Totally agree on the value of TJ. We go as far as he can take us. Even against Holy Names, the energy/intensity/efficiency was way up when he was on the court. I'm hoping that Gonzalez and Squire are more consistent 3 pt shooters, and Fuller progresses to be a solid rotation guy, and our big guys give us at least a little offense each night. The big issue might be John. It sure would be nice if he comes back strong. The big west could be tight around the middle...it may only be a few key plays that make the difference between finishing as high as 3rd to as low as 6th.

Looks like we got a jc transfer for next year. Not a big guy but 6’5” scorer. Malcolm Johnson played one year at Dominguez Hills and currently at city college of SF.

ha yes that pretty much sums it up

thanks for the updates Russ. Good win to start BW play

I agree with everything that BGA said. I'm guessing we end up about the 4th or 5th seed. My gut is telling me that John may be lost for a while. No proof at all, other than it looks to me like Fuller is playing the 4 position when he enters the game, instead of the 3 that he started the season. The obvious reason that they are doing that is for depth in case John is out. Again, that's just a big guess on my part.

We seem to play up or down to the name of our opponent. I say the "name" because USF might be the best team we've faced all year and certainly didn't play up to their level even for a minute. But teams that have the big name (Indiana, UA, USC) we seem to get up for. Hopefully the familiarity and rivalry of the BW teams will push our guys.

It'll be a tough start to the season, at Irvine, at Beach, home to UCSB. We need to win one or two of those games to stay mentally into the season.

I'll be at the Holy Names game tomorrow. Hopefully we see a lot of healthy players and we look ready for the BW.

Go Ags!

SC shot 64% in the second half per their recap. Some were easy open shots but they also made several well contested shots. That’s what happens when we play the big boys.

Movie, your question about the freshman, only Fuller and Squire have played meaningful minutes. Squire looked like he’ll be a big contributor in the long run but we’ll have to endure some uneven performance for a while. He has a nice outside shot that will hopefully become more consistent. Fuller has talent and will be a mainstay of the lineup next year. He’s being asked to guard larger players with John out so that seems to have stalled his offensive improvement. But we’ll see how he plays against BW talent. I think we might see him as a strong contributor come BWT time. No other freshman has had any time.

I did the same thing. Go Cougs

Awful first half. Zero energy in both ends.

I think I saw that LMU is favored by 10. I'm hoping that the same Aggie team we saw in Tucson shows up tonight. My daughter (UCD Grad) and her best friend from HS (LMU grad) will be over watching it tonight, so hopefully it'll be a good competitive game. I'm looking to see if Squire keeps up his hot shooting. And it'll be interesting to see how TJ can finish drives with a 7'3" guy in the middle.

Yeah, it's very subjective. I just want the officials to be consistent throughout the game. I do think the Ags are very good at taking charges. Siler alone is good for a couple per game.

Not to beat a dead horse (game) but i saw a slow motion replay of the step back 3 that put UA ahead, and it was really close to a walk. I probably would not have called it it as it didn't strike me as a walk in real time, but slowed down it did look like he jumped back after he had stopped his dribble. Here is a tweet about it from Coach Metzger-Jones:

Here is a pretty good write up on the "Blarge" call (simultaneously called Blocking and Charging). I've never seen it called before, mostly because the trailing official is taught to hold his call until the lead official makes the call.

In the CCA Men’s Basketball Officiating Manual, 2008‐2009, Section 1.1 Block/Charge Calls p. 20 and Section 1.2 Drives to the Basket p. 21, jurisdiction to determine this call is levied upon the Lead official to have primary coverage if the contact occurs within the Free Throw Lane Lines; however, if case of double whistles, the outside official may take this call as he might have the best look.

Hence, there might be an indeterminate time frame where one official may call and signal “Block” while the other official calls and signals “Charge” nearly simultaneously. Hence, a “BLARGE” may result.

A Blarge is a Double Foul and must be processed as such. It would be incorrect to allow one
official’s call to override or set aside the others

it’s a judgement call for the coach and he surely knows his team better than anyone. It’s just unfortunate that the ball wasnt in TJs hands for the last shot.

I agree I’m surprised he didn’t call a time out at the end. Great effort by Goode and squire. We should give LMU and USC good games

Crap...Ags played great in the second half. Tj was unbelievable but it would be nice to win one of these games. Think Siler needed to get it back to tj for the last shot. But still a great effort

thanks. I’ll give that a shot

Bad time to find out that at&t dropped the Pac-12 network. And it doesn’t look like the grad has it either. Hope I can still stream it. It’s a down year for UA but this will still be a tough one to stay competitive in.

By the way it looks like the Ags offered 6’9” senior Dishon Thomas. He recently de-committed from Nevada.

It's Fresno for Dixon.

Agree 100% with your post. I remember sitting at a game next to Clint Bozner the year after he left the team (2013 or so). Les lost it and started his foot stomp thing. You could actually see Boz flinch (when you're 6'8" and 250 lbs and flinch, it's pretty noticeable). Normally I don't talk to athletes that I see at games (he was busy scarfing down a foot long burrito...oh to be 20!) because I don't want to put them in any awkward position, but I couldn't help leaning over and asking if he missed the team. He said that he didn't miss that, referring to Les, at all. You can see that same body language a lot of different times throughout the years. Guys that have talent but lose the joy of playing.

On the other hand, I do clearly remember Lawrence White actually going up to Les and telling him to calm down, that the players new what to do. JT and Lemar could also do that. They weren't shutting down, or ignoring the coach, and they weren't shouting back, but they figured out how to deal with the outbursts and move the discussion into a more positive position. Seems that maybe this team doesn't have that person this year (talent wise, this is basically the same as last year but is performing so much worse). Michael, being a five year senior and going from walk on to starter, might have brought that calming influence.

You're right about the foul situation. Bessalo was out the last bit, probably due to her 4 fouls, even though her defense was needed. Seems we could have put some of the players at the end of the bench in to be the designated foulers. The coaching staff is top notch, though, so I'm sure they weighed all the alternatives and settled on just trying to play good solid defense.

Just a point about St. Mary's game tying possession. We were up by 3 when the Gaels bring the ball up court (14 secs left). We had THREE fouls to give. We easily could have killed most of the clock by forcing them to keep in bounding the ball. And this was coming off of a timeout, so the there was plenty of opportunity to communicate it to the players. Then when the Gaels got the ball deep we collapsed down (as we had most of the game) instead of continuing to guard the 3 point shooters. The center finds the open shooter who nails an open shot (contested late) to tie and set up Morgan's game winner. I thought we dreadfully mismanaged that whole defensive play and that could have cost us the game. Hopefully we learn.