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BlueGoldAg
1.2kThe Aggies, who have lost 3 of their last 4 games, will try and break out of their current slump tonight with a 6 pm game at Nevada. It won't be an easy task though as the Wolf Pack are undefeated and will have a distinct home court advantage with a large, boisterous crowd behind them.
The Aggies have struggled to find balanced scoring from their offense with Pepper and Johnson the only two Aggies scoring in double figures at 20.5 and 13.5 ppg respectively. They can't be expected to always carry 50% or more of the scoring in every game. Oregon State's defense was successful in shutting down both of them and held them to a combined 18 points with little help coming from the rest of the starting lineup or from the bench. Coach Les has commented that we need at least one more consistent scorer. Kane Milling has not found his offensive rhythm yet this season and has appeared frustrated that the shots aren't falling for him.
The Aggies have had to rely on small ball all season so far with Borra only returning for a few minutes in the past two games and Mani still out. Most teams have been content to zone the Aggies and betting on making us beat them by scoring from the outside but our 3 point shooting has not been good. We were 4-21 from behind the arc in our last game at OSU.
The Aggies often try to drive the ball to the basket especially when the outside shots are not falling and they do manage to get to the FT line a lot as a result. However, we are only 96-140 for 69% from the line and many of those missed FT's are the front ends of 1 and 1's.
Nevada is flying high at the moment and is averaging 84 ppg while holding their opponents to just 64 ppg and they are shooting an impressive 48% from the field and an eye-opening 130-169 FT's made for 77%. They only turn the ball over 8 times per game vs the Aggies 16.5 TO's per game.
The Wolf Pack will have a distinct height advantage as well with 6 players listed at over 6'7 on the roster including two at 7'1 and 7'0 and they have a +6 rebounding advantage over their opponents for the season.
Common opponents:
Nevada beat Sac State 77-63 and the Aggies lost 69-63
Nevada beat Montana 77-66 while the Aggies lost 78-65
Nevada also has an impressive road win over Washington 83-76 and an absolute rout of Pacific 88-39.
An upset win over Nevada might just be the shot of energy and confidence that the Aggies need to get things turned around but it will be a tough task. The oddsmakers are currently listing the Aggies as 14 point underdogs.
The game will be televised live on the Mountain West Network at 6 pm.
Go Ags! -
movielover
531Steve Alford has the team rolling. A 6'9" F and 6'6" guard who can score, a solid PG and a 7' 4* Frosh Center. -
Toke69
317I found this site for the game on Mountain West Network: https://themw.com/watch/?sport=13 . I haven't used it before so if anyone has a tried and true site, I defer to them. I am not looking for a win here. Nevada is too good, probably the best team we'll face in the preseason. To recast what BlueGoldAg has written, I hope to see Milling and/or DeBruhl to score more reliably, fewer turnovers and better free throw shooting. Those will be the keys to progress going forward. -
movielover
531Alford has I believe 19 20 or more win seasons, a couple were 30-win seasons.
Career record: 663–349 (.655) -
Toke69
317Very ragged game. Both teams played very aggressive defense in the first half, but the Wolfpack was pretty cold anyway. They rallied near the end with four made baskets in a row to pull ahead. Both teams shot under 40%. At lot of mysterious calls from the officials who either were not communicating to the broadcasters or the broadcasters weren't cluing in. Overall, not impressed with the refs. made some ticky-tack calls and missed some obvious ones. TY got two technicals?! Why?
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Toke69
317Well I got two out of the three things I wanted to see from the Ags: Another scorer in Milling who had 16 with 5 treys and better free throw shooting (by a little bit), but the turnovers were egregious. 19! many of them unforced as Nevada only had 5 steals. Between that and the imbalance in officiating (Ags outscored Nevada from the floor 58-50) cost us what would have been a nice upset.
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BlueGoldAg
1.2kI wasn't able to watch this game but the disparity in fouls and FT's appears to be the difference in the game. Nevada was 32-44 from the line compared to only 10-14 for the Aggies as the Ags were whistled for 32 fouls compared to only 15 for Nevada.
The Aggies also had 3 technicals: Johnson, Pepper and the bench. Hymes had a T for Nevada also. Anyone know what was going on? Was the game rough? Chippy? -
BlueGoldAg
1.2kFrom the Reno Gazette Journal:
Nevada coach Steve Alford said the Wolf Pack needed to face some adversity.
"(UC Davis) played really hard and it took us a while to get going," he said. "In the first half our defense was really good and in the second half our offense was really good. .... All in all, it was a really good, gritty win."
"We needed a game like this," Blackshear said. "This was a competitive team. They had a good game plan. We got punched in the mouth in the mouth in the first half, but a good team always comes together and that's what we did."
"We needed a game like this. We haven't been challenged," Alford said. "We needed to be challenged."
There were 11 ties and nine lead changes. The Pack got the lead for good with just under 10 minutes remaining
The Pack won the game at the free throw line, making 32-of-44 from the stripe, while the Aggies made 10-14.
Nevada hit 4-of-10 from 3-point range, while the Aggies hit 10-24.
"It's huge," Alford said of the free throws. "We're not winning because we're making 10 3s, like they made tonight. I do think our three-ball will start going , but we're not even taking that many."
Kane Milling, who was Alford's first recruit at Nevada, is now a senior guard for the Aggies.
He seemed right at home at Lawlor as he finished with 16 points and hit 5-of-8 from 3-point range.
"I support him. I'm glad he had a good game, but I like where we're at," Alford said. "We're 7-0 with the guy I've got on my bench."
https://www.rgj.com/story/sports/college/2023/12/06/nevada-survives-tough-uc-davis-squad-to-remain-undefeated/71828385007/ -
Toke69
317The game was rough and chippy, but the commentators seemed just as mystified by the technicals as anyone, so there was never an explanation for them and the Aggies who got called for it did not seem to have done anything obvious. They might have been critical of the refs, but who knows?
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agalum
331I don’t like to blame officiating but i will. I thought the refs were bias, especially when you consider our average number of fouls compared to this game. Milling got totally leveled - no call. Pepper got trashed while defenseless on the ground - no call. Lots of Aggie fouls, some of which made me wonder what the ref saw. And the bench technical, even the broadcast team was puzzled by that. I should have listened to Scott Marsh and just watched the video feed. -
agalum
331“ A cacophony of whistles help down UCD”
“First of all I apologize that I got a T,” explained Davis head coach Jim Les afterwards. “I’m asking them to keep their composure … I didn’t like the whistle in the first half, and I didn’t like it much in the second half — but I can’t get that (technical) in that instance.”
https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/a-cacophony-of-whistles-help-down-ucd/article_792c7b92-94d6-11ee-95af-dbed766a498a.html -
Toke69
317I agree with you. I wrote that the officiating was "imbalanced" which is a polite way of saying "biased." While I don't think referees are intentionally favoring one team, I'e seen many who are overly influenced by the home crowd and I think that was clearly the case yesterday.
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Toke69
317Just a personal note: When I was as student and UC Davis was in the Far Western Conference, I was able to go to every away game one season, because I was part of the KDVS broadcast, but I missed the Nevada game, so this was the first time I saw their home arena, which is a far cry from what they must have been playing in back in those days.
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BlueGoldAg
1.2kI like the comments from the Nevada coach that the Aggies came out playing very hard with a good game plan. I think the Aggie coaching staff has been just as frustrated as the players with how the season has gone so far and they lit a fire under the team and they responded by giving undefeated Nevada all they could handle.
It was also great to see Kane Milling hit 5-8 from beyond the arc and score 16 points. Hopefully, that will get him going offensively. It must have felt great for him to play that well at his former school.
Now we need to keep the momentum going and get a home win against Milwaukee on Saturday! -
eastbayaggie
99I just finished watching this game.
I generally don't get too bothered by fouls, but this is probably the first game I can recall of any sports where the technical fouls really bothered me primarily because there was no explanation, and the sports commentators didn't talk about the reason.
I thought UCD had to play against Nevada and the referees in this game.
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