Merced is such a horrible place…

my wife watched the UOP game on ESPN+. After being bombarded with the Big West ads (the slogan was etched into her memory bank) she’s ready to book a Las Vegas trip for the Big West tournament!

They are 2-5 with blowout losses to bad teams. Put this away by halftime!

And she is super lucky on the slots!

oh, you think THATS the attraction? Not nonstop basketball action?

IS UC Merced Div. II? In a conference?

After an exhaustive search of their Wikipedia site, they are an NAIA school and a member of the California Pacific conference

This is only the 10th or 11th season the Bobcats have competed in intercollegiate athletics. The school was founded in 2005 and had only club and IM sports until 2011 when they joined the NAIA and the California Pacific Conference.

This is the fight for the top UC in the Central Valley!!! I don't even want to think what would happen if the Ags pull another Academy of Arts performance.

Hopefully this will be an opportunity to work the bench. The ladies game should be the real entertainment today.

This game is getting boring in a good way.

The fun should start at 4

By the way, Ba injured himself. He had to be carried off while putting no weight on one of his legs. It looked like he stepped on someone's foot before he went down. I don't know the specific injury nor the severity.

looked like he rolled his ankle when he landed on a foot

WSU women are an interesting team to watch. I saw them two weeks ago at Idaho's brand new arena. Idaho's women played them tough and point for point in the first half but WSU blew them out in the third quarter and won going away. It was fun but the music there is too loud. The WSU women have a bunch of international players, one from Canada, one starter from Rwanda and many others from AUS/NZ.

So this game does not "count" as far as the NCAA is concerned.

I liked seeing Shaw out there. He looked solid on both ends. Not sure why he slipped down the depth chart so far, but I think he has skills on both ends that can help this team

I agree. I think Shaw has a lot to offer. I sure would like to see Borra develop too. It will be hard to get him the minutes he needs to gain more confidence though especially once the conference starts.

Did he score inside or outside?

He took the ball to the hoop.

I'm a bit surprised that Shaw isn't getting up to 10 mins per game. His offense is limited, he gets a little loose with the ball, but he usually brings a good amount of energy and he can really sky (watch him in the layup lines). I get that as the season goes on, most coaches work on getting their rotation down to about 7 or 8 players, but early you'd think we'd see the whole bench. But I'm not there during practices, so maybe there is a reason.

I'm unfamiliar w this 7-8 rotation... a deeper bench is beneficial. I've always preferred 9-10.

he seems much more athletic and active defensively than the new guys. He shot well v Merced, but alot of players did. You right - we don’t see practice.

in general coaches prefer to get their rotation down to the starting 5 and a few reserves by the time the tournament rolls around. That doesn’t mean that teams don’t go deeper when needed. And certainly early in the season they usually try to see who is fitting together the best. But as they say, playing time is earned in practice.

Whatever works, eh? The Warriors won the NBA title in the 70s playing 10+. Everybody fresh and hungry.

Oh yeah. I totally agree that early on I'd want to get everyone involved. Several years ago we relied on Monson in the middle all season long, with Funtarov getting almost no minutes through out the season. Then when the BWT came around, Monson was out because his wife was in labor so Georgi had to step up and play significant minutes behind Goode (who was forced into the starting rotation). They knew for 9 months that Monson might miss the tournament, so why not get Georgi some real minutes throughout the regular season rather than throwing him in cold? So yeah, i agree I'd like to see all 12 guys get time right now, especially since we are a one bid league, so all you are really trying to do is win three games at the BWT in March.

I wasn't at the game, but 4 for 4 says something.