Yep. That was the year Irvine -- a team that we beat by double digits twice -- went to the tourney and almost upset Louisville. Obviously you can't directly compare transitive results, but you had to feel like UCD would have definitely been seen as a serious tourney threat that year
I remember UCSB was the team I was worried about in the tourney. Their best player was injured in the game we beat them and then he came back and they beat us late in the year. But we matched up really well with Irvine. They liked to shoot 3s also, we just did it way better than they did. After we lost to Hawaii, Irvine beating UCSB made that loss sting even more because I was sure we'd roll Irvine by 10+ again.
I can't believe that I forgot the 2017 game. I've gone to every game and I tend to remember the Aggie victories. Now that CMT has reminded me of it, that was the game when Chima Moneke went off against Hawai'i and the local fans uncharacteristically made fun of him. I think that was also the game where Coach Les pulled the team off the court at the end because a fan threw something on the court.
There seems to be a pretty good rivalry between the Ags and Hawaii. The games are often physical and some have been chippy especially the games in Hawaii. The Stan Sheriff Center is a tough place to play for the visiting teams considering travel and the time zone differences combined with the dedicated Hawaii fans who can be tough on the visiting teams.
When it fills to capacity (10,000) it gets very loud. The entire space was designed in the early 90s when Hawaii was in the old WAC where the arenas are of comparable size and the competition included Brigham Young and Utah. I've seen Hawai`i take down the likes of Michigan State, USC and Louisiana Tach when Paul Milsap was there.