Missed you guys yesterday! Note that Hawaii lost on the road at Fullerton last night, which illustrates a point I made earlier about the Warriors problems away from Honolulu. Unfortunately, neither UCSB nor UCI show such weaknesses. We'll see how well the Gauchos do at Irvine next week.

Agreeing with Agalum about Borra's dribbling, but his lack of confidence seems to be more general, plus, he should not be putting the ball on the floor when he gets it near the paint. When I saw him enter the game in Hawai`i, he looked pretty lost, as if his time away from the game has set him back. Too bad he couldn't get back before conference play began. He needed the minutes.

Only three of us posted anything on this game. I hope the Aggie faithful aren't giving up!

Ags cut a 16 point lead to a 5 point final deficit, which speaks well of their effort. Between the first half turnovers, a lack of scoring depth (52 points between Pepper and Johnson) and the dominance of Irvine's big man, there is no much to say about why we lost this one. The fact that we're 0-2 so far is not horrible considering the opposition.

Anigwe has been victimized by some questionable foul calls.

Aggies down by 5 attributable largely to turnovers. They've been very careless with their passing.

Glad you can join me on ESPN+, BlueGold, but gladder that you're beating the virus. I'm surprised that UCI is only a 2 point favorite. Having looked at most Big West teams, I'm noticing that they all seem to have a 7-footer. I think that's kind of new and makes the conference truly BIG West.

I was there and didn't even notice the incident because I wAs just trying to get out as fast as I could! I had to read about it in the paper the next day. Today, the paper mentioned nothing about the crowd except the attendance count: 4063, a bit on the low side. The paper also quoted Eli Pepper: " Defensive letdowns...That's probably way they built their lead at the end. We had miscues. They made their run."

I should note that the officiating was bad last night. They called invisible or petty fouls and traveling. The fans became so upset with the refs that I heard some threats like "You better not run into me outside this arena" and at one point a fan threw something that looked like a hard sponge at a referee resulting in warning that another such incident would result in a technical foul against Hawai`i. The fans, of course, thought the refs were biased, but it was equally bad for both teams.

McClanahan is from Vallejo. Too bad we didn't recruit him.

I made it out alive, but while the Aggies had the lead, I was wondering about how much verbal abuse I might get if they won. The crowds in Hawai`i have gotten much more vociferous in recent years. I might have been the only UC Davis fan there. I had a seat close to the bench and was wearing my UC Davis hoodie, so when I saw Jim Les look up at stands pregame I gave him a V sign and he grinned and pointed to my hoodie. I also was yelling "Go Aggies" as loud as I could and thus attracted a lot of attention. I figure I was outnumbered 5000-1.

As I drove home, I listened to coach Ganot. He said that the Ags did a good job of icing Hawai`i, i.e. forcing the guards out of the paint off the high post screens that the Warriors run. Asa result, the coach said he made a half time adjustment to space the offense in a way that opened the middle for the big men to penetrate and they got a lot more drives and jams as a result. Note the increase in offense on both sides in the second half. Unfortunately, the change was to Hawai's advantage.

Later they interviewed Da Silva who noted that their defense was keying on Eli and T.Y. and that, as we saw was effective. They both looked very frustrated. Both Anigwe and Beasley too over much of the scoring. UCD was also good at shutting down their leading scorer, Noel Coleman who only got 7 points.

Yeah, I had a chuckle at that one. I doubt that the reporter had seen us play at all, so he probably over-generalized from something that coach Les told him. Note: rebounding will be the key. The only games the Ags have lost were the ones they were out-rebounded and only Milwaukee beat us when we out-rebounded them, but they shot 62% from 3.

Hawai`i's coach, Eran Ganot, might be the best coach they have ever had. He is already second in victories. He is 8-5 vs. Jim Les, including only one loss in Honolulu. Today's Honolulu Star-Advertiser had this to say about the game (in part):

"UC Davis presents several challenges. Six-foot-4 ElLijah Pepper (19.7 points and a6.2 rebounds per game), 6-3 Loyola-Chicago transfer Ty Johnson (16.3 and 5.) and 6-5 Ade Adebayo can [all] shoot from the outside, post up or drive and pitch.

"'We try to use the the versatility of our guys,' UCD coach JimLes said. 'We don't pigeon-hole and of them into, 'hey, so-and-so is a point guard,' and 'so-andso is a shooting guard.' Multiple guys will rbing the ball up the floor. They'll push it on the break.'

"The Aggies average 16.3 fastbreak [points] per game.

"Christian Anigwe, a 6-foot-9 post, averages 5.3 rebounds and has blocked 20 shots [this season].

"'We've been stressing with this group to have a physical nature to us.' Les said. 'Part of that is a physical defensive group. And good defense has to finish their defense with, hopefully, first rebounds.'"

[Brackets are mine.]

I'm going to guess that Hawai`i will dominate the boards, including the offensive boards and otherwise limit the Ags ability to fast break. They won't be intimidates by a physical game since they are entirely capable of being physical themselves. The key for a UCD win will be if they can get 3-point shots to fall over the Warriors tough perimeter defense. If they win, I hope I can get out of the arena in one piece, but I agree with BlueGold about a 10 point loss.

UC Davis is a 7 point underdog and as loyal an Aggies as I am, if I were a betting man, I'd take Hawai`i to win by more than that. The sports page here in Honolulu was extolling the potential of a 7'1" freshman named Mor Seck, from Senegal. He has looked pretty raw all season, but against Washington State he had 6 rebounds in 8 and half minutes. They think he is due for a breakout game and it might come against us, which could make us more sick.

Brilliant!

After watching Hawai'i beat 3 very good teams, including one Pac-12 and one Big12 school, I need to revise what I wrote above. I don't see think any team in the Big West is better than Hawai`i. A major qualifier is that Hawai`i has not played a single game away from Honolulu and they are notorious for folding on the road. I can see them losing 4-6 games to the UC schools plus the Beach.

I don't think we'll play a better defense all season. Whew! Bruins had 8 steals and 7 blocks. They did a good job of forcing the game at their pace, neutralizing the Ags speed, which is our only advantage over UCLA. Still, I won't call it a blow-out since the final margin was close to the point spread. My hope is that the game will provide coach Les with some teaching points. It was a clinic on how to lay man-to-man defense. Next up: Big West play.

Ags still fighting, but the differences are beginning to show. I hope the team doesn't lose any wheels, even while the vehicle is getting wrecked.

UCLA does have a drama department, right? I wonder how many acting classes their team has gotten? I counted at least 3 flops resulting in offensive fouls called against the Aggies. Of course, that doesn't explain the score, but it helped.

Ags leading through most of first half, despite shooting only 29% from the field!