The Aggies opened the season with an 86-51 win over NAIA Jessop University in a game that was not pretty despite the margin of victory. Pepperdine comes to Davis after a surprising struggle of their own in their win over D2 Concordia Irvine 76-64. Like the Aggies, a big second half secured the victory for the Waves.
Pepperdine and the Aggies have only met once before in Malibu back on November 21, 2021 with the Waves winning 72-67. They are led by 6'5 G Houston Mallette who had 26 points against Concordia Irvine and was the team's second leading scorer last season.
Some keys to this game:
- Cut down on the TO's. We won't be able to beat many teams with 23 TO's.
- Kane Milling scoring like he is capable of.
- TY staying out of early foul trouble so he can stay in the game and contribute.
- We will need both Kane and TY to a significant part of our offense this year.
- Continue our tenacious defense and good FT shooting.
This game is the first game of a double header with the women taking on Portland State at 5 pm.
I think that's a very generous spread. We'll need to play much better to than we did against Jessop to win this one. I'm hopeful that we show a lot of improvement today.
If you thought the first half against Jessop was bad, I hope you didn’t see this half…this team is totally out of sync.
- No offensive punch other than Pepper
- Johnson and Milling ice cold again
- Multiple missed layups
- 42% from the line
- Out rebounded 19-11
- Lots of defensive breakdowns
Great comment by Bob Williams about how the Ags used triggers to switch from zone to man in the middle of Wave possession. I have never even heard of that before but it makes great sense to confuse the offense. I wonder if that's a recent innovation?
Coach Les must have peeled the paint at halftime. Ags are playing with more focus now.
The first and second halves were like night and day for the Aggies. TY came alive and inspired the team. One of the biggest comebacks that I can remember from the Ags in a very long time.
Good to see TY be aggressive without fouling. He and Pepper had 2/3 of the Aggie's points. Best backcourt in the Big West. While Milling looked confident in the one trey he made, he only shot one more. He needs to look for his shot more. As it was, UCD only tried 9 3-pointers. As much as I like Bob Williams, he was off base in suggesting they needed 10 made 3s to win. On the other hand, he was spot on in predicting that the young Waves would cave under pressure and we did see a Wave cave.
I was amazed that the Pepperdine defender didn’t foul TY on that last play to make him earn it at the line. I guess if you’re going to lead in a game, you might as well do it in the last 0.8 seconds. What a finish!
seemed like the youth showed in that last possession. They should never have let TY get a running start and they should have collapsed two guys on him and fouled him if nothing else.
That basket by TY reminded me of the UCLA tournament victory over Missouri when Missouri went up by one with 5 seconds left and UCLA's Tyus Edney drove the floor to score with less than second left.