Actually if you have a 3 point lead you may as well foul give them two shots and you get the ball especially with only 10 seconds left

What happened?

Risky

- potential for an and-1
- if they go up to shoot behind the 3 point line, you could end up with 3 FTs
- could leave too much on the clock after the FTs depending on how quickly you foul

some elderly Aggie fan was getting on Bertsch pretty hard. He kept yelling she should leave the game and cry on the bench. It was very classless. It was clear he didn’t know the team very well because he kept callling her 22 and not by name.

I'm not sure what's going on with the Ags. They've made a habit of coming from behind in most of their last 10 games or so. It seems like they played their best ball in the first half of the season.

I'm sure teams have figured out how to play us tougher but, like you said, they seem to come out slow and fall behind early and then pull the game out late. They have also been relinquishing big leads and then hanging on to win.

Riverside has been on a tear lately though and they were the aggressors early in this game. What surprised me the most was the unforced TO's by the Aggies. We normally have great ball movement also but today we were totally out of sync offensively. Dani Nafakh saved the Ags from making an early exit.

I did like the fact that Jen Gross had the Aggies turn up the defensive pressure in the second quarter after the Ags fell behind by double digits and the offense was struggling. That got some energy going even if the Ags continued to throw the ball away. In the end, it was our pressure defense got us back into the game and make the late stops to win it. Like Jim Les always says...offense can come and go but defense travels.

Either send coach foster down there tonight to whip some sense into them or, why not start out with the FCP. It seems to be the only way to wake the sleepy head women’s team. Anyway, gutsy win- hard on the fans.

We need Foster at the Spring game.

The Aggies (25-5) play at 4 pm today against CSUN (18-15) for the Big West Tournament title and an auto-bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Ags lost to the Matadors in Northridge 75-71 on February 3rd and then trounced them in the Pavilion 72-46 a week later on February 5th. CSUN rolled over Hawai'i, Irvine and Santa Barbara to make to to the championship game while the Ags escaped with a 49-46 win over Riverside to advance.

CSUN features two time Big West Player of the Year and first team Big West, Channon Fluker, and Big West 2nd team member Tessa Boagni. Those two players generally combine for 30-40 points per game and a bunch of rebounds. Fluker is a load in the paint and Bertsch will need to use her quickness to offset the physicality of Fluker.

CSUN will be aggressive and determined and the Aggies will need to match that intensity from the get go or they will find themselves playing catch up which has been a trend for them lately. Hopefully, we'll see the Ags come out and play hard with energy from the start. This one is for all the marbles.

Live TV at 4 pm on Fox College Sports Pacific.

Go Ags!

Let’s go ladies!

19-9 Aggies at the end of the first quarter.

29-24 Aggies at half. Need to keep up the energy

The Ags will have to come from behind again if they are to win this game. CSUN leads 45-40 after 3 quarters.

Down 10, 24 secs left

And the ladies lose it.

The Aggies will not go Dancing. CSUN wins 63-55 by winning 4 in row in the tournament. What a huge disappointment for the Aggies. Unfortunately, despite their sparkling regular season record, the Ags faded down the stretch and did not play their best basketball in late in the season.

You have to credit CSUN. They earned it and it's that win or go home time of the year.

The Aggies needed to limit Channon Fluker and Tessa Boagni and that didn't happen. Fluker scored 24 and had 17 rebounds and Boagni scored 23 and had 8 rebounds. Morgan Bertsch had 22 and 6 boards but no one else was in double figures. The Ags put up 27 3's but only canned 7.

It's really too bad that the Aggies wonderful group of seniors never made top the Big Dance despite all of their accomplishments over the last 4 years.

Heartbroken Aggies: Quotes from Jen Gross and Pele Gianotti:

Jen Gross:

“Its obviously tough to be sitting up here in the position we’re in. We’re pretty heart broken. We’ve been telling our team all year long its about the process and the journey and one game won’t define us. I couldn’t be more proud of my student-athletes and I’ve really just enjoyed this incredible season that we have had.”

(On maturity of her players) “I don’t know if I can hold it together if I start to talk about our team and especially our senior class. They’re amazing. They’re phenomenal human beings. They’re great teammates. Just to hear her say, ‘hey I’d rather go down with this team than to be on any other team winning a championship,’ it speaks to the chemistry they have developed and the relationships they have built. They love each other, they care about each other, they would do anything for each other and they know that our staff would do the same for them. I think you put everything you have into something and you play your heart out and it was an emotional locker room for sure. And I told them its going to take a long time because its going to burn for awhile and its going to hurt for awhile but eventually they are going to see the magnitude of what they achieved this year and what they accomplished. To win 25 games in the regular season... it’s unbelievable to do what they did day in and day out and of course that’s why its so hard to be here right now. I wanted it for this senior class so badly.”

Pele Gianotti:

(On managing expectations and the disappointment) “Its kind of what I told my team in the locker room. I would rather a part of Davis losing than any other team. It’s a family. I obviously was disappointed but we worked really hard. Every day in practice we worked really hard on and off the court to salvage relationships and im just really proud to be a part of UC Davis.”

More here: http://www.bigwest.org/userfiles//2018%20BWT%20WBB%20Final.pdf

Women's NIT?

Yes WNIT, auto-bid for winning the conference championship just like the men. They made it to the semi-finals last year. They deserve a home game this year that's for sure.

Yes we deserve a home game. Very disappointed in this outcome, but it was a great season overall and the gals played their hearts out and they should absolutely not be hanging their heads. Let’s win the WNIT!!!

I wanted to see this team celebrate a trip to the NCAA but, truthfully, they'll have a better chance of winning some games in WNIT.

Women get a home wnit game this Thursday against Idaho per https://www.womensnit.com/bracket.html

Great news for the gals that I love so dearly- they deserve this!

The men are 11.5 point underdogs. They have a lot of size and scoring options. Much tougher matchup than Washington St