I'm copying my post over from the old forum. My wife and I will be there.
The Ags tip off at 5:30 pm today against the Hornets at the Sacramento Kings' new Golden One Center in downtown Sacramento. This will be the first college game ever played in the GOC and is part of a double header with the Cal Bears taking on the Aztecs of San Diego State in the second game at 8 pm. The Aggies are off to a nice 3-1 start while the Hornets enter the game 1-2 with a win over Antelope Valley and losses against Colorado and Nebraska.
There will be a pregame get together for Aggie fans at 3 pm at the Ruhstaller Brewery + Taproom which is located just around the corner from the Golden One Center at 630 K Street. There does not appear to be any tv coverage or online stream of the Aggie game only the normal radio broadcast.
This should be a great night of basketball for Aggies fans and I hope that there will be a good crowd of Aggie fans in attendance.
Go Ags! Have high hopes for this year's team. The problems so far all seem very fixable (primarily sloppiness in passing, some communication issues on defense
Do you think it would've been better if they just closed off some of the upper sections? Not sure what's better for the players but this makes it look so sparse!
Rough week to be a Hornets fan as the Aggies follow up their football domination with a nice basketball win, 81-72. Aggies record the first ever college basketball win in the new Golden 1 Center. Lemar puts up 23 points and Moneke gets a double double. Aggies improve to 4-1! GO AGS!
Great win. If this is a series we should make it a goal to be the main event. There is no reason why a team from San Diego and the Bay Area should take precedence over the local teams. We are playing at the same level of D1 basketball.
Just got home from the games. What a fabulous arena the Golden One Center is! I can't imagine that there is a better basketball venue in the nation. I'm really happy for the team to win the first college game ever played in the GOC and it was really special to see Darius hit the first basket from 3 in his hometown. Official attendance for the Aggie game was 10,112. Not bad.
I thought the Ags played a solid game all around tonight. The thing that impresses the most about this team is their maturity, poise and discipline. Our defense was very good and the we executed the offense with good decisions and smart play.
The Aggies faced a challenge with the Hornets' size made even tougher with Garrison Goode out with a boot on his right foot. But we have some athleticism inside with Moneke, White, and Adenrele and they battled tough in the paint and on the boards. Moneke can sky and he has a nose for the ball. Mikey Henn is a blue collar type player who is not afraid to mix it up with bigs. He can also step out hit the 3. So what we may lack in overall height and length we counter with smart play and athleticism.
Bryton Lemar was rock solid and showed his leadership and poise by hitting some big shots when we needed it. He had 23 and we need him to put up good numbers. Moneke is a very talented player and he has been consistently good on both ends of the floor. Darius drives the team and his maturity is very evident and Siler Schneider can get hot and he always plays hard.
I like how Coach Les has this team playing. We need Goode to heal up fast. We need his length and defense.
Great win for the Ags and a real treat for the team and the fans to have the game in the GOC.
Great game at a great location. The crowd looks sparse in the photo above because of the early tip-off, but it was pretty crowded for the last half of the UCD/ssu game and the first 3/4 of the Cal/SDSU game. Crowd thinned out when the Cal game was decided. They actually did close off the entire second level and drew a huge black curtain around it. A lot more SDSU people there than I would have thought.
Didn't get to catch either of the games but it sounds like the Ags played hard against a so-so Hornets team. The conference race looks relatively open this season so I expect it might be a fun year.
I'm not terribly surprised to hear about SDSU's support -- several players are from the Sacramento area and the campus has a terrific basketball culture. Hopefully one day UCD has the same.
This is a really easy team to root for. They work hard, work together, and play smart, unselfish ball. BW will be very interesting this year. We looked last night on the way home, and we have 3 D1 wins so far, no one else in the BW has more than 2 D1 wins, and several (UCSB, LBSU) have none. It's early, but it's a very nice start!
Les seems to recruit guards well. I don't like that we don't have a center, or anyone over 6'9" (yearly it seems). I would like to see better records (who doesn't), especially when we DON'T have the best player in UCD history. All-in-all, he has been better than the last guy.
Les is 68-92 overall.
Les overall winning %: .703
Stewart D1 winning %: .582
I was going to go into subtracting the Hawkins "anomaly," but Les got him to come to Davis...which was a feat in itself.
I think Les is doing a pretty good job recruiting mid-major athletes within the Aggie Way guidelines. Talented big men are so very hard to come by in the first place and, when you add in our academic filter, the pool of eligible big men shrinks dramatically and the competition gets very fierce.
What Les has done is build some depth at the guard and forward positions. I'd even put JT, Chima, and Goode in more of a power forward category. Newcomer Mikey Henn is a true power forward and next year Logan Strom, 6'8 and 240, will be here. Les emphasizes defense first and overall team speed with his smaller, guard oriented lineups. Unless Les can get an agile big man, 6'10 or taller who can run the floor, I think we will continue to see him opt for athletic, shooting and power forwards.