Thanks for the thoughts and wishes. I have family roots about halfway between Peoria and the Quad Cities and have one neighborly request of Bradley fans. Tell the folks on the blog site (http://www.pjstarforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=100824 ) that it's UC Davis, not Cal-Davis. I think Cal Davis sells cars on late night broadcast TV.

(Y) (Y) (Y)

Hahaha...I grew up in a small town north of Indianapolis. I still remember the Foxworthy Ford ad ditty that was always on tv late at night (black & white tv back then too!):

"Foxworthy Ford just can't be beat, 819 East Washington Street"

Now that dang thing will be stuck in my head all afternoon...:(

The one in California was Cal Worthington. He had dealerships all up and down the state. His ads usually featured him and some zoo-worthy animal such as an elephant, ocelot or emu, and the line "Here's Cal Worthington and his dog, Spot!" The jingle part, and what sticks in my mind everytime I see or hear 'Cal Davis' was "Go see Cal! Go see Cal! Go see Cal!"

No one says Cal Irvine, Cal Santa Barbara, Cal Riverside...but it's Cal Davis.

I would expect nothing less of Northwestern. Any other fans would be doing something worthy of sports talk radio...."Yo mama!" With NU you get a more scholarly approach. I don't think their list of teams that have never been there is exhaustive. Probably a handful of Big West and Big Sky teams who have never been there. How about our friends on J Street?

It's official. AGS will play NCCU Eagles in First Four at Dayton, OH this coming Wednesday for an 16th seed spot in the first round . Didn't UCI get an straight pass to first round last season?

That was Hawaii and yes they did. UCI got something like a 12 seed the year before.

Let's not kid ourselves: by the numbers the conference is somewhat worse than previous years, and this UCD team is not as good as the one from a couple of years ago. Davis and Irvine were pretty much the only teams that didn't have anything particularly wrong with them, but we're not a good team from a national perspective and a play-in game is very fair.

At times last night, the term "winning ugly" came to mind. The game may not have been pretty, but I am loving the outcome.
On to the NCAA tournament! Congratulations to Coach Les and the entire team!

My two favorite moments in this game are:

1) 1:26:24 and 1:28:05

With the Aggies up by two and less than 40 seconds left, Lemar and UCI star guard Luke Nelson faced off.

Lemar, dribbling just inside half-court, exchanged words with Nelson. The Aggie told the Anteater, “I work too hard for this. I’m not going to let it slip (away).”

Nelson, according to Lemar, said, “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

and

2) 1:36:51

The slow motion replay of Darius Graham tipping the ball.
This is followed by the bench's reaction that UC Davis had won.
This is followed by the "UC Davis" chant.
"UC DAVIS!"

Just my two cents on the broadcast....when you get to the late night Saturday championship game for a mid-major conference, and one that is not known for basketball, you get to the bottom of the barrel with broadcasters. I won't claim to know enough about the intricacies of the game to criticize their knowledge, but the delivery, particularly as they went into commercial breaks, was annoying to at least one old guy sitting in front of a TV in northern California.

I have see no one mention this.

I read that when we started horribly slow Coach Les went deep into his bench to play some lower profile players... And they apparently battled and provided a lift.

- In particular, Arell Hennings was a guy I hadn't seen play much before, and he came in and provided solid minutes. He plays good defense, a la Darius, and didn't make mistakes on the offensive end.

And at 5'8"?

I really think the bench guys were the unsung key to this win. At one point, with us up 4-0 I think, we had Hennings/Henn/Goode/Michael on the court at the same time. Not only did they provide a few minutes of rest for the starters, but they provided some much needed energy. When Hennings scored (layup I think), the starters from the bench just went wild. It was a great thing to see.

I can't speak for the coach, but I'm guessing that he knew they game would come down to a minute left with Graham/Lemar/White needing to play great defense, so he got them a few minutes of rest whenever he could. It was a great piece of coaching.

I think more importantly if the first unit was't playing well, no offense and TOs, he tried unit B, which is a wake up call for several reasons.

We can't have a lot of TOs, shoot poorly, and expect continued success. Great to see Lemar go to the hole at crunch time.

The platoon substitution by Coach Les early in the game and again later had nothing to do with the slow offensive start by the Ags. Les had told his team before the game that he would be going to the bench early and they needed to be ready to give the team some solid minutes of play. The Aggies had spent a lot of energy in the first two games, and taking in account the OT game with Fullerton the night before, he wanted to keep his starters as fresh as possible for crunch time in a tight game. It paid off in spades for the Ags as the bench players came in and played solid BB with great energy and it gave the starters a breather and an emotional boost as well.

I thought this was one of Les' best strategic coaching jobs since he's been at Davis. He understands the emotional aspect of the game and knows how much it can affect players in a high pressure, big game like this. The planned use of his bench early was a great decision and his defensive game plan that included double teaming the UCI bigs and sticking to Luke Nelson like glue completely shut down UCI's offense in the first half.

Defense doesn't always get many accolades and won't make the highlight reel unless there is a powerful block that sends the ball deep into the stands, but the Aggies defense in the first half was a thing of beauty. It's hard work to play defense like that and it often doesn't get much credit as most fans simply think the opponent's offense just wasn't playing well. The reason UCI's offense was miserable in the first half was because of the Aggies' smothering defense.

As Les says, defense is underrated and it wins championships. You can't win with defense only but you can keep a game close and frustrate the opponent with great defense. Most college basketball players love to shoot the ball and score. It's the most fun part of the game, but the Aggies have bought into Les' emphasis on defense and take pride in it. It's part of the character of this team now and that's not an easy thing to get a team to buy into. This team doesn't have the offensive firepower of the Hawkins team but they play hard-nosed defense better than any Aggie team I have ever seen.

I agree...I'm sure it was a pre-planned decision, not as a result of the pace of the game. When he brought in the bench mob, there wasn't a single starter who looked surprised or upset. They knew it was coming and expected it.

The other thing we noticed was Graham on the bench until about 2 minutes left in the game. All the other starters had been in down the stretch, but Les still had Schneider (or Hennings) in there. We were surprised at it, but again, I'm sure he was giving Darius just another minute because he blanketing Nelson the last minute or so (and did an amazing job).

Coach Nosek, in his post-game radio interview, said that they had told the team before the game about bringing the bench in early. He also said they made the decision to hold Darius out because he couldn't find a rhythm offensively. So it was a decision that the coaches made because they saw him struggling. Like you said, when he did return he barely gave Nelson room to breath. There was lots of great coaching decisions made by the Ags in this game that made a big difference in the final outcome.

That's really interesting. We definitely coached this game differently than any regular season game.

I thought, from a layman's standpoint, that UCI didn't make adjustments throughout the game. And I'm still not sure why they called a timeout with 2.6 seconds left to set up a play, and then the play wasn't to get Nelson open but to get it to Demacopolous (sp?). Perhaps the in-bounder freaked and didn't let the play develop, but no one around us could believe that Nelson didn't touch the ball on the last possession.

Yes, that time out with 2.6 left was questionable although they had been successful just moments before on that inbounds play where Nelson nailed that deep 3 to get the Eaters within a point. From my armchair coaching position, I would have let Nelson continue on an try and create a good look for a 3 rather than calling a time out. He had the ball, had momentum and he's a pure shooter that can knock down a fall-away 3 from distance. I'd would have let him go at that point.

I thought for sure UCI would run the picket fence (Hoosiers).

Looked like a blown play or as you said, the inbounded got a little jumpy. I don't think the ball was ever supposed to go to the big guy in the corneR. The following inbounds play was worse. A cross court lob? For a fade away three? Either way It was our defense that caused UCI to panic and not get a shot off.