Thanks. I met him once before back in 2015, on a flight back to Sacramento after the Ags had lost to Hawai`i. Nice guy, very down to earth, but I'm sure he doesn't remember me.

I watched part of the Hawai`i upset of UCSD and was very surprised. The Rainbow Warriors held Bryce Pope to 10 points. I'll have more to say about Hawai`i once that game gets posted, but for now I can tell you all that I'll be at the game as a guest of Jim Les. I don't know him but I emailed the team to ask for a visitor's pass as a UCS alumnus and Coach Les wrote back himself, to my surprise and told me he would have two tickets at the visitor's gate.

A great thing about Eli is that even when he isn't scoring a lot, he still gives it all he's got on defense, assists, rebounding, not forcing his shot just so he can score. Looks like the Ags got this one. Mani time?

Ags have twice as many rebounds as the Titans (if they were real Titans that would be something) and more assists 10-3. Neither team is shooting treys very well, but it doesn't seem to matter, except that they're holding Pepper to 0 for 3.

Anyone notice that Rocak wins a very high percentage of opening tips?

Bet they wish they were back in the Big West. :)

This is kind of a sideways question but it fits this thread best. It seems that many conferences have "traveling pairs" to make scheduling of road games pretty easy. For example, the Pac-12 has Cal and Stanford, UW and WSU, etc. playing other pairs in any given week. I keep trying to figure out what the Big West does, but it doesn't seem like there is any such pairing. It would seem that UCI and Fullerton are natural pair, also UCD and Cal Poly, UCSB and CSUN, UCSD and CS-Bakersfield, then maybe UCR and the Beach, leaving only Hawai`i. Clearly this is not the case. Does anyone know if there is any kind of logic to the Big West schedule?

The TV guys get my vote for most annoying commentators in the Big West circuit. Hard to believe the color guy was a coach after what he said near the end of the game when the Aggies had to take the ball out near the corner: something along the lines of Cal Poly has to trap the ball now. That assumes that the inbounds pass will go to a man in the corner where it is easy to trap and I'm sure the players know that so they avoid it.

A lot of attrition for the Ags: Ade, TY and now Tamba. This ending is going to be a nail biter.

I think TY must have sustained some kind of chest injury since he came back in then had to go out again. Hope it's just a bad bruise.

Do you find the TV guys kind of amateurish? They use a lot of cliches, some not appropriately, and miss some of their spots on describing the action and who did what.

Ags came out very flat for the first 10 minutes and didn't improve a whole lot the rest of the half. Good thing that SLO missed a lot of bunnies so the score reminds me of a high school half-time score. Both team shooting just above 30% and it's not just because of good defense.

Anyone know what happened to Adebayo?

Here's some reasons I got from Reddit:

"D2 has different initial eligibility standards than D1, and those eligibility rules are such that there are players who are ineligible to play in D1 but are eligible in D2. So the waiting period is designed to allow the players who were recruited under the D2 rules to cycle out of the program."

"The rule is in place so that schools won't make knee jerk decisions. This prevents a school being in D2 and getting a good coach who lands some stars from being able to transition to D1 for when those players are seniors."

"The idea is to bring stability and ensure schools are committed to being at a level. They don't want a lot of teams moving up and down divisions. So schools are free to move up, but they have to be committed enough to go through the four year probation period."

"I think it has to do with how many scholarship positions/roster spots are allowed on D2 vs D1 teams. They give 4 years for them to meet those requirements and not have to kick players off the team, but make them ineligible for postseason play."

I have no idea who is writing these things, but they make some sense.

I vaguely remember Bob Williams mentioning the rationale for the waiting period but I can't remember what it was, just that it made sense.

Not just huge but from NBA range!

Yes, the two teams I was referring to are us and UCI. Halfway through the season, UCD has only one more game against a team with a winning record. Of those, only the Beach has even a 5-5 record. On the other hand 6 of the games are away and we can't take any of those lightly, especially Hawai`i.

Pepper scores 24 point, grabs 7 rebounds, dishes out 6 assists and makes 4 steals and it seems like he had a bad day. Why? I think it was because he missed 12 shots, 7 from 3, which is unlike him. Had he made two more 3s the Ags would have won by 16. I think I would take that any day. The man makes plays and as abridge wrote, he's smart on the court.

It's beginning to look like a two team race. I think this year's Big West tournament is different with the top two seeds not playing until the penultimate round, so getting those seeds is a bigger deal than in past years. The win over UCSB was huge for that reason, but the teams in the middle of the pack are still dangerous.

It's amazing how much one can shorten a recorded game by fast forwarding through the time outs and halftime. I was able to see the end of the game in real time. Whew! Great bounce-back win by the Aggies over a tough Gaucho team. They did have a bit of luck with both Pierre-Louis and Traore being forced out with injuries and Mitchell getting into foul trouble but, hey, we'll take it.

I thought we missed a lot of opportunities to go ahead by a lot more than 12 in the first half.