This is a hard team to figure out. Two time Big West coach of the year Eric Olen is gone but new coach Clint Allard seemed to have the team rolling as they won 10 of their first 11 games. The only loss was to a very good Nevada team in Reno and it is worth noting that UC Davis beat the Wolfpack in Reno. UCSD’s wins came over good teams such as Temple, Tulane and Bradley. Since then, oddly, they’ve gone on a one win, wone loss, one win, one loss pattern to go 4-4 with half of those in Big West play. Even more oddly, one of the victories was the only loss Hawai`i had until the Rainbows lost to UCSB and two of the losses were to 3-4 teams Cal Poly and Fullerton.

I wondered if the inconsistency was due to injuries, but the Tritons have kept the same starting lineup all season, at least until the game against CSUN which UCSD lost. In that game Alex Chaikin replaced Aidan Burke. Chaikin scored 22 vs. CSUN then 14 against Bakersfield. Burke had been scoring 11 ppg in their early run but less than 5 ppg since then. He’s a junior guard who has been in San Diego his whole career and played in every game last season, which is probably why he initially started. It’s hard to put the blame on one player, but it looked like coach Allard had seen something and made the change. Maybe Chaikin’s team leading 42.6% from the 3 point line is a factor. In the Big West, that rate trails only Conner Sevilla and UCI’s Jurian Dixon. We’ll see who starts against the Ags on Thursday. Chaikin is a transfer from Lafayette who had a very good freshman year there. The other two guards are Tom Beattie, transfer from Hawai`i where he started last year, and Emanuel Prospere II, a graduate student transfer from Missouri- St. Louis. They score 10.9 and 8.6 ppg respectively and both average 3.4 assists per game, meaning the Tritons effectively have two point guards.

The front court consists of leading scorer #8 Leo Beath, who is a 6’ 8” junior transfer from Florida Atlantic. He averages 15.5 ppg., good for 5th in the conference, and 4.2 rpg. The other forward is Bol Dengdit, a transfer Australia after two years at Portland. He contributes 10 points per game and over 5 rebounds with his 6’11” height, but the team leader is the 6’ 5” guard, Beattie with 5.4 rpg.

As a team, UCSD scores 80.3 ppg while allowing 71.4. They have the best assist/turnover ratio in the league at 1.46. UC Davis is 4th at 1.23. UC Davis seems to be on a roll and we’ve won 3 of 4 at home, so there’s a good chance to be 6-3 at the end of this long home stand. Note, however, that UCSD has been a good road team, 5-2, albeit only about a third of their games have been away.