The Aggies journey to the Bren Events Center in Anaheim for a 3 pm Saturday game with UC Irvine that will decide the conference championship. Both teams stand at 11-4 in the league, both teams are playing good basketball and both teams want to raise the 2016-17 conference championship banner in their home gym. So the stage is set for an all out battle for the title and the #1 seed in next week's conference tournament.
The Aggies are coming off two impressive wins over Long Beach State and Hawai'i and are playing with confidence. Irvine lost to the Ags in the Pavilion 74-65 in a tight battle back on January 28th. However, since then, the Anteater's star guard, Luke Nelson is back in the lineup after being sidelined most of the season with an injury. Nelson has only played in 13 of Irvine's 31 games so far this season but leads the team in scoring at 16.3 ppg.
The Ags will need to continue to play with the intensity and maturity that they have been playing with lately in order to have a chance to claim the title. Both teams have plenty to be motivated about so the game will probably be decided by the team that plays the best defense, takes care of the ball and rebounds. In other words, attention to detail and staying focused on the game plan will be critical.
The Ags have a ton of heart and this game should be a good one for sure.
The game will be televised on Fox Sports Prime Ticket and is also available on foxsportsgo.com.
Ags road record in SoCal is 2-4 and UCI is a solid team. I'm going to have to suggest that the Ags will lose this one, get the #2 seed and have to beat UCI on a neutral court, which is more likely, to get to the NCAAs.
If anybody doesn't have a provider that carries it, you can get a 7-day free trial of Playstation Vue Elite Slim package that allows you to sign in to Fox Sports Go and watch.
41-23 Irvine at the half. Unfortunately, we've seen the Ags come out totally of sync and ice cold several times this season. They picked a horrible time to do it again today. 28% shooting, 3 of 8 from the line and poor defensive intensity...I wouldn't want to be in their locker room with Coach Les right now....
I'm looking forward to the post game interview to see what excuses Les coming up ?
This is NOT the FIRST time his team FAILS to show up in critical game ( I still can't forget the nightmare performance at UCI , with 0 pts scored in overtime)
At least 1/3 of the TOs are unforced and the team played like they didn't expected UCI to be that good