The real difference in my mind is the Hawai’i defense. UCI looked like a high school defense by comparison and were in a collapsed zone. Aggie’s jave not adjust to the man-to-man defense.
Could have used that follow up at the end of the quarter which would have made it 4 but I'll take them only being down 6 considering it was 17 earlier in the quarter.
Wow. Couldn’t watch so I tuned to the Utah state game (another alma mater and Aggie’s too). Was shocked when I checked back.
Man put those scissors away - don’t hurt yourself.
Great adjustments in the second half. However, I don't have enough basketball knowledge to know what UCD has done differently. Can someone tell me why UCD dominated in the second half but not in the first half?
The ESPN commentators would tell you that it was just a matter of stepping up the intensity. They argued that there wasn't much technically wrong with what the Ags were doing; they just weren't playing with enough energy to challenge Hawaii.
Also, it looked to me that shots just started dropping for the Ags, while they also were reducing the amount of easy looks for Hawaii's shooters. I don't think that explains all of it though
I’ll take a stab. In the first half our defense,especially our perimeter defense was very soft. To uh credit they hit their open shots. Uh scored 22 in the first quarter and 28 the rest of the way. On offense we started out alright but once we missed a few we got timid and passed on good looks. Second half we were much more aggressive on defense extending way out to their shooters. And once the momentum switched we started playing with confidence. Song played a great game defensively. Also the refs started calling things a bit closer in the second half which helped because uh was really pushing us around.
Oldbanduhalum summed it up nicely. I'll add a couple of my thoughts. UH came out aggressive and we didn't match that intensity. UH was setting high screens and our perimeter defense was having a lot of trouble fighting through them and Hawai'i was hot hitting 7 of 13 3's in the first half. We looked shell shocked at the end of the first quarter down 12.
Even though we were down 14 at the half we were starting to show some life but Hawai'i drained another 3 and we were down 17. The big difference when we made our run was that our defense started playing tough defense. Once we got the lead under 10 you could feel the confidence coming back and, at that point, I knew we had a good chance.
Sofia Song was huge in my opinion. Good defense and a critical 3 to take the lead which demoralized Hawai'i. Cierra Hall battled inside for a couple of buckets and was physical on the boards. She matched Hawai'i's physicality. I love how competitive she is. Although she'll still miss some gimme's she's getting better and better on offense and is beginning to knock down some 15 jumpers. Nice to see her make the All Conference team.
So I think the biggest factor between the first half and the second for us was that we stepped up and played tough defense in the second half and Hawai'i wasn't getting the wide open looks they were getting on the perimeter that they got in the first half.
Bracketology is predicting that we'll be a 15 seed which will be a travesty if that happens. This is a team that has won 3 straight Big West Titles. I think they are a legitimate 11-13.