The Ags escape, and I do mean ESCAPE, and win 80-76 after completely melting down in the 4th quarter. Poly put on a furious rally and forced the Aggies into numerous TO's in the 4th quarter with full court pressure, 21 in all for the game, and the Aggies, for the first time this season, completely lost their poise.
Any team that sees the film of this 4th quarter will utilize full court pressure against the Aggies. The Ags repeatedly telegraphed passes, dribbled into double teams, threw high, lazy passes that were easy to pick off and twice had over and back violations. I don't think I have ever seen an Aggie team so discombobulated and flustered as those 8 minutes. Certainly not this team that's for sure.
This is a veteran team that prides themselves on their calm poise and they will be embarrassed to watch the film of this one. Jen Gross will need to gather her team and do some serious work on handling full court pressure.
The Aggies got very lucky today leaving San Luis Obispo with a win.
To tell you the truth, 69aggie, I was could barely believe what I was seeing. You have to give Poly credit, they were down 20 early in the 4th and they were just relentlessly active with their double teaming traps and the Aggies kept assisting them by pulling up their dribble along the sidelines and in the corners and then threw panic passes that got picked off.
It wasn't the Ags got taken by surprise and it didn't appear that they were a tired team, it was just one TO after another...like 3 or 4 TO's in a row, then a basket followed by more TO's. Then Poly would drain a 3 or get a bucket and one on a foul and lead kept dwindling. When they weren't throwing the ball away the Aggies were literally tripping over their own feet on several possessions and then losing the scramble for the ball. As the score got closer Poly got even more aggressive and the wheels came off the cart for the Aggies. Poly was also making some platoon substitutions in order to keep their energy high.
I really didn't think I would ever see anything like that happen with this veteran team but it did. I hope it is a wake-up call and they really address this issue because they're going to see a lot more pressure after what happened today.
I just looked at the box score and Poly out rebounded the Ags 51-33 overall with the Mustangs pulling down 26 offensive boards to our 6 and Poly is not bigger than the Ags...they were just much more aggressive. Couple that with the Aggies 20 TO's and it's a small miracle that the Ags came home with the win. Poly put up 80 shots as a result of pounding the Ags on the boards. The Ags turned the ball over 12 times in the 4th quarter with 5 TO's in a row during one stretch and 4 straight TO's in another stretch. Ouch!
The difference in the game though was that the Ags shot 50% overall to Poly's 34% and we knocked down 6 more 3's than Poly. However, you can not turn the ball over 20 times, give up 26 offensive boards which allows the opponent to put up 30 more shots and expect to win but once in a blue moon.