The two top teams in the Big West go head to head tonight at 6 pm as the Aggies tangle with the league leading Fullerton Titans. The game will be televised live on ESPN3 with the Voice of the Aggies, Scott Marsh, sharing the play-by-play call. The Titans are rolling right now and many Big West fans think they are a legitimate contender for the title.

Offensively, Fullerton is averaging 74.3 ppg to the 70.9 for the Ags. The Ags, however, hold a solid edge on defense allowing only a league best 65.0 ppg compared with 71.9 for Fullerton. On the other hand, the Titans are more much efficient on offense shooting 46.3% overall and 33.1% from 3 compared to the Aggies who have struggled with offensive consistency all season and are shooting 41.3% overall and only 30.2% from downtown. The inability to shoot well from the perimeter this year is surprising since Coach Les has always valued a guard oriented offense that shoots well from beyond the arc, but our perimeter shooters have not found the range with any consistency this year.

The Titans are led in scoring by a trio of talented athletes. Leading the way is their 6'3 Jr G Kyle Allman Jr who is averaging 17.2 ppg and can be a deadly shooter from deep. He is followed in scoring by the wonderfully talented 6'4 Jr G Khalil Ahmad at 15.4 ppg and 6'7 So F Jackson Rowe with 13.1 ppg. So these three players are accounting for nearly 2/3 of the Titans' scoring and any one of them can get hot and take over the game. The Aggie defense will have their hands full trying to contain this trio and will need to at least slow them down to keep the game within reach.

The Aggies continue to be led by the stellar play of Chima Moneke who is averaging a double double with 19.2 ppg and 10.0 rebounds per game. Siler Schneider is chipping in 12.9 ppg and TJ Shorts II is scoring 12.8 ppg. The offense, so far this year, has been dominated with interior production from Moneke, floaters and drives from Schneider and acrobatic, driving layups by Shorts. Our 3 point shooting continues to stuggle with Schneider, Mooney and John putting up the most attempts (137) but shooting only 34.5%, 35.1% and 24.4% respectively. The best 3 point shooting has come from Arell Hennings 61.9%, TJ Shorts 50% and Michael Onybalu 45.8% but they have only 47 total attempts combined from downtown.

The Aggies defense, on the other hand, has often been a thing of beauty to watch. The players work hard, know their assignments and back each other up with quick switches and weak side help. It's a testament to Jim Les that his players buy into his defense first philosophy. Defense is hard work and it's not mentally easy for players to continue to play hard on D when the ball is not dropping through the hoop on the other end but the Aggies' offense generally comes to life off of their defensive intensity.

So tonight's game is an offense vs defense battle with the talented Titan offense going against the stingy Aggie defense. It's a classic match up between two teams that pride themselves on different aspects of the game. Which style will prevail tonight? Can the Aggie D contain Fullerton's talented trio in their own house?

Coach Les likes to say, "Defense travels." Hopefully, that will be the case for the Ags tonight. If the Ags are to have a chance, I think they need to keep the Titans under 70 points, for sure, and under 65 would be even better. That will not be an easy task but, if they can do that, they just might come home with a huge conference win.

Live TV broadcast at 6 pm on ESPN3: http://www.espn.com/watch/_/id/3223672/uc-davis-vs--cal-state-fullerton-m-basketball

Go Ags!