Poly just got their first conference win of the season by taking down undefeated Irvine 79-66 in Anaheim. That means that Irvine will come into the Pavilion 6-1 on Saturday and the Ags could move ahead of them with a win. That would give Irvine their 2nd loss and the Ags could end up either tied with Riverside for first place or in sole possession of the lead if Riverside falls to CSUN.

Topsy turvy Big West...

The Ags roll over Riverside 72-53 and were led by Pele Gianotti with 22 points on 8-11 from the floor. The blistering 3rd quarter was the tale of this game when the Aggies practically shut out the Highlanders 26-4. The Ags did a great job on the Big West leading scorer, Rejane Verin, holding her to just 10 points and 5-20 shooting.

Although the rebounding margin was close, UCR 41-39, the Ags gave up an astounding 21 offensive boards and still managed to win. If Riverside hadn't gone stone cold in the 3rd this game may have had a different outcome due to all those offensive boards. The Aggies do not lack size but they do lack quickness and a nose for the ball. Jen Gross will need to keep working with her team to shore up the rebounding because you just will not win against good teams very often when you give up 21 offensive boards.

What a quarter for the Aggies as they outscore the Highlanders 26-4 and lead 60-35 after 3. Hot shooting and great defense told the story of this quarter.

My previous comment about this game "probably going down to the wire," well uh, they proved me wrong big time!

Maybe he grew a bunch since the 2016 Nike+ rating day!

Ags 34 UCR 31 at the half in an entertaining ball game. The Aggies went up by ten with 3 minutes to go in the half. They had a chance to stretch the lead but missed a couple of layups, turned the ball over, allowed a couple of offensive boards and Riverside scored the last 7 points of the half.

This game looks like it probably go down to the wire.

UCR 20 Aggies 19 at the end of the first quarter.

He looks a small speed demon. He has a pic on his twitter account showing his rating from the Nike+ football rating day in Los Angeles. His overall score was 91.77. He was in the 98th percentile in the 40 yd dash, vertical leap and agility. They have him listed at 5'9 and 144 lbs so I imagine they'll be looking beefing him up a bit but the athletic ability is certainly there already.

Volek is a dyed in green Hornet through and through and he's old school intense. I remember one close battle at Sac where Volek was pacing the sidelines like a caged animal. It was so much fun to beat him over and over again!

The rematch with UCR in the Pavilion should be a great game and one the Aggies will want very badly. I think they left Riverside with a bad taste in their mouths after playing so poorly for about 37 minutes of the game. Riverside is tough though. I think they are the most surprising team in the Big West this year.

Topsy turvy Big West again. I watched the first half of the UCR Hawai'i game. Both teams have talent. Riverside was playing without 2 players that I guess the coach benched for "violating team rules." Pretty impressive win for Riverside playing short-handed.

Hawai'i has a big advantage in recruiting when you can tell an athlete to come and play ball with us in paradise. Hard to compete with that!

I'm not sure what you are referring to Movie..?

It is amazing to me just how much Kevin Blue has accomplished in such a short amount of time. I hope he will stay here a while or, even better, just fall in love with this great school and decide this is a good place to stay for a very long time.

I hope so. He seems like a really solid young man and a great athlete as well.

Wow...sounds like the young man is very undecided...

I have the same question. It seems that it is necessary to put out a lot more offers than you have scholarships since you are not going to land everyone you offer. But, say you need 3 DB's and put out 7 DB offers in hopes of landing 3. Then what happens all of them accept? Now you have 4 less total scholarships to go around to fill other position needs. How do the coaches manage that something like that so that they get their needs filled at all the necessary positions?

There is an excellent picture of all 3 of the Aggie helmets on Coach Nurse's twitter page: https://twitter.com/CoachWesNurse

I remember reading someplace that, although the Ivies don't give athletic scholarships, they do other things that can make it more reasonable financially for their athletes. I guess Harvard changed the rigor of their academic standards and now admits athletes they used to not be able to recruit. These changes have made Harvard, Yale and Princeton very competitive in many sports.

Apparently we cast a pretty wide net. Here's a player Summerville, Georgia, that ESPN shows we offered but he committed to Charlotte: Michael Adams, 6'0 297 DT

http://www.espn.com/college-sports/football/recruiting/player/_/id/220561/michael-adams

Nice recap Toke69. It may be a rebuilding year for Hawai'i but they always seem to reload rather than rebuild. There is a definite advantage to recruiting when you can offer up a little bit of paradise as a perk for playing basketball for Hawai'i.

I was impressed with Hawai'i's interior passing and their pick and roll cuts to the basket. We had no answer to those plays but, like you said, Hawai'i blew lots of lay ups and would have won if they had made 2/3's of those.

Chima is as athletic as anyone we have ever had in an Aggie uniform and, I agree, he may be the best big man we have ever had even though he is only 6'6. He plays much taller because of his great leaping ability. He's also very strong and quick and has a good nose for the ball. When he made that put-back slam in the second half his elbow was above the rim. That was as good a slam as I have ever seen a Aggie make. It was right up there with a put-back dunk that Garrison Goode made earlier this year.

Brynton Lemar is playing with confidence and leadership. I think he is playing his best basketball ever right now. His FT's in the final seconds have won us several games this year. That said, the Ags are very inconsistent at the line and Garrison Goode is shooting in the 30% range from the charity stripe! I hope Coach Les makes the whole team shoot 100 FT's at every practice because we are leaving way too many points at the line.

Darius Graham is the motor that drives the team. His senior leadership is on display every game. His two 3's late in the game were critical and his showed confidence and courage lofting up those two, deep beauties.

I like the way Lawrence White is playing also. He knows his role primarily as a great defender and rebounder but he can also score with a variety of shots. He's just a great team player who plays without fear. JT is coming around but just seems to get into foul trouble so quickly. He has great character and courage and he is an inspiration to the team. I also think that Siler Schneider is giving us good minutes and has the ability to catch fire from deep. Arell Hennings is also giving us some solid help at the point too.

The team is playing pretty solid all together right now and the game Saturday against UC Irvine should be a dandy. Irvine is, without a doubt, the top team in the Big West. They absolutely destroyed CSUN 105-73 last night in the Matadome. A packed Pavilion and an inspired Aggie team could make things very tough for the Anteaters. It should be a good one!