I always like when the Ags beat UCSB. My younger brother is a Gaucho alum so we enjoy talking sports when our teams play. We support our teams, but we follow other Ags/Loco sports more than hoops. This is all for fun.

Either way, I think its going to be tight without Chima.

No Chima. Jackson is back

Chima is here with the team in street clothes

Yep. I think that’s a good sign that he might be back at some point

I'm just glad that Jackson is back.

Has Jackson played this year?

Not sure how to win when your opponents literally morph into the Golden State Warriors...

he has played 16 games according to the stats

Gauchos very hot from beyond the arc. 8/11 at this point. Even with Moneke their 19 game home winning streak would be in trouble.

Got it to 10 but late layup gets it to 12 at the half. 49-37. 49 is a lot of points!

It seems like Chima is active in other parts of the game. He hugged all of the starters when their names were called before the game. He seemed to be hanging out in the bench area and talking to the players. Is that right? I'm not sure what conditions the suspensions are. Judging that he was sent home from Long Beach State, I presumed he wouldn't be allowed to do all what he is currently doing now.

I'm glad my presumption is wrong.

UCSB was 0 for 2 since I posted that. On BigWestTV, the commentator said they need to make half time adjustments, but you don't wait until half time. Les seems to have stopped trying to force the ball inside to Russell who is no Moneke in there. They've also gone to a man to man to defend the perimeter but the Gauchos have been abel to get some easy shots inside due to some good play by their offense. Ags can still pull this out if they continue to play tight defense to create turnovers, but they also need to be more efficient on offense. They're not doing badly hitting 6 for 11 from 3 but 7 for 19 from closer to the hoop.

Yes, Chima has been interacting with the team and coaches

What’s Mooney thinking at the corner 3?

Well, in order to lose our home win streak it took an inhuman shooting performance by the best opponent in the conference while our best player was suspended and we still almost brought it back.

Hurts but I can live with it.

Got it down to five points with the ball, but couldn’t get over the hump. Statistically it was a heck of a game for us..... and lost by 9!

Gotta give it to the Gauchos. They were unstoppable beyond the arc. Lots of talent on that squad. Hopefully we'll have Chima back to have a good shot at returning the favor at the Thunderdome. This team never gives up and has grit. That's a recipe to compete in every game. Moneke would've made quite a difference in this one.

Nice game Aggies, we'll see you guys on the 17th in SB. Hopefully we get to see how the teams match up when both are at full strength.

Looking forward!

Partially agree. Momentum changed after Gauchos had a 18 points lead and tried to kill clock. If Gauchos didn’t change their offense, they might shoot more 3 and ended this game earlier ( I understand coaches being conservative but I rather have my team shooting the light out). We were close to tie it but Mooney didn’t shoot or drive to the basket ( I thought he will take the three)

Did anyone call in Tuesday to raise question regarding chima status? If he doesn’t play against the title contender, I wonder he played his last game in Aggies uniform.

I don't want to read into it too much, but the fact that Chima was on the bench with the team is a very good sign. If his suspension was so serious he wouldn't play again, it doesn't make sense to be on the bench with the team. Then again, he might just be there for support. But overall I think it's a good sign.

The fact that the team did not fold when down so far is a very good sign for not only the rest of this season but for next year.

The big diffference between this game and the LB game was defense and that SB knew we had no inside game without Chima. So they played the defense perimeter strong and we had no answer. Actually was a very good game to watch. We have favorite nieces at SB who we love and we had to give them a call of congrats!! Really hard not to like either of these teams.

Gotta agree, 69aggie, our defense had to have their A game going and that didn't happen until late in the game. I caught the end of the post-game interview with Les on the radio and, man, he was not happy with the team. He said that he was "extremely disappointed with the way the team played defense." Ooof..it didn't sound like it was any fun in the locker room after the game.

I knew that SB had a lot of offensive talent and we saw that at the start of the game. They put on a 3 point shooting clinic in the first half but we broke down on defense repeatedly also with missed assignments and players not rotating to help. It was pretty bad and nothing like what we normally see from the Aggies.

That said, the Gauchos are loaded with good shooters who can create their own shot off the dribble and can knock down contested 3's. Those kind of offensive weapons can break down defenses and they deserve credit for that. They're tough to defend.

I thought the Gaucho defense was pretty good too. Our guards sliced through Long Beach like a hot knife through butter but SB did a good job of making that tough for us tonight.

I think we would have won this game tonight with Chima in the line up. We just couldn't gets stops inside and had a tough time on the boards. We needed his physicality inside.

TJ was tremendous again. He's just so determined and fearless. Siler played well too and, of course, you always get 100% from him. Michael Onybalu was knocking down 3's and working on defense. We needed some big help from AJ John and, unfortunately, that didn't happen on either end of the floor tonight and Les pretty much benched him in the second half. Tough night for him.

Great crowd tonight and the student's were into it. I heard 3300. If that's correct it's the biggest crowd of the season. I sure hope they come back for Saturday's double header.

The streak is over. Time to start another one...

28 from Shorts - amazing
24 from Siler - amazing
12 - from Onyebalu - beyond amazing

The drop off from the rest of the team in terms of scoring is bad! We needed one more player in that 12 point range to have a chance. We lack a lot of offense after the first couple of guys and it might be a problem moving forward.

Relying on short and siler for scoring nights like that every night is very risky. Hoping Chima comes back soon and hoping AJ and Mooney can become consistent scorers!

Comments from the Davis Enterprise game article:

Coach Les:

“I was very disappointed with our lack of intensity and physicality on defense,” said a subdued Aggie head coach Jim Les.

“We totally lost our identity on defense and lost our discipline. I told our team before the game and at halftime that we didn’t want to get into a scoring battle with them. They are very capable offensively and they were hot early. That’s certainly not how we put together a 19-game home court win streak.”

“We waited until too late before we started playing some defense,” he said.

“We shot well enough to not lose a game like this unless your defense is porous, and our defense was porous tonight. Right now I’m more worried about us than I am about Fullerton. I’m going to put guys on the floor who can play defense. I’m going to find guys who buy into defense and commit to it.”

Les explained that despite Moneke’s suspension, the Aggie star was allowed to attend the game and sit on the bench … “The suspension means that he’s not practicing and he’s not playing, but we don’t want to separate him from his teammates or the support we can give him,”

Gaucho's Coach Joe Pasternack:

“The chips were down on their floor in the biggest game of the year and we got it done,” Pasternack said.

“I’m really proud of how our team competed for 40 minutes, but T.J. Shorts is the best point guard in the conference. It’s not even close.”

TJ Shorts:

“There are no 20-point shots in basketball, so we had to get some stops and take it one possession at a time,” said Shorts, who finished with team-highs of 28 points, eight assists and seven rebounds.

“Obviously, them getting out to such a big lead early really hurt us,” he added.

“We just didn’t come out ready to play from the opening tip. They were definitely hot, but we had a lot of defensive breakdowns that gave them those good looks. We have to get back to holding teams under 70 points.”

Siler Schneider:

“They’re a good team and we’ll have to get ready for them by getting back to basics,” said Schneider, who finished with 24 points.

https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/gauchos-push-aggies-out-of/

One thing this game definitely showed us is that next year's bigs need to improve, especially defensively. Whether that's the current 3 (Goode, John, Russell) getting better, or the new guys (6'11" Neufeld, 6'8" Underwood, 6'8" Strom) stepping in. Just entirely too many easy shots and put backs. Of course, that's next year...a lot can happen between now and then.

No doubt about that. Our interior defense was not good last night and we will need some offense in the paint. Last night it was our guards that scored in the paint. Our bigs were missing cripples from 2 feet.