The Ags hit the road for their second conference game when they tangle with Long Beach tonight at 7 pm. Long Beach picked up their first conference win last Saturday when they upset Santa Barbara in the Thunderdome. The Ags are hoping to bounce back after a disappointing loss at home to open their conference play last Thursday against UC Riverside.
The game will be televised on ESPN3 and Scott Marsh will have the radio PxP call on KHTK 1140 AM.
Pretty important road trip for the Ags. Two winnable games, tonight at the beach and Saturday at CSUN. Splitting would be "OK" but it sure would be nice to take two. Obviously, the Ags have to play better than they did last week. Beach is athletic but they don't have a bunch of scorers. If we can play tough team defense and take care of the ball on offense, we should have a good chance.
Mooney has range! He must have it a 3 from over 25 feet. If the Beach doesn't start playing better defense and stop turning the ball over, the Ags chances of winning are 100%
Very odd ending to this game. Ags up by 10 with 29 seconds to go, but the game goes down to literally the last second. Ags give up 8 points in 22 seconds?!
I think we were up 9 with 24 seconds and barely hung on but a win on the road in this conference is huge regardless of how we won. Our first half was about as good a half of basketball we've had this season. The Ags were led by Manjon and Pepper...2 true freshmen...that bodes well for us...
LB shot 53% from both the 3 and overall. I’ll take a win anyway I can get it against a team that hot.
Neufeld and Koehler were a combined 1-for-7. It would sure be nice to get more production out of our bigs.
I enjoyed the TV announcers, who were fair and knowledgeable. (I tried to listen to Scott Marsh but couldn’t get the audio to sync with the TV broadcast.)
Syncing audio and video can be tricky. On my Mac I use my web browser to capture the audio stream and then Audio Hijack to delay the stream to match the already delayed video feed. For the women, and KDVS, that is about 25 seconds when using ESPN3 or BigWest TV streams. For the men it's trickier because you're forced into using the (insert vile word here) syndication and often it's more delayed than the video (which takes effort). I may have to find a radio with a USB output and then capture that and sync that.
There's a lot to like about Elijah Pepper. He's a terrific position rebounder and he's tough. Loose ball in his neighborhood? He'll be on the floor after it. And he's good with the ball around the hoop. So we have two really quality true freshmen.
But we really need some bigs who have hands and who can score. Somehow we can't find them.
we were up 15 early in the 2nd before LB made a 12-0 run to make it interesting. rallied late to pull away (seemingly!) in the last 5 minutes, unless LB made that crazy run in the last 30 seconds. gut check win, especially on the road.
i have to admit : when i saw Pepper v Sac i thought he looked WAY overmatched at this level. boy was i wrong. he's really settled down and has become one of our most dependable players. as abridge said, he's tough and does good things around the hoop.
i really like nuefeld but he can disappear for entire games, especially against athletic defense. he starts to rush, his footwork gets off, and his shot is not good -> almost like he's anticipating a block. if he can slow himself, and trust himself, he can be a solid scorer. we need that.
Its the start of another weird BW season. Poly, who some thought might not win a game in conference, has already beaten CSUN (clobbered) and played UH tough in Hawaii. Beach has two losses (one at home) but a road win at SB. There's probably other surprises...and we are only a week into conference play.
Manjon started out like a ball of fire this season then went through am awful shooting slump before getting back on track. Pepper has been a workhorse on defense and the boards in every game but he seemed hesitant on offense but his offensive game is starting to come around. He's tough as nails and gets rebounds despite not having the length and quickness of many of the bigger athletes he battling with in the paint. They're both going to be the future leaders of the team.
Les does a great job of molding a smart, disciplined team together even though we don't often have the length and quickness that many of the Big West teams have. I'd love to see us get a couple of athletic players with height and length to help give us more of an interior presence but, if we can't, then I'm happy if we can win with a 4 guard lineup that can knock down 3's at a high percentage and drive the ball to the hoop.
Koehler is a tough defender and has a nice jump shot as well but he lacks quickness inside against more athletic bigs. He also very competitive and has a bit of attitude, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, until he gets T'ed up. That's happened a couple of times this year. He's crafty with a little push or hook here and there and gets under the skin of some of the bigger players he's matched up with. I don't think that will serve him well in the long run.
The offense involves a lot of perimeter passing with a loose screen or two thrown in. It's good when it works, but I saw plenty of opportunities to pass inside to a big to keep the defense honest. Bigs should be able to draw fouls, if nothing else. That was the only really glaring weakness IMO
CSUN is a weird one; maybe that makes them normal in the Big West! Beat the Beach by 18, beat Riverside by 12....and....as you point out.....lose to Poly by 18! We want the CSUN Hydes on Saturday!
Diane is the key, of course. I think Poly got him into foul trouble, similar to how Carter had to sit out a lot of last nights 1st half. Hopefully we'll be able to get a few early fouls against him.