I thought the defense looked very good for this early in the season. Also impressed that Coach Les would give two freshmen so much playing time. Great win.

Didn't catch it but seems like a great underdog victory!

Replay availability?

This team looks more athletic than prior years and deeper in talent. Les seemed to rotate players a lot. I wasn’t sure if that was a strategy to keep fresh legs and tire out Utah St and we could do it because of the depth or if he is still trying to find the starters and best groups. In any event, a surprising win. My hopes for this year just went up.

am I the only one realizing the EWU basketball game is at 2:00 on Friday? Thanks , ESPN+. So much for a big home crowd

I just realized it yesterday, and I usually fixate on stuff like that. Fortunately i previously got the day off (vets day on Thursday so it only made sense) so I think I’ll be able to go. But there won’t be many fans at all.

Certainly looked like Les was trying to keep fresh legs in the game (though we know Les wont play guys if he doesn't have confidence in them). Add in Ba and Shaw that usually get time but didn't last night (which seems strange so, as someone posted earlier, perhaps some injury issues) and we do seem to be deeper than most years. Both teams were pretty gassed by the middle of the 2nd half last night, a lot of missed open shots, missed layups, bad FT shooting, all signs of tired legs.

sounds like it’s early to accommodate EWU travel issues. Also, I guess Davis schools are out Friday so maybe larger family crowd

I was surprised at the start time also. We'll be there but I'm sure the crowd will, unfortunately, be small. Hopefully, we'll get some families and a few students but it will probably be mostly old folks, like me, who don't have to work anymore! We'll probably go out to eat after the game since the traffic back to Sac is typically terrible at that time of day.

as an old guy who lives 90 minutes away, this works great for me. Reverse commute post game along the back road.

One factor in the Aggies upset of USU was the fact that the Utah State Aggies lost three starters from last year and had about 7 new players in the rotation, transfers from Maryland-Baltimore County and Utah. The former followed their coach, Ryan Odom, the guy who led the Retrievers to the first time upset of a #16 seed over #1 seed (Virginia) a few years ago. I don't think they were as well meshed as our Aggies who have three returning starters, plus two key reserves and the benefit of having played one game already. This is to take nothing away from the upset. The guys played very well and never withered down the stretch. That speaks volumes about their ability to win close games this season.

Quotes from a nice write up about the game in The Herald Journal in Logan, Utah:

“Their physicality bothered us in the first half,” Coach Odom said. “We had 12 turnovers. That middle section of the first half was not very good for us. They were getting to the offensive glass on us a ton. They had nine in the first half, and from a free-throw perspective, we were fouling them, and it certainly wasn’t good for our team.”

“We lost that game in the first half,” guard Rylan Jones said. “We were up, started the game well, got up to a pretty big lead. Missed a lot of easy shots around the rim. We turned the ball over like six out of eight times in a possession and they scored like 12 points on those six possessions. That’s the lead right there.”

“You get in these highly contested games, you gotta be able to get the stop when you need it, and we weren't able to do that,” Odom said. “Obviously, Manjon made a couple of big shots right there at the end, and then Pepper knocks in the three. … You gotta give UC Davis and coach Les a lot of credit. They fought hard throughout the game.”

“I’ll tell you, big-time plays at the end of the game from a number of guys,” Les said. “Elijah hit some big shots. Kane (Milling) kept us in the game in the first half when we were a little bit erratic and a little bit discombobulated. And then Ezra is as good of a closer as there is, and he loves the moment.

“It wasn’t his best game but the best part about him is he has a short-term memory and he forgets everything that happened and he’s gonna close and we trust him and we’re gonna put the ball in his hands.

https://www.hjnews.com/sports/usu/utah-state-men-come-up-short-in-opener/article_8e829dd8-a81c-53ff-849a-b4c4afb40730.html

Great photo gallery:

https://www.hjnews.com/multimedia/photo-gallery-uc-davis-utah-state-basketball/collection_dea77ced-954d-53e0-a351-4d89d4865e6b.html

Discombobulated? Where have we heard that before?

You can watch the replay on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N160t1enH8o

I just watched the last 10 minutes again. That was a gutsy win for the Aggies in a tough environment. The Ags made the big plays at crunch time. This really gets the Ags off on the right foot. Let's keep it going against EWU. It would be great to beat them on the basketball court Friday and then send them home with a loss on the football field on Saturday!

One concern: Milling kind of disappeared offensively in the second half.
One great stat: UC Davis had 41 rebounds tying USU, a much taller team.

Despite the win, I still wish they would penetrate more and try to get more shots in the paint. They rely so heavily on 3 pointers, we have always been inconsistent in our play as we win or lose on whether the players are hot or cold on a given night. If we got more shots in close on cuts to the basket or a big guy muscling his way in there, that could balance out the 3 pointers.

Jim Les' teams are built first and foremost on defense. He likes to say that when the shots aren't falling, defense can keep you in the game and last night was a good example of that especially early in the game. USU was red hot at the start and we got down double digits real quick. Then our defense turned them over several times and we went on a 15-0 run to take the lead.

We had a tough time penetrating their defense. Manjon generally carves his way through the big men in the paint and but they clogged up the lanes and made it tough for him. They had size inside and they collapsed whenever we got into the paint. It was just very tough going inside for the Ags. Of course, that opened up the perimeter for us but we didn't shoot very well from 3.

Neither team shot the ball well but we made the shots down the stretch when it counted the most. Again, it was our defense that kept us close enough to be in a position to win.

Milling kept us close in the first half and we got to see that he's going to be a deep threat for us with his quick stroke from downtown. I would imagine that he can be streaky like most good long ball shooters but, when he's hot, we'll want to get him the ball and let him light up the nets.

USU is a very good basketball program. They've been in the NCAA Tournament 23 times including the last 3 years in a row. Last years teams had some impressive stats. The were #2 in the nation in rebounding margin of +10 per game, #7 to total rebounds per game at 41, #10 in defensive FG % .390, #13 in blocks per game at 5 and #16 in scoring defense at 62.3 ppg.

That's a very good defensive team but we went toe-to-toe with them on the boards, 41-41, despite their distinct height advantage. I attribute that to our positioning blocking out, athleticism and just plain toughness.

If we can continue to at least stay even on the boards while playing tough, lock down D, we could be a tough out in the Big West this year. The defense is generally always ahead of the offense in the early season so I'm think we'll see the offense improve as the season progresses.

"That's a very good defensive team but we went toe-to-toe with them on the boards, 41-41, despite their distinct height advantage. I attribute that to our positioning blocking out, athleticism and just plain toughness."

The commentator was saying that we got a lot of rebounds due to very poor shooting.

I heard him say that a couple of times also. It is true that it can be more difficult to rebound shots that miss badly and clank off the iron at odd angle and air balls and we did put up a few of those. However, they had every chance to get the rebound just as we did and that's not the reason we rebounded evenly with them: we just worked hard on the boards and it paid off.

Utah State is now 4-1 with their only loss coming from the Ags. They've won 4 straight:

84-74 over Richmond
87-79 over Penn in 2 OT
85-58 over New Mexico State
73-70 over Oklahoma