I wondering how Les will play it? Will we see a lot of the bench get more minutes or will it be business as usual?

Only incentive I can think of is NCAA tournament seeding if we think we can win 2 in the BWT. Not sure if that’s a moot point with our net ranking at 169? Assuming all remaining games will likely be Q2 and Q3 for net ranking.

Mani got in as part of a twin towers with Borra. Saville also got some time. Ags looking pretty good. Beach has 8 offensive rebounds, Ags none and it's keeping the score close.

Unusual to see Les go with 2 big guys. Glad Mani is getting minutes.

We caught the first half of the ladies game. They looked good, and ended up winning 70-58.

46-39 Ags at the half.

I've been pretty hard on the Big West TY commentators all season, but the two for Long Beach are among the rare pair who are as good as Scott Marsh and Bob Williams. They are clearly in favor of the Beach, but are also objective and not prone to a lot of hyperbole, cliches and mistakes as some of the others have been.

Feels like the Aggies are back to playing at the top of their game after that 5 game stretch in which they only won one. Good timing! Both Kane Milling and Ade Adebayo have stepped up recently to complement Johnson and Pepper. I think Milling had a career high (?) today. On the other hand, it's amazing that the Beach had a 19-4 edge in offensive rebounds (39-25 overall) and still lost by 10

The Ags are playing at a high level right now and they are getting good contributions from the bench also. It's great to see Milling heating up from downtown in the last couple of games. Mani got in for 8 minutes and he looked good in the paint with 4 points and a blocked shot. You can see that he has a lot of potential to develop into high quality player.

Long Beach is such an athletic team with length and quickness. They dominated us on the boards 39-24 and 19 of those were offensive rebounds which led to 15 second chance points for them. We don't match up well with the size and length that they have so we have to shoot a high percentage to beat them and it was our 3 point shooting and FT shooting that offset their scoring in the paint. We were 10-16 from 3 and 24-27 from the line compared to 3-16 from 3 and 17-23 from the line for The Beach.

I really didn't like us starting to work the clock with so much time left. We were up 19 with 8 minutes to go when Les had the team slow down and work the ball late into the shot clock. That worked for a while and we still had a 19 point with 5:50 to go. Then LB started pressing and double teaming and we still tried to work the clock and we lost our offensive rhythm and committed some TO's and the lead fell to 10 with 3:18 to go.

The team has really turned things around after we went through that skid of losing 4 out of 5 games. The last 3 wins over Hawai'i, San Diego and Long Beach were all solid wins and now the team can carry that confidence and momentum into the Big West Tournament. It won't be easy but we just could win it and go dancing.

I think Milling had a career high (?) today. — Toke69

Milling had 27 against his former team, Nevada, on the road in Reno this year.

Looks like the Ags have thrown away the funk and are playing near the top of their game. At exactly the right time.

There's no team in the Big West that plays defense any better than the Aggies. The communication and switching on defense today was outstanding. Our ball movement on offense and our shooting percentages were excellent too. We're a tough team to beat in the conference when we play like that. It's fantastic that we're peaking right now.

Long Beach is a scary team because of their length and athleticism. Their wins over Michigan and USC earlier this year showed what they are capable of. I really don't want to play them again in the BW Tournament.

One thing that caught my ear listening on the way to the spring game : Marsh said Rocek might be back if he can get in a grad program

That would be really great. Mani has tremendous potential and Borra is making good progress. It would be a luxury to have all three of our big men back for another season.

I agree with BlueGoldAg that it was too early to try to milk the clock. I think they started it with about 5 minutes left. It cost us at least two possessions including once when they ran out the shot clock. The way Coach Les had two big men in the game on some occasions makes me wonder if he might use that lineup in the tournament, but why?

It looked like Les didn't really play any big men against UCSD so that UCD can guard the 3 point line, and Les used big men against Long Beach since they're good at scoring in the paint.

However, I admit I have a low basketball IQ.

Not a bad thought, but it failed to stop the Beach from grabbing the lion's share of rebounds. Also, it was curious that a big man frequently went in for Pepper. Speaking of big men, I noticed that Tamba didn't play and I wonder if his injury on Thursday was worse than it looked. So maybe ani was in there in place of Tamba?

Long Beach has the ability to be the best rebounding team in the conference. They may be but I don't know for sure. They have size, length and quickness and they are aggressive on the boards. I noticed that they were often able to get a rebound or tap the ball out to a teammate even when we had several players in good position. They're simply much longer and athletic in the interior than we are and it makes it really tough for us inside. I'm glad our 3 balls were dropping along with our FT's or we wouldn't have won this game.

Samba's leg had support around his knee. I'm hoping he'll be good to go in the tournament and Les just held him out to give him more time to heal up.
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I thought the big men kept on replacing Pepper only defensively because Pepper had four fouls. Pepper immediately came back in during the offensive plays.

Good point!