In an odd sequence, the Ags travel south to play CSUN next week, then back home to play CSU Fullerton the following Saturday, then all the way down to UCSD on the following Monday. The Matadors are the worst team in the Big West, which surprises me. I would have thought that Trent Johnson would have them among the contenders by this time, considering his success at Stanford and Nevada, but no, the Mats are winless so far. It's hard to figure why they aren't doing better as they have a decent defense (6th in ppg allowed) and balanced scoring with three players averaging in double figures. This suggests that they are better than their record, so we can't take them lightly.
Trip off to an auspicious start. From Scott Marsh:
‘ I am very thankful to report that our plane carrying the UC Davis Men's Basketball team has just landed back safely at the airport. Upon takeoff there was a terrible noise coming from the plane’s engine. For the next 10 minutes or so everybody sat in stunned silence wondering what the heck was going on. The pilot then came on the intercom and informed us a bird had hit our plane at takeoff. He calmly said the engine was still functioning and we were turning back around and landing in Sacramento. For the next 15+ minutes everyone on board sat quietly on board as the horrendous noise continued. There was one child next to me who thought the plane was going to explode. We did our best to tell him we were fine but it wasn’t working. We did notbknow ourselves what might happen. Thanks to the amazing skill and cool headedness of our pilot crew we were able to make a very successful emergency landing back in Sacramento. I have never landed before to police sirens, fire trucks and ambulances on the runway…all I can say at this moment is that I feel so very fortunate to be alive and to have such great family and friends to share it all with. ❤️ ’
Can’t imagine anyone looking forward to getting on another plane
I was on a plane when I was 10 years old when one of the engines caught on fire just after takeoff and we had to make an emergency landing back in in Miami.
My wife and I were also on a small plane flying between islands in Fiji in extremely rough air where the plane was literally bouncing around all over the place. All 10 of us passengers were hanging on for dear life. After we safely landed, the lone Aussie pilot walked down the aisle to open the door and said in his thick Aussie accent, "Well ladies and gentlemen we cheated death again!"
Well try driving the 101 to sfo in a driving rain storm with hail , 70 mph winds, rain, flooding on the 19th Ave 1 foot deep? Then the GGB! Moaning and swinging. Maybe can’t beat the Fiji story or the Aggies story, but it was very hairy I can tell you that! Good win by the Ags!
SMF has one of the highest bird strikes in the nation. Just drive south on I5 this time of year and you can see the “clouds” of waterfowl as you go over the causeway.
I lived in Natomas before the SMF airport was built and I can tell you that all of the farmers then living there thought it was the stupidest possible location for it. Not just the birds, but the fog and the quality of the soil.
Ags passing is incredibly sloppy. 5 turnovers in the first 8 minutes. We're favored by 6, but we're down by 1 so far. I figure Coach Les is chewing them out right now.
I don't know if anyone else is watching, but I had to note that while Eli Pepper was shooting a free throw, ESPN's banner named him and had him as a 6-9 forward from Kinshasa, Congo.:smile:
I’m watching. Terrible production by espn. They had all of our heights wrong on the graphics and the analyst keeps predicting things incorrectly. And the play by play guy got several of our players names wrong. Just poor.
I saw that. Their bio banners on the players was messed up last week too.
Man, our 3 point shooting leaves a lot to be desired this year. The Matadors zone has made every shot difficult for the Aggies and they'll stay in that zone as long as we can't knock down shots from the outside.
It wasn't pretty but the Ags just kept grinding and pulled out the win. Great job on the boards by the Ags 42-24. I really like this win because of how hard we kept playing even though we really couldn't get the shots to drop until final few minutes. Our defense and rebounding kept us in the game until we starting hitting a few shots. Gritty win for the Ags!
Good to see Beasley and Milling hitting clutch shots. I thought Pepper was having another mediocre game until I saw his stat line of 20/9/4. On the other hand, aside from Milling the bench was shut out, attempting only five shots. DeBruhl had little to show for all the time he was on the floor. Nice win, considering how it went most of the way. Let's hope they have an uneventful flight back to Sacramento.
DeBruhl plays really hard and he did a good job on defense and handling the ball filling in for Johnson.
Pepper does so much even when he isn't scoring. He's really been driving the lane and distributing the ball to other players for open shots in recent games and I don't think we've ever had a player that plays any harder 100% of the time that he's on the floor. He's just a tremendous basketball player.