Much encouraged by the Ags showing vs. Cal, I plan to watch them play the Utes on the PAS-12 network today. Please note that the time I posted is Hawaiian time. We don't have daylight savings time out here so I get mixed up as to whether we're 2 or 3 hours behind the west coast. While I don't expect UC Davis to beat Utah, an upset over a PAC-12 team is always great and the 3 point line being moved out does not seem to have affect Mooney or Gonzalez. If they and one other player can light it up from out there and maybe surprise Utah. If so, it will bring back memories of the Hawkins/Ritchart/Les teams of 5-6years ago.
The difference in Pepper and Koehler from when I saw them at Sac is startling. They looked overwhelmed that night, but look like they belong against the pac12 teams this week.
Squirt back, no Printup. Must be illness or injury since we’re going deep tonight
The difference in Pepper and Koehler from when I saw them at Sac is startling. They looked overwhelmed that night, but look like they belong against the pac12 teams this week.
Squirt back, no Printup. Must be illness or injury since we’re going deep tonight
Aggies make a great fight of it but lose 77-73. Really nice second half of basketball against another Pac12 team. This team is starting to find their identity and chemistry on the floor. I'm looking forward to seeing how this team continues to progress.
We've had a couple of good halves against good competition but we need some wins. It's easy for a team to get demoralized when they continue to lose even though they may be playing good basketball. Time for some W's.
exactly! We’ve got winnable games coming up. Time to use all the experience we’ve gained early in the season and get the wins. Good to see squire out there again along with pepper finally getting his 3-ball going.
Me too. And I think there is a third brother too just entering high school. I was expecting some good outside shooting but pepper is a much better defender than I thought he’d be at this stage. And he takes charges just like Schneider did.
I really like this team. They were down by 18 and 15 to two PAC-12 teams in consecutive road games and came back strong to make it close. Manjon is a special player and I would bet he'll be the Big West newcomer of the year. I appreciate what DrMike said about Pepper and Koehler both having made big strides in their game. That's a sign of good coaching and I would say that both are pretty impressive for their smart play and hustle.
I do give the guys a lot of credit for not throwing in the towel the past two games on the road against good competition when they got down and it would've been very easy to do so. That being said, as others have mentioned 2-7 is what it is, it's a tough hole to dig out of and rebuild the confidence of the team and even the fan base for whatever that's worth. I still think there there are reasons to believe the team is going to come together by the time the conference schedule rolls around as long as they can keep the their self belief up and not let themselves get too beaten down.
The only bad loss was VMI. Opponents are 31-16, 28-10 without VMI. The next two are games I think we win, but the four after ( 3 WCC and New Mexico) aren’t promising. So heading to BWC at 5-12, something like that? Not a huge fan of this type of scheduling.
Last year's schedule was much tougher and it didn't pay us any dividends. This year's schedule seems just about right to me. I see no reason that we shouldn't be recruiting as well and competing well against WCC teams.
Bob Hamilton used to schedule a lot of preseason games against teams from major conferences. I faintly recall one year when he took them on a road trip to play Michigan and Minnesota (two Big-10 teams at any rate). He always said it was to give them the experience of playing against top caliber opponents so they would learn how great teams work together. The counter argument was that it was bad for morale, but the two years I was there as an undergraduate, they won two Far Western Conference titles.
16 pre-conference games and only 4 of them at home and 2 of those 4 being NAIA teams is a terrible out-of-conference schedule. The 9 road games in a row just make it worse. Les told me that teams simply won't come to Davis so this is what we get. Les wants to play the area WCC teams on a home and home basis but they aren't interested for the most part. He would even like to play Sac twice each year but Katz doesn't want to. I'm not sure there's anything we can do about it except hit the road for some decent competition.
It boggles my mind that teams will go Pacific (10 of their 16 pre-conference games are at home) but won't come to Davis and even Pacific is not really interested in playing the Ags. Sucks!
It helps to build relationships. Coach Stewart got Stanford to come here! But the WCC is bigger.
Ham played Santa Clara often, they even played at Rec Hall. ... I believe we chose not to play Sac a few years back when we were scheduling weak OOC schedules.