It's time to put the rough preseason behind and begin the chase for the Big West Conference crown. The Ags jump into the fray tonight when they travel to SoCal to play the team that many think is the odds on favorite, UC Irvine, at 7 pm. The Anteaters are talented and deep and, as is typical of Russell Turner's teams, they play very disciplined basketball and are a solid defensive team.

Making a run at the title will be no easy task for the Aggies this year as they have struggled to play consistently good basketball and have had serious problems putting the ball through the hoop. There's bad news and good news reportedly for the Ags injury wise going into tonight's game: the bad news is that AJ John has not been cleared to play and the good news is that the rest of the team is healthy including Stefan Gonzalez who has been out a lot lately.

Most of the Aggie woes this year are due to a precipitous drop off in offense and most notably in 3 point shooting. Our inability to shoot well from the perimeter has forced the Ags to change strategies and try and pound the ball inside to Matt Neufeld and Garrison Goode and for our guards to try and score off dribble penetration in the lane.

The Big West teams will have seen the film and it's likely that we'll see teams clogging up the middle in an effort to make the Ags shoot from the outside. So we'll need for some shots to start dropping from distance in order to stretch the floor and help open up the middle.

As is the case with all Jim Les' teams, the Ags must play rock solid defense to keep us within striking distance. We just don't have the offensive weapons and consistency to be able to make big runs when we fall behind. We need to be the best defensive team in the conference to be able to compete with the best Big West teams like Irvine and Santa Barbara.

A "new season" begins tonight at 7 pm and the game will be televised live on ESPN 3:

http://www.espn.com/watch/_/id/3475561/uc-davis-vs-uc-irvine

Go Ags!