30-25 Ags at the half in a tough, blue collar, defensive battle.

That's the truth for seemingly forever but not anymore!

I was born and raised in Indiana until I left for the service at age 19. My mother, father and sister all graduated from IU. Basketball was always great but football was never good so, following the Hoosiers this season as they went on to win the National Championship undefeated was as exciting as it was mind-boggling. Talk about a "rags to riches" story...!

Irvine is a tough defensive team as well and they have decent size also.

Les likes to talk about how good defense leads good offense. We scored 20 points off 14 TO's that we created. Point taken...

I'm hoping that we continue to play some of the better BW teams in our out-of-conference schedule once we move to the Mountain West Conference. I'd like to see teams like Santa Clara, St Mary's, USF and Pacific regularly on our schedule as well.

Excellent observations, Mike. It was a very physical game and it was primarily our hard-nosed, blue collar defense that won the game for us. This team has totally bought into the kind of defense that has become our trademark under Jim Les. In the post-game interview, Les noted how pleased he was that the players didn't let down from playing tough defense after a TO, a poor offensive possession or missing a gimme shot.

I've become a big fan watching how hard the Ags work on defense. It's a thing of beauty and it expends a lot of energy so it's understandable why Les is running players in and out of the game so often. There's more going on from a coaching perspective than just giving the players a blow too. Les is also subbing in order to match up well with the subbing of our opponent. It's a great chess game to watch.

It was good to see Suljanovic finally get into the scoring column. At one point he had a wide open 3, thought about it for a long second and didn't take it and you could see his frustration at passing it up moments later at a time out. Then a couple of plays later he drained a 3 and then another and you could see his confidence coming back big time. He was doing a better job of mixing it up in the paint
also. I think he has a tremendous up side and it's going to be fun watching him grow.

There's a lot of balance in the conference. It's going to be a dogfight all the way to the end and we are capable of hanging in there with anybody.

It's amazing that the 49ers got as far as they did considering all the injuries they had this year. Seattle's defense is a beast.

The next two games at home vs San Diego on Thursday and Riverside on Saturday, Toke.

Things have really tightened up in the current BW standings with the Aggies win over Irvine and Santa Barbara upsetting Hawaii.

Hawai'i (5-2)
UC Irvine (5-2)
UC San Diego (4-3)
UC Davis (4-3)
UC Santa Barbara (4-3)
Long Beach State (4-3)
CSUN (4-4)
Cal Poly (3-4)
Cal State Fullerton (3-5)
UC Riverside (2-5)
CSU Bakersfield (2-6)

I was thinking the same thing, Mike. I flipped my wig when they called that foul in the Seattle game since the player was most definitely going up for a shot. I guess the refs got it right though considering this new rule...

I listened to Les in the post-game radio while driving home and he said that Irvine did a good job of getting the ball into their front court before calling a TO with 1.5 seconds to go. He said he did not consider fouling at that point because of the new NCAA "continuation" rule this year.

The rule essentially states that a player who absorbs contact as they step forward toward the basket is considered to be in the act of shooting even if they were fouled before they started their upward motion of the shot. Les said that refs have been calling 3 point fouls like that every time when a player takes a step forward toward the basket even when they haven't begun the upward motion of a 3 point shot. So it was too risky to attempt to foul the Irvine player before the shot.

Wow...21% shooting including 9% from 3 (2-22!)...then add in 20 TO's and you've got a blowout loss...

I’m guessing that Stokes must still be under the weather from the flu bug that hit the team.

Turner has been livid since the first foul on his team. I can’t believe how lenient the refs are with him barking at them constantly. No other coach in the conference complains as much as he does but the refs generally don’t T him up.

Current Standings:

Hawai'i (5-1)
UC Irvine (5-1)
CSUN (4-3)
UC San Diego (3-3)
UC Davis (3-3)
UC Santa Barbara (3-3)
Long Beach State (3-3)
Cal Poly (3-4)
Cal State Fullerton (3-4)
CSU Bakersfield (2-5)
UC Riverside (1-5)

Irvine is consistently at or near the top in the Big West every year. Russ Turner has done a great job there.

This was a tough, physical game and a good win for the Ags especially considering the flu hit the team this week and some of the players were still under the weather but gutted it out. It wasn't pretty but it goes in the W column.

This decision continues to get a lot of emotional, negative press:

https://www.abridged.org/news/young-athletes-face-crushed-dreams-as-uc-davis-downgrades-equestrian-team/