24-17 UCD at the end of the 1st quarter. WSU defense is looking decent inside but the Ags are hitting threes and drawing fouls.

52-34 at the half. Aggies look to have a sold hold on the game.

The biggest differences in this game so far is the 3 point shooting for the Aggies and being very active on defense. We were 10 of 15 for 67% from 3. The 6'0 true freshman, Cierra Hall, is very athletic and plays with a lot of poise for a true freshman.

First four baskets for UCD were all threes I think. Really opened up the scoring.

I've noticed Hall has some very quick passes.

72-50 Ags at the end of the 3rd quarter.

Aggies win ! I said it first !

91-76 final. Got a little chippy at the end but the outcome was never really in doubt after a few minutes into the 2nd. This is a good basketball team.

The Aggies get their revenge against WSU as they get their first win of the season against a PAC-12 team. This game was not as close as the final score.

Four of the Aggie 5 starters scored in double figures led by Morgan Bertsch with 19 points and Rachel Nagel with 16 on 6 of 7 shooting including 4 of 4 from 3. The Ags shot 48% overall, 53% from 3 and 82% from the line. This is a very deep team with a lot of weapons and they got 23 points from their bench. The Ags also had 23 assists and that is a sign of a veteran team.

Nina Bessolo is much improved and plays with a lot of energy. True freshman, Cierra Hall, plays with a lot of poise for a freshman. She has the athletic ability to step right in and play at the D1 level and has the potential to be terrific player.

The Ags return to the Pavilion Sunday to take on the Waves of Pepperdine at 2 pm.

Great game Ags!

Pretty dominating performance. Lots of talent, experience and effort. Going to be a great year!

Go Ags

The cougars are staying on our floor at the Hyatt. Doesn’t look like they keep us up celebrating.

(Y) The big difference was the Aggies 3 point shooting. They were 17 of 32 from downtown compared to only 4 0f 14 for the Cougars.

More and more we are seeing college basketball teams, both men and women, with very international rosters. WSU has 2 players from Australia, one from Serbia, one from Bulgaria, one from France, one from Portugal and one from Greece. They also have 3 players from Hawai'i so they cast a wide recruiting net!

I liked that our 3's were in rhythm, not rushed or desperation. And they came from a variety of players.

I remember a game where one of our Big West opponents had a european player whose last school was listed as "Gymnasium 4" lol.

The one player that I thought was a surprise was cierra hall. Freshman and tall. She will br a reall asset. Not at all intimidated by the big foreign Wazo girls. Good win for the Aggies

Seems like Coach Gross has a knack for finding players who can contribute right away. I think every single one of the current starters got plenty of reps as freshmen, though I forget which ones redshirted. No shortage of experience and consistency with this group.

Morgan Bertsch redshirted her freshman year. I'm not sure if anyone else did.

Ah yes. I remember reading that a lot of the starters came from the same original recruiting class so she might be the only one.

Also I noticed Karley Eaton seems to be getting a bigger role and saw significant minutes at PG. I wonder if the plan is to start both Eatons next year and do some dual-PG shenanigans, or if she'll stay on the bench and swap back and forth with Kourtney.

It's always fun to watch both of the twins when they are on the floor at the same time. They have a certain chemistry where they just seem to intuitively know what the other twin is going to do.

I was impressed with the ball handling skills of the Aggies. The Cougars full court pressure didn't really create a problem for the Ags. I think I only saw 2 or 3 steals for the entire game that were caused by WSU's pressure defense. The Aggies did have a few too many unforced TO's mostly of the variety of an errant pass to a position on the court. I think some of those can be attributed to not having everyone on the same page. The Ags played an up-tempo game and, when you push the ball like that, you will turn it over at times.

There's always room for improvement: cut down the TO's and continue to work on winning the battle of the boards but, overall, it was a great performance by the Aggies.

The "Gymnasium" (hard G) is secondary/post-secondary level education in Germany/Switzerland (possibly others). Corresponds to junior/senior in HS and the first few years of community college. It's considered "college prep" in the European tracked educational systems. If you don't go to gymnasium, you're usually headed for a technical apprenticeship or vocational school.

Thank you, Russ. I learned something new tonight! Or in other words, if you don't go to gymnasium, you're probably a Sac State grad :P. jk.

Hahahaha!

:D

Morgan wins Player of the Week

http://www.bigwest.org/aotw.asp