minutes because it's so physically demanding to play consistently with so much effort. Milling hitting his stride on offense has made a big difference too. I hope we can keep it going!

What happened to Manu? He was in the rotation but now barely plays. I liked his defense and passing.

TY has been playing INTENSE defense. He's been putting the effort in there. His defensive effort since the start of conference has been extraordinary. I'd take that defense over scoring offense any day.

I'd love to see the +/- stats on the guys he's guarding vs his scoring.

Probably some game where Corey Hawkins got 28 while Tyler Les and Josh Richart each hit minimum 5 threes as the Ags scraped by a .500 team in overtime. That’s what the whole 2015 roller coaster felt like anyway

Really fun game last night and it was nice to see the students back. That tenacious defensive effort really opened up the game on the other end. I totally did not expect that point differential against a tough team that came in on a 7 game win streak with some impressive wins.

CSUN is a really good basketball team. They came into the game with several top-10, stats rankings and, when you look those stats, you can see just how impressive this win was by the Aggies.

CSUN is one of the best rebounding teams in the nation. They were ranked #5 in rebounds per game, #6 in rebounding margin (+11.8) and 7th in defensive rebounds per game. The Aggies were able to match Matadors with 32 rebounds for the game led by DeBruhl with 6 and Borra with 5.

The Matadors were #9 in defensive FG percentage at 38.2% and the Aggies shot 55.2% for the game.

CSUN was also #21 in 3 point defensive percentage and the Ags shot 44.1% from 3.

The Matadors came into the game allowing 69 points per game and the Aggies put up 95 on them.

Comment from CSUN head coach Andy Newman:

"We were terrible to start the game. We didn't do any things that impacted winning the game. We didn't guard and didn't rebound, both those two things are really big for us. We came in leading the conference in defensive field goal percentage, 38 percent, and they shot 56 percent. Our minds weren't into it."

https://gomatadors.com/news/2024/1/11/mens-basketball-csuns-win-streak-snapped-at-uc-davis.aspx

Is this a new radio guy for us, or the retired big time coach?

It's former Aggie head coach, Bob Williams, who led the Aggies to the 1998 D2 National Championship. He moved back to northern California, Lake-of-the-Pines near Auburn, when he retired from UC Santa Barbara. He's a fantastic commentator alongside Scott Marsh.

My mistake. I don't know why I wrote Roy Williams (although he was a pretty good coach too)

Looking for a 3x20 game and the closest I could find was a win over CSUN (ironically) in 2017 when Brynton Lemar had 28, Siler Schneider had 23 and Chiba Moneke had 19 in a 96-85 slugout. (I'm looking at games where UCD scored over 90 points.)

The 'Roy' threw me off.

Comment from CSUN head coach Andy Newman:

"We were terrible to start the game. We didn't do any things that impacted winning the game. We didn't guard and didn't rebound, both those two things are really big for us. We came in leading the conference in defensive field goal percentage, 38 percent, and they shot 56 percent. Our minds weren't into it."

Hmm. I wonder if the Aggies had anything to do with the win?

For sure we did...their coach just isn't going to say anything about just how good our defense was...

We all had no idea that the team would be doing so well based on the pre-conference record. Can anyone see what adjustments Coach Les has made. For my part, it seems that their free throw shooting has improved and more players, notably Milling, are scoring more, but that does not explain how well they are playing on defense. Maybe something about the way they are sagging around the basket, but what exactly is different?

that's a really good question that I've been trying to figure out. Honestly, I think this team just started to figure out how to play team defense. TY is playing great man on defense, as is Ade and Lose. But when they get beat, the bigs rotate over to stop the drive, and the weekside defender slides down to clog up the middle. Of course that usually leaves someone in the corner/wing open, but again, the rotation closes fast, contesting every shot. It takes a lot of energy to play this way, so Les has been subbing everyone (including Pepper) in and out on a regular basis.

And great defense leads to confidence on offense. Some of the best ball movement i've seen from the Ags, leads to open shots. And then awesome hustle from Nico on the offensive boards. Pretty good recipe for success.

I'm sure there's other changes that Coach Les has made, but it really comes down to the players buying into the system and playing together.

I think you pretty much summed it up nicely!

I forgot we had a whole year with Lemar, Schneider, and Moneke starting (really shouldn't since that's the March Madness year), but it would make sense that some of the Ags' best multiple-scoring-threats games would be in that era

During the broadcast on Saturday, Bob Dunning took note of the 3x20 performance and said he asked Jim Les if that had been done before and the coach replied that it had not been done in his tenure at UCD. Maybe back in the Div. 2 days? I don't think there is a way to get that dat online.

here is one pre Les, although 2OT

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/boxscore/_/gameId/310290302

Miller, Payne and Harden

Welcome back, Mike. Long time, no see...hope all is well. I miss reading your comments on Aggie basketball and football.

I wonder how Payne, & Harden would have done with Les. Those guys were solid.

Two of my favorite Aggies. Mark in particular would always come over and say hi to my kids before games. Class act.

Thanks. PreToke69 too.