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Toke69
337Cal Poly, as you probably know, gave the Big West one of their biggest upsets of the preseason by outscoring Stanford 97-90. Guard Owen Koonce (6’5”) hit 75% of his field goal attempts en route to a 30 point night, aided by Isaac Jessup’s 21. Neither of them averaged more than 15 ppg previously and neither of them had been their leading scorer. That honor had gone to returning point guard Jared Hyder. New head coach Mike DeGeorge went 13 deep which is not unusual for him. The odd thing is that he seems to have a five guard starting lineup, at least the five who started against Stanford were all guards, 6’5” or under. They do have some height, notably in returning sophomore forward Aaron Price (6’8”) but he’s only averaging 10 mpg. And 6’9“ Paul Bizimana who plays even less. Whatever he’s doing it is working as the Mustangs are 5-4 after starting last season 4-8. Prior to their upset of the Cardinal, Cal Poly had not beaten a team with winning record, so it’s very hard to say how good they really are, but UC Davis had better be prepared for a tough opening Big West game. The game will be on ESPN+. -
BlueGoldAg
1.3kRemarkable turnaround for Poly this year. They're the real deal. The Aggies have been slumping in the last couple of games. Teams have figured out that the best way to beat the Ags is play TY very physical and sag into the middle to make it very difficult for him to drive to the basket. Until we can figure out a way to get some balanced scoring help from our "bigs," we are going to struggle on offense. That makes us have to rely heavily on keeping the game within reach with our defense game in and game out.
We've seen this pattern quite often in the Les era where the team is highly dependent on guard play. Gauchodan, who closely follows and writes about Big West basketball, recently had this to say in his Substack column:
In the years since Davis won the Big West back in 2018, their biggest deficiency has been the frontcourt, wasting years of some of the best guard play the Big West has had. Last year was not much different in that the Aggies were one of the worst rebounding teams in the conference and the bulk of offensive production was from the 1-3 positions.
https://bigwestbanter.substack.com/p/big-west-countdown-5-uc-davis -
abridge
120Our guard play hasn't been good in the past few games. TY seems to have been reading his press clippings. It's true that he's also been heavily defended, but it's also true that he's been picked clean multiple times because he was dribbling instead of passing the ball. The Ags have moved the ball well, sometimes, but they've often missed the open shooter.
And in the forecourt, we're out gunned. We're also missing many chances in the short-mid range that simply cannot be missed if we're to be competitive. -
Toke69
337I agree we're usually outgunned in the front court, but that's how Coach Les seems to like it. Pablo Tamba has been provided some front court offense, averaging 12.3 ppg. I notice how Rocak will often feint a shot, but he hardly ever takes a shot from more than 5 feet from the hoop. Chappell has potential, but you can't expect a lot fro a freshman. I think a major problem is the lack of ball movement, as the Ags are averaging less than 10 assists per game.
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DrMike
751good point. It seems like what’s hampering him most is the defense’s ability to clog the lane and take away any path to the hoop. That, and the very physical defense he’s been getting away from the hoop - similar to what Pepper saw often last season, especially from deep teams that could throw more bodies at him. -
BlueGoldAg
1.3kin Les’ defense, two bigs we were counting on (Borra and Mani) are MIA. Mani was supposed to provide scoring, Francisco defense and rebounding. That hurts — DrMike
That's true, Mike, I hear what you're saying. Having Mani and Borra out hurts.
Les is well known for developing guards. Bob Williams has said he feels like Les does as good a job with guards as any coach on the west coast and it seems like he builds his teams with guards along with defensive minded players first and foremost. I think if we are going to be able to compete at the top of the conference every year and grow the program, we have to have better offensive production and rebounding from the 4 and 5 positions. Otherwise, we pretty much have to have exceptional 3 point shooters to offset our lack of interior scoring and to overcome getting beat on the boards.
Irvine has built a very strong program and they generally have some very good bigs. This year they are a very balanced and disciplined team and currently ranked as the #1 mid-major. Santa Barbara often has talented size as well and Pasternack often recruits 4 star high school players and transfers from major programs. I think we have to do the same here in order to keep pace. -
Oldbanduhalum
601my understanding is that with byes and the number of teams in the conference and when the BW tournament has to start by, the regular season would have started the week before new years, when no students would be around. Instead, they schedule those two games before winter break so more people could attend.
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