The Aggies will meet UOP for the second time this season at 7 pm Wednesday in the second game of a double-header in the Pavilion. The talented women's team (7-0) will open the evening of at 5 pm against the San Francisco Dons. The men defeated Pacific in Stockton in a game in which the Tigers roared back from 17 down to tie the game with 58 seconds left before Siler Schneider hit a clutch jumper in the lane and the Ags prevailed 62-58. The game was not pretty as the two teams combined for 38 personal fouls and 36 turnovers.
Pacific will be looking for revenge against the Ags who were ranked #25 in the collegeinsider.com most recent mid-major poll. The Ags climbed into the Top 25 as a result of their scintillating 81-67 win over the previously unbeaten PAC12 Washington State Cougars. The Aggies played well on both ends of the floor in their best overall effort of the season. That win, along with the NCAA Tournament win over North Carolina Central last year, are the two biggest wins of the D1 era for the Aggies.
The Tigers have won 3 in a row: 80-58 over Canisius, 57-55 over UC Riverside and a 105-68 thrashing of Arkansas-Fort Smith. They also beat Air Force 83-71. In addition to their loss to the Aggies they have lost to Stanford 89-80, Nevada 89-74, and Texas State 85-78. They are averaging 77 ppg to their opponent's 71.8 ppg and are shooting 49% from the floor to their opponent's 42%. 6'3 Jr G Roberto Gallinat leads a trio of Tigers in scoring at 13.4 ppg while 6'2 Jr G Miles Reynolds follows with 12.6 and 6'6 Jr F Anthony Townes chips in 11.0 ppg.
Chima Moneke continues to thrill Aggie fans with his stellar play and leads the Aggies with an average of 21.4 ppg and pulls down an impressive 11.4 rebounds per game. Siler Schneider has been clutch for the team in critical moments and is averaging 12.6 ppg. 5'9 Jr PG TJ Shorts has emerged as a another sorely needed offensive weapon for the Aggies. He was brilliant in the win over Washington State with 20 points, 5 assists and 5 steals. He scoring average has risen to 12.6 ppg.
As a team the Aggies are shooting 48% overall and 38% from 3. Their defense continues to lead the way as the Ags are holding their opponents to 41% shooting overall and only 29% from beyond the arc. In their second game of a home-and-home this year against Northern Colorado, the Aggies held the Bears to an astonishing 1 of 23 three point shooting for an unbelievably low 4%.
The Aggies are beginning to gel as a team with so many new players in Aggie uniforms this year. Hopefully, the team will pick up where it left off after the Washington State victory and take down the Tigers for the second time this season. In all likelihood this game will be an all out dogfight though as Pacific, a team that has owned the Aggies over the many years these two schools have played each other, will do everything in their power to prevent losing to the Ags twice in the same season.
This should be a good one and a great evening of basketball with the Aggie women playing the San Francisco Dons in the first game at 5 pm. Get out to the Pavilion and support these two rising basketball teams!
So the Athletics Department just posted their previews for both the men's and women's games. There are some promotions listed in the men's write up:
Promotions
- Free long sleeve t-shirts for the first arriving students
- Schedule posters/cards
- Budweiser Clydedales will stop outside the Pavilion at approximately 6:30 p.m.
- Home basketball doubleheader: one ticket provides admission for both games; reserved tickets only for lower bowl seating at men's game
- Multicultural Night, Campus Clubs and Club Sports Night
- Cesar Chavez, Fairfield, Patwin, Pioneer, Willett Elementary School Night
This is the first I've heard of these promotions and the previews were only just now posted. I wonder if the public and/or the student's are just now finding out about this? We need to build a fan base but I'm not sure the word is getting out..,?? Anyone else hear about these promotions earlier?
I hate to say but that seems to be par for the course. If the Athletics Department wants to get more fans in the seats, they need to get the word out much sooner than 24 hours before tipoff.
The coaches and the players of both the men's and women's teams have done their part and we have two exciting programs right now. They deserve better promotion and public outreach.
I volunteered at Cesar Chavez Elementary my senior year. Interesting school. The kids, regardless of their background, get all their lessons (except for English) in Spanish and have to speak it in class. Way to take advantage of that early childhood learning curve ! Those were some pretty talented 2nd graders, except for 1 girl who would just say como se dice and then rattle off about 4 sentences in English without stopping to breathe.
Is the stream not working again? edit: Appears to be working again after being stuck for the first 3 and a half minutes of the second half. Someone needs to fix this. Seriously.
Just got home from the game. This was a hard fought, physical game and, although we got manhandled on the boards, players stepped up at critical moments and made plays when we needed them. Michael Onyebalu hit a couple of 3's when Pacific was making a run and TJ Shorts scored on a couple of nice, twisting drives as the shot clock was about to expire.
I thought Siler Schneider played well on both ends of the floor. He hit some nice floaters, scored on a couple of nice drives to the bucket and had his shot going from the outside. As usual, no one plays any harder than Siler. He's 100% all the time.
Chima was frustrated with the amount of contact the officials were allowing against him and he still managed to score 20 and haul down 9 boards just missing another double double. There was a scary moment when he appeared to tweak his left knee but, after coming out of the game for a few minutes, he returned and looked ok.
The big problem for the Ags tonight though was allowing 21 offensive rebounds by the Tigers. There no way to sugar coat that stat; that's just plain terrible. Our defense was good for most of the game but Pacific put up 18 more shots and had 21 second chance points. The poor rebounding nearly cost us the game.
UOP has owned us over the years so to beat them twice in the same year is really sweet.
i didn't get a chance to watch, so its hard to get a feel for what's going on just by following the stats. were they much taller than us? much more aggressive on the glass? or, did we do a horrible job of boxing out and getting the loose ball? 20 offensive boards sounds like a NCAA record. to somehow still win says alot about our grit (and maybe more about their shooting!).
we get a breather on Saturday (i'm going to try to make it up for the matinee) before a challanging road stretch. USF (4-3), Reno (8-1) and Lamar (7-1, loss to Bakersfield) will be a good test.
Did anyone hear why Mooney and Jackson were out? Hopefully it's nothing too big for either one, as that could really hurt our guard/wing depth. I was hoping Printup could excel with more meaningful playing time, but he picked up 3 fouls on basically 3 trips down the court and never got into any kind of rhythm. William Jessup on Saturday and then almost a week after that until our next game, so hopefully everyone uses the finals break to get healthy. Go Ags!
I don't think UOP had anyone much taller than us (their 7'0" only played a few minutes and was non-factor), but they seemed to have 3 or 4 guys on the court that were 6'4" to 6'8", while our lineup was 6'7", 6'6", 2 at 6'3" and one at 5'9". So yes, height probably did play a part of it, but I also think we lacked some energy towards rebounding. We also stayed in a zone a bit longer than I would normally expect (maybe due to the lack of guard depth) and rebounding in a zone can be a bit tougher, especially if you're not used to it.
Pacific was quicker to the ball and much more aggressive on the boards. They were the aggressors and, if they didn't get the offensive rebound outright, they often got a hand on the ball and tipped it up for grabs. There were quite a few times when the ball got pinballed around and they came up with it.
The Tigers were in a 2-3 zone most of the game and, when we would get the ball inside to Chima, they would collapse on him. He got doubled and tripled often and, when he would try and muscle up the shot, they had 3 players right there for the rebound if he missed.
I think we are going to see a lot of zone this year. The Ags are going to have to make some adjustments for rebounding against teams who are athletic, tall and play good zone. It's tough to get rebounds against teams with length and quickness especially when they are crashing the boards with 3 or 4 players.
Siler was excellent last night and we need him to continue to bring that kind of leadership to the floor. It was also good to see Michael Onybalu hit some huge shots and pull down some critical rebounds. I love his work ethic and athleticism. He is a consummate team player and he has really earned his starting role.
TJ is fun to watch. He's a bouncing ball of energy and is really doing a good job steering the team. He has the ability to drive through traffic and slash through a small crease to the bucket. He tend to try and set up his teammates with a good pass first but I think he has the ability to score in double figures on a regular basis.
Garrison Goode shows some signs of being more aggressive on offense and that's nice to see. He made a couple of nice moves to the basket early in the game but was pretty quiet the rest of the way.
The bench was thin last night with Jackson and Mooney out. I seem to remember that Joe was under the weather for the WSU game. In the post-game interviews Siler said he was trying to get back to feeling well also so I wonder if the team is passing a bug around.
I'm not much of a fan of games like William Jessop and Holy Names but I'm glad we don't have to turn around and play a really tough opponent Saturday with so many players ailing at the moment.