Current Big West Standings:

1. UC Santa Barbara 13-5 22-7
1. UC Irvine 13-5 20-10
1. UC Riverside 13-5 20-10
4. Hawai'i 12-6 21-9
5. Cal State Fullerton 12-6 18-12
6. UC Davis 10-7 17-12
7. Long Beach State 10-8 16-14
8. CSU Bakersfield 6-12 10-19
9. UC San Diego 5-13 10-20
10. CSUN 4-15 7-23
11. Cal Poly 1-17 7-23

I think that critical fouls and other violations are too often ignored when the game is on the line in the final seconds. How many times have you heard the commentators say, "You're just not going to get that call with the game on the line?"

None of us want to see an insignificant, ticky-tacky, touch foul called but, if the officials were calling the same thing a foul earlier in the game, then it's still a foul later in the game especially when the game is on the line. Why should a foul or a traveling violation or a held ball etc be ignored when the game is on the line?

That was a really good basketball game between Hawaii and Irvine. The game was on national tv and it was sold out with 10,300 in attendance. Hawaii has a great fan base and they were really into the game. I sure wish we had that kind of game atmosphere here.

I thought there were terrible calls that went against Irvine in the last 20 seconds when the officials failed to call a held ball twice within a span of about 10 seconds when Hawaii was only up 3 points. It was very clear that Irvine had tied up the ball on both occasions. The first no call resulted in the ball going out of bounds but Hawaii retained possession.

The second no held ball call was even worse and essentially ended any real chance for the Anteaters.. Irvine had clearly tied up McClanahan and he even traveled trying to wrestle the ball loose and then an official called a late foul. McClanahan both FT's and that was the ballgame.

If you get a chance, watch the last 20 seconds of the game and you'll wonder how in the world were those not held balls. It was a great basketball game but I thought it was a shame that the officials spoiled it in the final seconds.

Santan Barbara 87 San Diego 71 - Final

Long Beach 71 CSUN 64 - Final

This certainly was a GRIND.We just refused to quit and won despite being very short handed.

I was listening to Les in the post-game and he was really pleased with this win. He said that all the injuries made it really tough to practice this week and that there was a lot of uncertainty and waiting to find out if he was going to have enough players to play. He also said that we need some more rest days so some injured players have a chance to try and heal up before SB comes to town and, if they aren't ready, he'll do what he can to meet whatever minimum they say he has to have to play.

Fullerton beat Bakersfield 70-66 in OT.

I feel like we're lucky to only be down 2 at the half. We've had some pretty good looks but the shots aren't dropping. If we manage to win this game, it's probably going to be an "ugly" win...gonna have to grind out another one...

Great start for the Ags. 21-7 at the end of the first quarter.

Poly is a much, much better basketball team than their record. I watched them nearly beat Irvine, Irvine rallied in the final minutes and then a Poly defensive breakdown on an wide open, Irvine, backdoor layup lost the game for Poly. They play really hard and they'll battle the Ags tooth and nail tomorrow.

Pepper is currently tied for 7th place in points per game average in D1 basketball.

No news is good news, I hope??

Some of the Big West fans over on the Big West Boards Forum are convinced that Jim Les took advantage of the "no contest" rule to cancel the game against Fullerton so that we could maintain our current 6th place standing rather than playing the game and risking a "sure loss." I think that's total bunk but it's not worth trying to reason with those folks who have their minds already made up.

Other Big West Games on Saturday:

Fullerton at Bakersfield 1 pm
CSUN at Long Beach 3 pm
Santa Barbara at San Diego 7 pm
Irvine at Hawaii 7 pm

Current Big West Standings:

1. UC Irvine 13-4 20-9
2.UC Riverside 13-5 20-10
3. UC Santa Barbara 12-5 21-7
4. Hawai'i 11-6 20-9
4. Cal State Fullerton 11-6 17-12
6. UC Davis 9-7 16-12
7. Long Beach State 9-8 15-14
8. CSU Bakersfield 6-11 10-18
9. UC San Diego 5-12 10-19
10. CSUN 4-14 7-22
11. Cal Poly 1-16 7-22

Irvine came back from 22 down in the second half to pull within 4 with 1:29 to go before running out of gas.

Riverside 54 Hawaii 52 Final

54-41 Fullerton at the end of the third quarter.

Really disappointing defense by the Aggies in the first half.

The Titans roar out of the gate and take a 26-11 lead at the end of the first quarter.

There's an interesting discussion going on over on the Big West Boards Men's Basketball forum where some folks feel like Aggies may be taking advantage of the Big West "no contest" rule. The general thinking is that the rule makes it easy for a team like the Aggies to simply cancel the game without penalty rather than play it with a depleted roster.

So, they essentially saying that if the Ags had to take a loss via a forfeit, they might be more inclined to show up and play the game with a depleted roster rather than to cancel it without penalty. In other words, the Ags can escape what is likely a "sure loss" and their decision to cancel can then negatively affect other teams in the overall standings and in the Big West Tournament seeding since they don't have an opportunity to get a probable "sure win" against the Aggies.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/bigwest/uc-davis-why-are-you-copying-us-that-s-our-strateg-t27192.html

Well that sucks.

We were getting quite thin with injuries to Beasley, Losé and Anigwe and I saw Milling grabbing at his taped leg although he finished the game. It could be a combination of injuries and illness. I hope it's not Covid. I wouldn't be surprised to see Poly game cancelled on Saturday as well now.