Here's a link to photos from the Hawai'i game

Hawai'i Men at UC Davis

I'm hoping that Jen will elect to play the bench more. We're not going to win the conference but if we want to win the tournament we'll need to rest our starters more than we have to this point. I suspect we'll be in the "play-in" portion. So the team needs to win 4 straight in 5 days. We need more of a contribution from the bench to make that happen. And we need to stop tossing the ball away. Argh! the TOs are killing us.

What a fabulous game to watch! We came home and racked it up on ESPN+ to view again. Screw the Olympics! Okay - we watch some of that later.

In the 2nd half, when Hawai'i had pushed the lead to nearly 14 Les took out Pepper. There was a conversation between them - not heated, Les wasn't agitated - but then Pepper walked down the bench looking despondent and I worried the team had lost faith. Ha! Teach me!

I also loved hearing the women's team doing their whoop-whoop while the Ags were on defense. And a huge thumbs up for their being at the game. They must have come directly from arriving on the flight back from the islands.

I found Bob Williams' insights on player rest to be fascinating.

I totally agree about the officiating. Another case of brain transplant at the half. One of the officials was part of the crew that did the Long Beach game and he lived down to that standard. There were a LOT of high elbows. I think I have photos of some. Going through the pictures now. Was so into the game in the 2nd half I forgot to take pictures so I missed some of Manjon's incredible drives to the hoop.

Wow - what a game.

Anigwe was wearing some sort of belt with red LEDs on it when he came out of the locker room at the half and had it on every time he came out of the game. Maybe one of those stimulator things? He definitely looked pained during his appearances in the 2nd half.

The Beach did a fine job of taking Pepper out of the game in the 2nd half. I'll have to watch the video to see what was happening.

Looking forward to being in our normal seats on the 1st !

We’ve slipped a lot this year. I’ve watched most of the women’s teams play now (thanks ESPN+) and feel we’re in the 2nd division (in old-time baseball talk.) There’s just no bench. And so many turnovers. We caught the 2nd half when we returned home from the men’s game. Not happy viewing.

The Ags will have to bring their very best game to stay with The Beach on Saturday.

I’m sorry to be so negative but I’m not seeing progress with this team. I’m not sophisticated enough to say why or what’s wrong.

We’ll, I found last night’s game incredibly entertaining - also frustrating for all the reason expressed by others. I’m also happy with the new lighting which really makes a difference. I haven’t looked at the video of the game but I’m betting it’ll make a difference.

What I’ve noticed is how our inside game just died toward the end of the game - many of the shots were, well, acrobatic, but not easy to make. The Beach will present the same problem.

The free throw shooting was awful.

I liked seeing so much of the bench in the first half. They weren’t stellar but I enjoyed seeing them and feel they didn’t hurt us.

I still can’t get over how quick Manjon is. Damn, he can slither through amazingly small openings.

Frankly, not a great week for the Aggie women. Yes, they had two good quarters against UCSB but the final quarter, and the four quarters of the CSUN game were not the kind of basketball expected.

To me the team looks slow. Against two very quick teams we've done poorly. The Beach will be an even great test. After the starters we don't show much depth and even less quickness. I'm concerned. Given the play we've seen in conference I'm not confident at all that the Ags can finish in the top four.

I see from an e-mail (and conversation with the ticket folks) that fans willl be allowed to attend the Saturday women's game should they actually occur. However, court-side seating and seating within the first three rows closest to the court will not be allowed. Those seats will be moved. Also, no eating or drinking inside the facility - masks must remain on at all times.

Hopefully there might be a game. Bakersfield seems to be going through a rough patch with the COVID thing. This omicron variant really does seem to be nearly as bad as measles in terms of how easily it spreads. Fortunately the vaccinated seem to handle it pretty well unless you have, what do you call it, co-morbidities?

Anyway - stay healthy out there.

Just a BIT late but...here's a photo sequence of Manjon driving the lane for a totally amazing bucket. I don't know how he did it. You can run through the sequence using the non-very-obvious arrows to the right and left of the photo's pane.

Manjon Drives the Lane against Portland

I was pleased to see the team pull itself together in the 2nd half of the game. Loss of a point guard hurts as does poor situational awareness by the Ags. The tendency to make passes as if there were no opponents or to force passes when there's no way the pass will be completed continues. Some of this is good coaching by the opponents who have figured out the basics of the Ags' offense and come up with some defensive strategies. But other times it's just poor discipline.

Svanholm had a reasonable game. I thought Hall was absolutely HAMMERED throughout the first half and well into the 3rd quarter. This seemed a rougher game than the Washington State game.

QUESTION: I've heard conflicting reports about games that were cancelled/postponed. Will they be made up or not?

Just a couple of observations:

1) those PAC-12 games got our players ready for contact basetball. Watching the play in the paint showed our bigs hanging tough when they hadn't been quite so strong early in the season. Not against the Zags. They gave as much as they got.

2) CC's scoring is one thing but her defense is in a whole other league. Pull up the replay and watch her in the middle - she's hard as nails against players much taller than she is - playing position basketball. She gives up a little on rebounding when she has to do this but wow, she has really found her game.

3) Stobbart and Svanholm really looked good together in the 2nd half. I think Russ pointed this out. It'll be interesting to see how Jen choses to use them together during the season.

4) the 4th quarter was the 2nd quarter - but flipped by teams.

I'm really sorry we had to miss the game but we did see it on ESPN+

Conference is going to be interesting. The overall quality of the teams is rising. At this rate, in a couple years, we could become a 2 bid conference.

I'm liking the Ags' defense - moving well. Good thing OSU can't shoot from the outside.

So snaps from the game on the 13th

<https://adam-bridge.smugmug.com/Sports/Basketball/Womens-Basketball/UC-Davis/2021-2022-Season/2021-12-13-Stanislaus-St-UC-Davis/>

Here are some photos from the Pacific Game - almost entirely from the first half

2021-12-01 University of the Pacific vs UC Davis

Things are not happy in Eugene today. This article from the Oregonian is an example:

https://www.oregonlive.com/ducks/2021/12/oregon-womens-basketball-suffers-one-of-worst-losses-of-kelly-graves-era-fall-to-uc-davis.html

Jen really put together a terrific game plan which the women executed in fine style. Oregon couldn’t hit their perimeter 3rds to open the middle so the Ags could double-team the Oregon bigs. And the rebounding! That was the best rebounding game I can remember the Ags playing.

Next up: Washington State who we beat her a few years ago. I somehow don’t think they’ll look past the Ags.

It’ll be interesting to hear what Jen thinks was needed to bring the team together after a pair of difficult losses and so-so performances against teams they should have creamed. This really was a team effort. And to see Grey on the court if only for a few moments.

Wow. What a day. I wonder if the women will be able to sleep tonight - although I have to think they left everything out on the court. They did look tired the last 5 minutes of the game.

Here are some shots from the Aggie Game.

Academy of Arts vs UC Davis Men

Have the Sac State women left the run and shoot offense they've run in the past or is that still their thing?

Looking forward to seeing the team play tomorrow.

Any thoughts on parking for the Golden One Center? I hardly go to downtown Sacramento. Some parking seems to close at 7 PM?

I think this will be a real test for Jen but one she’s up to. She has a good staff who know a darn sight more about basketball than I do. They have lots of games ahead before conference. So interesting times.