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Toke69
327It doesn’t bode well for UC Davis that they have not beaten Hawai`i at the Stan Sheriff Center since 2017, led by Chima Moneke’s 26 points. Overall we are 2-7 in Honolulu. Hawai`i was picked to finish the regular season second in the Big West in the coaches poll. There have been two common opponents and I already posted some observations of the games vs. Sac State. Hawai`i also defeated Eastern Washington easily 71-51, albeit in Honolulu. Hawai`i was very impressive in victories over Pepperdine, Washington State and SMU to win their first Diamondhead Tournament championship. Against SMU, they trailed most of the game but came back from 12 down to win by one point on a 3-point buzzer beater from 32 feet. They will be sky high on Thursday night.
The Rainbow Warriors are led by point guard Noel Coleman who is averaging 14.7 points and 2.8 assists per game. They also play very physically with forwards Bernardo Da Silva ((6’9”, 215 lbs.) and Kamaka Hepa (6’10”, 215 lbs) providing plenty of bulk and 14 rebounds a game between them. They often set the half-court offense in a high post but they do not use the pick and roll as much as the guards driving under the post through the key. They get a lot of baskets in the paint using their quickness. On defense, they have a very tight man to man that is almost as tight as the one that UCLA used. They are particularly good at defending the 3-point arc. Hawai`i’s overall quickness is about a good at the Aggies, so this will be a very tough challenge for UCD.
I have a ticket to the game and do not plan to lie low as one of very few Aggie fans in the arena but will also not be texting from there. I’ll provide my observations the next day. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+. I have no idea why Hawai`i schedules all of its home games to begin at 8:59 instead of 9:00, but theories are welcome. -
OldAggieAlum
9I have not seen any official reason for the Hawaii games starting at 8:59, but have always assumed that it was because if the game started at 9:00 PM, it would be Midnight in the Eastern time zone, which would be the following day. By starting at 8:59 PM, the games can be listed as starting on the same day in all US time zones, avoiding possible confusion as to which day the game is scheduled. -
Zander
193Ooh good call. I think it's beyond issues of simple audience confusion though; it wouldn't even show up properly on searches on ESPN's website -
Oldbanduhalum
599We definitely need to play a full 40 mins. We’ve seen too many games this year where we go through some bad stretches. We are not good enough to survive those extended periods. -
Toke69
327UC Davis is a 7 point underdog and as loyal an Aggies as I am, if I were a betting man, I'd take Hawai`i to win by more than that. The sports page here in Honolulu was extolling the potential of a 7'1" freshman named Mor Seck, from Senegal. He has looked pretty raw all season, but against Washington State he had 6 rebounds in 8 and half minutes. They think he is due for a breakout game and it might come against us, which could make us more sick.
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BlueGoldAg
1.2kWell it's out of the frying pan and into the fire for the Aggies. Hawaii is arguably playing the best basketball of all the best BW teams at the moment. They're coming off winning their first ever Diamond Head Classic Tournament title with 3 impressive victories over Pepperdine, Washington State and SMU.
On the other hand the Aggies are coming off losses in their last two games: a disappointing loss at EWU followed by an "as good as could be expected effort" against highly ranked UCLA. It's been an up and down pre-conference season for the the Aggies and it feels like they have yet to play their best basketball with consistency.
Hawaii and the Aggies have established a solid rivalry of late with the games often getting quite physical and "spirited" in recent years. The Warriors are tough to beat on the island and they always have a loud and boisterous crowd behind them. There always seems to be a pretty good home court advantage for Hawaii when it comes to the 50-50 calls by the officials too. I expect the breaks will go Hawaii's way so the Aggies will need to just play on and not let any questionable calls or the crowd get into their heads.
I'd say the Ags are 10 point underdogs coming into tonight's game but I expect we'll put up a tough fight. We can't expect to fall behind early and catch up against a team like Hawaii. If they pull away early and get the crowd loudly behind them, we'll be hard pressed to close the gap. Our defense will need to be energetic and stout from the get go without getting into early foul difficulties also. Our offense has been hit and miss this season with some long periods of scoring drought at times so our defense must be tenacious all the time to help us stay within striking range if we go cold shooting the ball.
Go Ags! -
Toke69
327Hawai`i's coach, Eran Ganot, might be the best coach they have ever had. He is already second in victories. He is 8-5 vs. Jim Les, including only one loss in Honolulu. Today's Honolulu Star-Advertiser had this to say about the game (in part):
"UC Davis presents several challenges. Six-foot-4 ElLijah Pepper (19.7 points and a6.2 rebounds per game), 6-3 Loyola-Chicago transfer Ty Johnson (16.3 and 5.) and 6-5 Ade Adebayo can [all] shoot from the outside, post up or drive and pitch.
"'We try to use the the versatility of our guys,' UCD coach JimLes said. 'We don't pigeon-hole and of them into, 'hey, so-and-so is a point guard,' and 'so-andso is a shooting guard.' Multiple guys will rbing the ball up the floor. They'll push it on the break.'
"The Aggies average 16.3 fastbreak [points] per game.
"Christian Anigwe, a 6-foot-9 post, averages 5.3 rebounds and has blocked 20 shots [this season].
"'We've been stressing with this group to have a physical nature to us.' Les said. 'Part of that is a physical defensive group. And good defense has to finish their defense with, hopefully, first rebounds.'"
[Brackets are mine.]
I'm going to guess that Hawai`i will dominate the boards, including the offensive boards and otherwise limit the Ags ability to fast break. They won't be intimidates by a physical game since they are entirely capable of being physical themselves. The key for a UCD win will be if they can get 3-point shots to fall over the Warriors tough perimeter defense. If they win, I hope I can get out of the arena in one piece, but I agree with BlueGold about a 10 point loss. -
BlueGoldAg
1.2kI'm not sure where the Hawaii newspaper got the idea that Adebayo was a threat to "shoot from the outside, post up or drive the ball." Ade is primarily a defensive specialist who rarely scores.
I don't think Hawaii will dominate us on the boards. We're not that big but we have an uncanny ability to rebound well this year. I do agree with you, Toke, that we need to shoot a good percentage from 3. The 3 ball is such an equalizer and we have several players who can shoot well from 3 but it's been lacking of late. I don't think we'll be able to stay with Hawaii it we shoot poorly from 3 tonight. -
BlueGoldAg
1.2kI'm certainly hoping for a good outing by the Ags tonight. I need something to pick me up a bit since I've been down with Covid the last few days. I'm a bit better now but I'm not back to normal by any means. The Covid Grinch pretty ruined our Christmas plans so a win over Hawaii would be a nice boost to my morale!
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69aggie
377This might be a bit off thread, but not by much. The reviled Rick Singer of varsity blues fame will be sentenced on Monday for his crimes. He was a coach at sac state basketball from 1989 to 1992. This fact was never widely reported by our esteemed local sacramento media but is very true. Wonder why?? This creepy guy is looking at a very long sentence (12-16 years) maybe for multiple fraudulent activities. He now lives in a Florida trailer park. Does anyone know how we did against sac when he was a coach there? He probably was in charge of recruiting there and we lost out big time. That was meant as a joke! Happy new year to all! -
Toke69
327Yeah, I had a chuckle at that one. I doubt that the reporter had seen us play at all, so he probably over-generalized from something that coach Les told him. Note: rebounding will be the key. The only games the Ags have lost were the ones they were out-rebounded and only Milwaukee beat us when we out-rebounded them, but they shot 62% from 3.
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Oldbanduhalum
599He hasn’t played yet, but it is good to see him dressed. With all these fouls, he may get a few minutes. And now he’s in
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BlueGoldAg
1.2kThis has been a physical, blue collar basketball game so far. Dominating, tenacious defense by both teams. Anigwe has kept us in the game on the offensive end.
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BlueGoldAg
1.2kAgs fall 74-66. I thought it would be a dogfight and it was. We were right in it right up to the last 2 minutes. Hard fought game by both teams. Hawaii's length on defense gave us a lot of problems and, as a result, our offense never really got into a rhythm. We needed our defense to be solid in order to keep us within striking distance and our defense came through on that point.
Great game by Anigwe. He kept us in the game with his offense in the first half when we couldn't buy a basket. Beasley also had a very nice game. Pepper struggled getting his shots to fall but he never quits and made some key baskets down the stretch. Johnson looked frustrated. I think he's trying too hard to make something happen on offense at times and ends up turning the ball over.
We showed that we're going to be a tough out in the BW against anyone. I can't wait to play Hawaii when they come to Davis in February. I think we'll win that one. -
Toke69
327I made it out alive, but while the Aggies had the lead, I was wondering about how much verbal abuse I might get if they won. The crowds in Hawai`i have gotten much more vociferous in recent years. I might have been the only UC Davis fan there. I had a seat close to the bench and was wearing my UC Davis hoodie, so when I saw Jim Les look up at stands pregame I gave him a V sign and he grinned and pointed to my hoodie. I also was yelling "Go Aggies" as loud as I could and thus attracted a lot of attention. I figure I was outnumbered 5000-1.
As I drove home, I listened to coach Ganot. He said that the Ags did a good job of icing Hawai`i, i.e. forcing the guards out of the paint off the high post screens that the Warriors run. Asa result, the coach said he made a half time adjustment to space the offense in a way that opened the middle for the big men to penetrate and they got a lot more drives and jams as a result. Note the increase in offense on both sides in the second half. Unfortunately, the change was to Hawai's advantage.
Later they interviewed Da Silva who noted that their defense was keying on Eli and T.Y. and that, as we saw was effective. They both looked very frustrated. Both Anigwe and Beasley too over much of the scoring. UCD was also good at shutting down their leading scorer, Noel Coleman who only got 7 points. -
BlueGoldAg
1.2kThat was JoVon McClanahan who is only 5'10 and was the smallest player on the court. He scored all of his 23 points in the second half. His clutch shooting sealed the deal for Hawaii.
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BlueGoldAg
1.2kOur defense in the first half was about as good as I have ever seen us play defense. We forced Hawaii into 13 TO's in first half which was outstanding. However, the problem was that we were unable to turn those TO's into points on the offensive end. You know that your offense is struggling when you force 13 TO's but still trail by 2 points at the half.
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Toke69
327I should note that the officiating was bad last night. They called invisible or petty fouls and traveling. The fans became so upset with the refs that I heard some threats like "You better not run into me outside this arena" and at one point a fan threw something that looked like a hard sponge at a referee resulting in warning that another such incident would result in a technical foul against Hawai`i. The fans, of course, thought the refs were biased, but it was equally bad for both teams.
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