I was listening to the Hawaii coach, Eran Ganot, talking about the game and he has a lot of respect for UC Davis. He said that in order for them to win, they have to avoid turnovers and guard the 3-point line. He is well aware that forcing turnovers and shooting the 3 are Aggies strengths. What he did not say is that this could well be the best team he has had (and recall that Hawaii under him beat Cal in the NCAA a few years ago when Cal had Jaylen Brown and Ivan Rabb). Hawaii has veterans at every position except the low post, where they can use one of two 7-footers, neither of whom is very athletic, so that is their weakest position.
The rest of the Warrior team is loaded and big, the starting five can average 6' 7". They have what might be the best point guard in the Big West in Drew Buggs who averages 5 assists per game and is on pace to set a team record for assists as a junior. Eddie Stansberry is the leading scorer averaging 16.4 per game and is a threat from the 3 point line, although he only averages 34.2% there. The best center is 6' 9" freshman Bernado Da Silva, who might not play due to injury. Samuta Avea and Zigmar Raimo are both heady, hustling players who round out the starting five, but Ganot trusts his bench down to the tenth man. As ever, they almost always use a man to man and with their being aware of the Ags shooting ability, they will probably not go to a zone at all. ESPN gives the Aggies a 22% chance to win, but I'll be there rooting for the Aggies in a sea of Rainbow Warrior fans.
Nice summary, Toke69. It's always tough to be Hawaii on the island and the Aggies will need to play as well as they did against Cal and New Mexico to pull the upset. Wear your Aggie gear and agitate those Warrior fans a bit for us!
Just an observation. There are probably are not a lot of UC Davis alums in Hi, but there are some significant ones. I am distantly related to one of the big ranching families on Kauai. This family has sent most if not all of their boys to Davis; their girls mostly went to either Oxford or Cambridge. Most recently to my knowledge it was a Greenwell grand daughter that came to Davis by the name of Katy Dollar a few years back. A very impressive gal. Hey, they could be in the stands tonight? Short Inter island flight- no problemo. Go Ags!
I have never heard the Hawaii arena as loud as tonight. The crowd was really fired up because of a 100 year celebration of the basketball team. I really thought Hawaii was going to win by double digits so I was more than glad when the Ags went up by 7. It was an amazing performance by Gonzalez but a disappointing one for Mooney, who was closely guarded by Eddie Stansberry all night. Hawaii's Drew Buggs also had a sensational night playing 40 minutes with 11 assists to one turnover. Credit to Ezra, too, who almost took over the game in the second half. It was a very deflating loss to bein the middle of all those Hawaii fans when Hawaii pulled it out at almost the very end. Credit to Hawaii, though, who was missing two starters. I hope the Aggies can beat them in Davis.
As you say, boxing out and positioning are critical to rebounding and we do those things pretty well especially given that we lack size. It's simply hard to match up with a team like Hawaii with 3 seven footers and 6'9 Raimo who is an absolute beast in the paint. Hawaii is big, talented and deep.
Desire? No team in the Big West plays with more desire on most nights than the Aggies. We're lack size but make up for it grit, effort and smart basketball. We had Hawaii on the ropes in a very tough environment last night in a game that most everyone thought we'd lose by double digits. It was a great example of Aggie Pride.
I should note that my son and law and I both agreed that the officiating was terrible. They made a lot of phantom calls. At least they were equally bad to both teams, so I don't think they affected the outcome. The crowd did. I am fairly sure that the Aggies were rattled in the closing minutes. THey're not used to having almost 5000 people rooting against them. It could have been worse, since the arena holds 10,000. The game made the front page of both the sports and main section of the paper. Hawaii, lacking a pro team of any kind, sees the University of Hawaii as their main sports team. The game is also broadcast live on local television which explains why the arena was only half full, thank goodness.
I agree, the officiating was suspect for sure but, like you stated, it was bad for both sides. I thought the critical sequence that really gave the momentum back to Hawaii was when Squire missed a wide open layup late in the game when we were up 7 and then ran down the court and fouled the 3 point shooter for Hawaii. The Hawaii player hit all 3 FT's to cut the lead to 4 which started an 8 point run for the Warriors and, in about a minute, they were up by 1 and had the crowd going crazy. That was a 5 point swing on the missed layup and the following 3 FT's. Tough sequence of events...
yeah that was definitely the turning point. It’s too bad because I thought squire had played a really solid game. Both he, and of course Manjon, did a nice job being aggressive towards the basket and drawing fouls on their bigs.