This goes near the top of my greatest sports moments. I don't care if no one gives us a chance against Kansas. I think the guys will play better with less pressure to win, but the Kansas fans will make it tough. Chima said in the post-game interview that they didn't play their best and I would have to agree. They were unusually confused by the 1-3-1 and missed a lot of switches on the defensive end. Good thing that North Carolina Central missed a lot of bunnies. Looking at the stats I notice that even though UCD outrebounded the Eagles by 10, the Eagles got off 67 shots to the Aggies 48. How does that happen? 18 TOs tell part of the story, but we won this game from the foul line.
Also one of my greatest sports moments ranking up there w the Stanford football upset. Yesterday we had a nice alumni group gather in New York and we rocked the bar w a bunch of Aggie pride! Didn't hurt that we won :)
I think that if, at the start of the season, you'd ask me for the best possible "reasonable" season outcome, I'd would have said something like "go undefeated at home (check), compete the big west regular season (check), compete well in the BWT tournament (double check), and if everything falls in line, maybe maybe maybe make it to the Dance (double check)". Winning a game in the tourney wasn't even on the radar, even if it was a Play In Game. So proud of the effort from the entire team and the show of Aggie Pride from the fans! It will be very interesting to see how this season effects attendance next year and recruiting efforts.
Watched with Boyd at Beeb's in Livermore (Las Positas Golf Course). Despite their advertised 'EVERY GAME TELEVISED', I had to ask the server to find the game....and...we got one screen. One was enough -> it was a bit of surreal experience watching the Ags on the big stage, play like a quality team, and win a game in the NCAA's. The play-in game wasn't on my radar, but i think it worked well for the Ags. They got plenty of pregame, halftime and postgame attention from the studio crew, graphics about the academic prowess of the place, nice post-game interview with Chima.....just a perfect day!
Hennings, Henn and Goode all contributed some key minutes. Hennings seemed to stem the rising tide of the zone trap in the first half before it got out of hand. Henn was calmer than in recent games. Goode was solid with a few points, some nice rebounds and a really nice assist on a Chima dunk.
i was surprised that we had so much trouble with the trap as the game went on. we couldn't seem to adjust to it. i was also very surprised UNCC called in off in the 2nd half. that's when we got back in the game.
Hoping someone organizes something in the East Bay (like along the 680 corridor) for Friday. there's a link for watch parties so i'll keep my eyes open.
got my email last night offering me the chance to buy tickets for Friday/Sunday....and....if there were a flight under 6 hours (not much going directly to Tulsa on United, i could have left at 5:30 AM and got there at 12:40 PM and made the game), i'd have gone. my wife was telling me 'go, use your miles, its historic'. i'll settle for a drive to Concord.......hopefully not battle with StPat's day revelers!
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. The amount and type of ESPN games are determined by the conference's TV deal, and that's not going to change just because one team won a play-in game.
There's like 2-5 ESPNU games and a single ESPN2 game to be distributed among the all teams. We get priority for those games because we're not part of the Socal ESPN3/Fox deal, but even then that's just one or two broadcasts per year. I think we just penciled ourselves in for next year but that's the most we could hope for on the national scale for now.
More doable, maybe, is to improve our Big West TV broadcasts and get them on local TV like some BWC schools do. It would be great to get on Comcast Sports Net but if not maybe a local Sacramento station like Sacramento Republic does.
i believe that we are CURRENTLY the only school in NCAA history with a perfect record (1-0) tournament record, since Mt St. Marys had a 1-4 record coming into the play-in.
Ailene Voisin article from the Sac Bee with photos:
Excerpt: "Wait till her husband starts prepping his team for the next opponent: Kansas. Yes, that Kansas. The top-seeded Jayhawks already are resting at the Midwest Region in Tulsa, Okla., plotting for the upstarts/unknowns from Northern California, the ones who work the farm, study like scholars, and in contrast to most of their tournament peers, stay in school long enough to earn degrees."
Excerpt: "ALL HAIL OUR HARDWOOD HEROES … I realize that “Cardiac Kids” and “Cinderella” are already taken and way overworked to boot, but someone has to come up with a name for our death-defying Aggie basketball team before we beat Kansas and ruin 44 million NCAA office pools …"
Visited with a colleague at NC State and he was impressed by the UCD win-he said he thought NC Central would win and said Central was a good team. He also reminded me that NC Central beat NC State last year.