one more thing about the class: we went for speed, speed, speed, playmakers (we'll find you a position, we want the best 22 'ballers' on the field), speed, and versatility (lots of 2-way players, most are multi-sport kids).

did i mention speed? its a new game ('basketball on grass'), and this staff is trying to get the kids who can play that game

it was a really nice event. many former players (probably close to 10 from my 'era' back in the early 80's) which was great to see. we signed 32 BUT.....2 JC transfers are on campus, and 2 more are coming in spring so they can be counted against last year. 30 is the max at FCS, but, technically we're under the limit. sounds like between partials and some creative application of grants, we could cover the large in-flux. Hawk is jazzed about the kids here, the kids coming in and the future. its infectious. not many details about the game plan beside 'we're gonna throw the snot out of the ball' and 'we're gonna create turnovers on defense'. lots of motion, lots of formations, keep the offense simple (i guess the past offense was very west-coast like in the long play names and complexity). don't look for us to have a power run game (for now), and don't expect many 14-13 games (to the chagrin of Fred Arp!).

Staff introduced themselves; impressive group who are very excited about the class and the program.

Acting chancellor Hexler was there and was VERY excited about the event. when was the last time a chancellor showed up and showed genuine support.

big, big crowd. one of the staffers told me they expected 150, which is about 140 more than last year's event at the stadium.

apparently we can have 100 guys on the roster come fall by FCS rules. with incoming players, returners, walk-ons, we'll have 113......so, the kids will need to buckle up the chin straps and come out competing on day one!

where is the announcement for this? i didn't see it on the website.

can't figure out how we are signing so many, even with a handful of JC's. seems like we only graduated 15 or so last year, and have only heard of a few who may have left (not sure if they were on scholarship). maybe we'll get some insight tonight. should be a fun event!

In the East Bay Times today they had an article about NLI; there were 4-5 kids listed as signing with Davis from the East Bay. that's about 4-5 more than recent years!

i RSVP'd for Wednesday -> first signing day/preview i've attended. hoping the weather cooperates and makes my ride up and back reasonable.

really fun game to attend. good crowd that was loud throughout the 28-4 run that put us back in the lead, after trailing 18 in the first half. chima was very, very good in the 2nd half. once we reduced the turnovers, we got back in the game. kids went hard to the hoop and made the 'eaters pay with fouls and ALOT of free throws. good defense throughout. they held irvine scoreless the first few minutes of the 2nd half, allowing us to push the ball, and take the lead. looking forward to getting back up for a couple more games.

they had a team aggie reception between games and invited basketball alums and family to join. big turnout covering many years (we were sitting from a guy who played in 68, and near ryan howley). kevin blue and coach les addressed the crowd and gave really nice talks. les invited the alum into the team room for the final pregame talk, and that went over big with the former players. great event, and another example of how this regime is reaching out to the past to get them involved in the present.

UCR beat Hawaii 70-64 on Wednesday for their 4th straight win, putting them at 4-2 in the Big West. Eases the pain of this loss just a little bit. Yet another weird Big West campaign is off and running.

Nice win on the road (ocean?) against a pretty decent team. I'll be there on Saturday vs. Irvine. Hope the defense continues, and we are solid with the ball. Irvine looks to be on a roll.

that was both fun and agonizing to watch! the first 10 minutes looked like the Cal game where we were a bit overwhelmed with their length and quickness on defense. once we settled, and got the score to a point at the half, it felt like we could win IF we didn't revert to turnovers. good news is we handled the ball much better in the second half. back news? moneke's two fouls in about 30 seconds, both poor choices on him. but, they held on and should have won easily. a couple of misses on easy shots, some missed free throws and a couple of questionable calls (the one on Henn?) had us on our heels, but they pulled it out with some clutch plays (and weird last play by CSUN). nice bounce back.

Les seems much more calm on the bench this year, and the team seems to be responding by playing with a bit more freedom/flow on offense. if we handle the ball, we get good shots.

a couple observations watching the game, both from my wife:
1) announcing was not great. you'd have thought CSUN was 20-0 and we were 2-18, the way they talked about them getting back into a tie for the conference lead (they seemed to have penciled in a 'W' for CSUN early on and never waivered. they also called CSUN 'C-SUN' something like a million times. maybe one or two 'Matadors', never a 'Northridge'. after the millionth 'C-SUN', my wife said i'm glad their campus isn't in Covina.

2) she was enraged that they played the Andy Griffin theme song when SIlar shot free throws. it would be one thing if the students did it (if they had students show up), but over the PA? that's weak. in this PC world of ours, Silar was the only player on the floor that they could get away with joking about one's appearance like that! Red-head lives matter! She was calmed by the fact that he calmly knocked down all his free throws in the clutch! CLASS > NO CLASS.

i read something about one of the cal assistants getting a job at Ole Miss, and it got me to thinking about how the timing of this impacts THOSE guys. Dykes gets his $2M payout for not coaching, but these guys will be left scrambling for whatever jobs might still be out there. its a tough profession.

i heard Roxy Bernstein (he does alot of Cal broadcasting, along with his play-by-play on Pac12 network) on the a radio show yesterday and he was implying that the big push behind this was big donor discord, and a significant drop in season ticket renewals. I think the flirting with other jobs really hurt his connection with the alum, administration and players. He made it sound like it made sense to take a (hopefully) one-year hit in recruiting, instead of a multi-year hit in fan/donor interest that would probably come with Dykes sticking around through 2017. I guess that makes sense..but...why wait 2 months to come to that conclusion, unless it took months of negotiations with the administration to okay it?

i know UCSB is done this year (and maybe missing a couple guys) but i didn't see THIS coming. similar outing to last saturday in terms of defensive intensity (and integrity), good shot selection (and makes!), and solid ballhandling. we're deeper than i remember in the recent past, and can bring in guys who can defend and handle the ball -> so we shouldn't suffer long droughts, or give up big runs where we get sloppy. Be nice to follow up Saturday with another victory to get the conference off to a good start. hope for a bigger crowd, but don't expect it. students probably won't show in large numbers, and its supposed to rain heavy this weekend -> that will keep me from making the long drive up.

i was there yesterday, and thought the Ags played really well. only had one short period in the 2nd half where the offense bogged down, letting them cut the lead fro 14 to 7; else, good movement, good shot selection, really good ball control. we had 5 guys in double figures, and matched them on the boards despite their size advantage. JT was very solid on both ends of the floor, and that's always a good thing to see. if we can move the ball like that, limit the turnovers, and shoot like that, we'll do well in the Big West. Very entertaining performance.

As an aside, we were sitting in the courtside leather seats (a thank you from the department), and that was really cool. you really get to appreciate the speed and quickness of the players, and get a great view of the offensive flow. we were pretty tough on defense all game -> really limited the number of easy shots. lots of hard work, lot of communication, and good effort on the boards to limit them to single shots. Looking forward to getting up for a few Saturday night games in the new year.

Blakes is where the Hallmark now sits. The Cellar restaurant in the bottom (sawdust on the floor), bar and nicer restuarant upstairs. My roommate was a bartender, way back in the day

i'll be there. grad at 11:30 to watch the first half of the Wash-Bama game then head over to the pavillion. tough opponent especially for a weird 2:00 new year's eve tipoff. they are coming off a win over Riverside (who looks bad this year), and we're coming off a nice win over Seattle. Looking forward to seeing them in person for the first time.

both teams are shooting less than 40%, and we're 1-9 from 3's. and only down 2 points at the half. the fact that we have 14 points off turnovers is a big reason for keeping it close, considering our foul problems. hopefully we weathered that storm and come out playing well in the 2nd.

stats make it look like the style of a 7th place game of a high school tournament in a mostly empty gym.

we were horrible down there. very uninspired late season loss to an average USD. we beat Harbaugh at Toomey 37-27 in what was a HUGE game for them for legitimacy. the next year was a Aggie Stadium -> a classic. Josh Johnson, who was a great QB, led them to a late TD to take a 46-42. matt engle led us down in the last minute throwing a TD with seconds to go to win 49-46. that may have been my favorite game at the new stadium. the next year (2008) is when we lost down there. really bad game. beat them pretty soundly in 2010 down there.

looks like my wife and i will be at the san diego state game.

pretty early for the season ticket renewals. seems like they usually come in Feb/March. but, this seems like an early announcement for the schedule, so who knows.

i was there with my son, who was in his freshmen year at Davis. i remember taking him back to his off-campus dorm and him yelling out 'how the f*CK did we loss that game'. his roommate replied 'uh, hi, this is my mom and dad'; mom and dad were up for a visit to their son's new school!

added insult to his injury!

i think the fly concept is out there in many college offenses. here is an article about Montana's use of the fly sweep and screens in their offense.

Montana Fly

Bob Stitt, the coach at Montana, is credited with being an innovator of many fly sweep concepts. West Virginia, among others, have credited him with contributions to their scheme. some of the highlights i see from Montana look alot like most of the Big Sky offenses with guys in motion, read-pass options, etc. so long to power running and west-coast style passing concepts.