The Aggies travel to Cal Poly on Thursday for an 8 pm game against the Mustangs. The Ags beat Poly on January 7th in a hard fought battle 68-64 in the Pavilion. Games between these two teams seem to always be a dogfight and the struggling Mustangs would like nothing better than to knock off the first place Aggies. The Ags have been playing some of their best ball of the season lately and have won 7 of their last 8.
Joe Callero's teams always play hard and physical for a full 40 minutes so the Ags will need to match their intensity to be able to snag a win on the road. Poly pulled the biggest upset in the Big West so far this year when they beat then undefeated UC Irvine 79-66 on January 26th.
Well... Aggies find themselves down by 4 at halftime, 28-32. Game is far from over, but shooting 0% from beyond the 3 point line is hurting (although it's only on 4 attempts). Gotta heat up just a little bit in the 2nd half and we got this.
Poly leads the Ags 32-28 at the half. The Aggies started off the game ice cold and out of sync on offense shooting just 22% in the first 11 minutes and scoring only 7 points. Chima has kept us in the game with 14 of the Ags 28 points.
I like your confidence CF. The Achilles heel of this team has been their highly inconsistent offense and you never know how it's going to go. We don't have the lights out 3 point shooters this year that Les often builds his teams around.
I hope you're right and we pull it together in the second half and put this one in the W column.
Yeah I know we've had our inconsistencies this season, but we're only down by 4. We've come back from a whole lot worse this season. I think the boys got it in em to bring this one back.
Well, unfortunately the Aggies cold streak at the beginning of the game comes back to haunt them as they fall 70-74. Too many turnovers and it took too long to start heating up on the 3's.
The Ags came back and made a game of it late, and actually took the lead at 63-62, but Poly made the plays at crunch time and got a well deserved win. This game was practically a tie in every statistical category except one: 3 point shooting. Both teams were 25 of 55 overall but the Mustangs were 9-24 from 3 and the Ags were only 4 of 12.
To the casual fan, it was a hard fought game by both teams. To Coach Les it was a disappointing loss and I agree. Why? Because the Aggies are forming a habit of starting games slow and sluggish and getting themselves down big early. It happened at Riverside and CSUN, then at home against Irvine and now again on the road at Poly. Sure we managed to win 2 of those 4 but the trend is troubling. Sometimes the shots just are not going to fall but good energy and focus need to be there all the time no matter what.
Poly got a lot more help from their bench outscoring us 25-4. Mikey Henn was dressed but didn't play so I assume he may be under the weather or knicked up. Poly's guards, Victor Joseph and Donovan Fields, beat us off the dribble time and time again. We had no answer for their quickness and athletic drives to the basket. They combined for 34 points and made some critical 3's down the stretch. They both play with great confidence and were almost daring the Ags to try and defend them too closely. When we did, they blew by our guards and finished with athletic lay ups. They also have the ability to pull up and knock down contested 3's with only a little opening.
Chima Moneke was single-handedly keeping us within reach for much of the game and finished with yet another double-double with 25 points and 13 rebounds. Brynton Lemar came on in the second half and added 18.
The Ags need to regroup and and play UCSB with intensity from the get go on Saturday.
I've only watched 3 of Cal Poly's games, the two against us and the one (victory) against UCI. How are they only 2-6 in conference? The announcers last night seemed to think that a lot of new blood was taking time to gel, but still.
I'm with you, 6th, I don't want to see Cal Poly on Thursday of the BWT.
I can't help but think that these kids (and we have to remember that they are all young men) ease back when they play an opponent with a poor record. On the road, that's a mortal error without the home crowd to cheer them on.