The Aggies' final game in the Continental Tire Classic will be at 2:30 pm Saturday in Las Vegas versus the Radford Highlanders out of the Big South Conference. Just like the Aggies, the Highlanders lost their first two games of the tournament against San Francisco and Nevada. They lost to San Francisco in a low scoring affair 52-41 and lost by 15 to Nevada 77-62. By comparison the Ags lost to San Francisco 74-61 and to the Wolfpack 88-73. The Highlanders beat North Carolina A & T 66-60 to move into the game against the Aggies.
Radford is another defensive minded team like Lamar and have limited their opponents to 68 points per game and are scoring an average of 66.5 ppg. They are led in scoring by 6'0 R-Fr G Carlik Jones with 11.0 ppg and 6'5 Jr F Ed Polite Jr at 10.5 ppg. Six additional players are chipping in between 4-8 ppg.
The Ags are coming off an impressive win over Lamar playing without Chima Moneke. Coach Les indicated that Chima may play but didn't give any indication about why Chima has been on the bench the last game and a half. TJ Shorts was brilliant and lots of other Aggies made strong contributions to the win over Lamar. Time to get win number 9.
It's been more recent than that. They played on 12/29/04 @St. Mary's. Aggies won 67- 63 per the UC Davis bball archives. I remember listening to the game on the radio.
I didn't do much digging to find that. I just remember Radford was one of the off teams the Aggies beat in their 1st yr. Playing a d1 schedule.
That's not correct as you noted. The Ags did indeed beat Radford 67-63 in the St Mary's Classic in 2004 under Coach Gary Stewart. The Aggies went 12-17 that year.
The Ags are struggling on offense but manage to stay close 32-29 Radford at the half. The Highlanders are shooting 60% so the Aggie D needs to step up in the second half. Mooney canned a couple of 3's which is nice to see. Siler had a rough shooting game against Lamar and it has continued into today as he is only 1-6. Need to get him going. AJ John has had to sit since he picked up 2 fouls in 1 minute of PT.
72-62 final. Poor shooting. Big two scorers were 10-30. We did clean things up in second half with only five turnovers. Not much from the bench today. Kind of a disappointing end to preseason ( sorry Holy Names)
Ags go down 72-62 in OT. Ed Polite single handily beat the Ags in OT when he took over the game and scored the first 11 points of OT.
We had a great chance to win this one in regulation up 3 with under 30 seconds. TJ's shot gets blocked and Hicks nailed a 3 to tie it and then we turn the ball over on the last possession.
The Aggies never found a good offensive rhythm and, with what has been the case all season, we struggled to shoot well outside of the paint. Siler Schneider was only 4-16 today after going 3-10 yesterday. We will not be a front runner in the Big West unless we find some good outside shooting.
In the post game interview Coach Les faulted defense for not getting the clutch stops when we needed to. He rarely has much to say when our offense struggles and shoots poorly from the perimeter. Really, I guess there's not much you can do about the shots not falling but you can always look at where the defense broke down. From Les' perspective, if you execute on offense, the ball either will or won't go into the bucket. There's not much else you can do when players are shooting poorly but you can always do something about how you defend.
I’m just inferring from radio but sounded like we got good looks, just no buckets. Rebounded well, handled the ball well in second half and held them to a low point total in regulation. An average shooting night and we win big. Weird that we didn’t get much from bench after they raised their game yesterday.
Hard to fault the defense when you give up 55 points in 40 minutes of basketball. Maybe the 17 points in OT was what made him mad but when two guys have been carrying the team in every game except the last one it is the offense that should be faulted.
Yes there is. If you have good interior players, go inside, take high percentage shots, and draw fouls. Get to the line, and put them in foul trouble. Also tends to bring the defense in, kick back out for midrange jumpers. Or drive to the bucket, same thing.