They do mess up a lot.

The game is underway. Live Stats show the Ags up 6-2 with at the 16:19 mark.

Anybody having trouble to get the game on ESPN+? I keep getting a notice that the game has not started yet.

He also mentioned that the vultures will be out in April trying to lure Rex away and how it’s a priority of the collective to help him hold to his commitment to stay. — DrMike

It's a whole new world out there in major college football and basketball and, although I understand why athletes feel like they should get paid for their role in the big business of college athletics, it sure has introduced a dog-eat-dog environment where the deep pocketed programs prey on each other and the smaller ones.

How was the attendance? Were any of the players there also?

From The Big West Banter by Gauchodan:

The Aggies (12-10, 6-5), as expected, fell out of the top 4 with losses at UC Riverside and UC Irvine. UC Davis was in each game, losing at Riverside on a Nate Pickens 3-pointer with 5 seconds left and leading the Anteaters into the 2nd half. The back half of the 4-game road trip looks to be easier vs. 9th-place Long Beach State and 11th-place Cal State Fullerton. The Aggies force 15.7 turnovers per game.

The Beach (7-16, 3-8) had a weird week. LBSU led UC Irvine by 7 with 3 minutes to go and ended up losing in a valiant OT effort. Two nights later, the Beach were buried 85-54 at middling UC Santa Barbara. Long Beach shot just .302 from the field in the Thunderdome and hasn’t reached .500 since Jan. 11. Devin Askew is averaging 25.3 points in his last 3 games.

You can read his column for all the games here:

https://bigwestbanter.substack.com/p/tritons-try-not-to-look-ahead?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3137908&post_id=156563300&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=31ratq&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Is there anything more you can tell us about what Plough had to say at the signing party?

Hey, thanks CAF! This is always one of the most anticipated and popular topics on our forum. I'm looking forward to 2026.

I've seen a few posts noting that Sac State has the some of the highest rated recruits overall ever for an FCS program and the highest rated transfer class ever in the FCS.

Well, I grew up in Indiana so basketball is part of my DNA. I love the sport and my wife and I are long time season ticket holders. Football is the most popular sport in the USA and Aggie football has a long and storied history that Aggie basketball really doesn't have although winning the 1998 D2 National Championship was an incredible accomplishment.

It seems like we've kind of been stuck in neutral ever since the 2017 team went to the NCAA Tournament and we went to the NIT in 2015 and 2018. Athletics are not an easy sell with the students or with the Davis community at large either. So, unless there's something to really get excited about, like having a very high achieving team that is at the top of the conference and has good shot at post-season play, it's hard to build a bigger fan base. Football has had that kind of excitement the past few years and this year's team was the best of all so the fan base has really gone up. Not so much with basketball, unfortunately.

Jim Les and his assistant coaches are excellent and they'll need to really step up the recruiting in order to be competitive when we began play in the MWC in 2026. It appears as though we have "promised" the MWC that we are committed elevating basketball to a much more competitive level of play and I hope that that will help create more excitement and will bring in more fans. It's not going to be easy and the first couple years could be rough but, if we bring in a higher level of talent and begin winning in the MWC against higher profile teams, we have a chance to build something special here.

UCI outscored us 26-12 in the paint and a quite of few of those points came in the first 6 minutes of the 2nd half where we broke down defensively and Irvine burned us with too many layups. Other than that, it was a pretty even game against a very good team. We will have a chance to be a spoiler when Irvine comes to town for the next to final game of the season on March 6th.

The Aggies left their defense in the locker room at halftime. Les needs to get the attention of his players before this game gets completely out of reach real quick.

13 TO's by the Ags and 10 by the Eaters. Our defense has been excellent again holding Irvine to 36% shooting while we're doing better than usual on offense shooting 45%. All the rest of the stats are very even. I hope we'll continue to keep the game within reach in the 2nd half and give ourselves a chance for a upset win.

From The Big West Banter by Gauchodan:

GAME OF THE AFTERNOON. When all the rest of the games involve at least one team with a losing conference record, you earn the sobriquet by default. UC Davis entered the week with the toughest remaining schedule in the Big West, thus beginning a closing run vs. a gauntlet. The Aggies (12-9, 6-4) lost Thursday at UC Riverside on a Nate Pickens 3-pointer with 5 seconds left and now must turn around and face a team that doesn’t lose on its home court.

Conference scoring leader TY Johnson (21.2 ppg) has scored at least 20 points in 5 straight games. Pablo Tamba scored just 4 points at Riverside but is averaging 11.1 ppg on 64% shooting from the floor. Connor Sevilla averages 2.1 made threes per game on 37.9% shooting from the perimeter and is 33 of 34 (.971) from the free throw line. Niko Rocak has three double doubles and is pulling down 7.8 rebounds per game. Leo DeBruhl is the other 3-point threat for UC Davis at .373.

The Anteaters (19-3, 9-1) survived a legitimate scare from lowly Long Beach State on Thursday, needing to score the final 7 points of regulation just to get to overtime. A Quad 4 loss would have surely ended any discussion of a safety-valve at-large bid. As it was, UC Irvine saw its NET rank fall two positions. My amended position is that UC Irvine can afford one more regular season loss ONLY against UC San Diego, CSUN or perhaps the season finale at UC Santa Barbara (I’m very wobbly on that). UC Davis, despite its contender status in the Big West, is another Quad 4 opponent and a must win for UCI on the at-large front. UC Irvine has won 21 straight games at home, where it plays its next 3 games.

Bent Leuchten leads the team in scoring (15.4 ppg) and leads the conference in double doubles with 10. Leuchten pulls down 9 rebounds per game and has even made 13 three-pointers this season, on 26 attempts. Devin Tillis, the hero of Thursday night’s game with two overtime 3-pointers, is averaging 9.2 rebounds in his last 5 games. Myles Che posted his third 20-point performance of the season Thursday at Long Beach and is averaging 16.4 points per game and 3.6 assists since New Year’s Day. Justin Hohn is 4th on the team (12.0 ppg) in scoring despite taking by far the most shots on the squad (10.9 attempts per game). Jurian Dixon has reached double digits in scoring in 4 of his last 5 games.

https://bigwestbanter.substack.com/p/halftime-is-over?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3137908&post_id=156190348&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=31ratq&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Here are some excerpts from a Sacramento Bee opinion piece about the proposed new Sac State football stadium written by Tom Philp yesterday. The article is too long for me to copy and paste in its entirety. The author is of the opinion that Dr. Wood has made a lot of public comments about how fast things are happening in regards to the new stadium and Sac's move up to FBS with little to show for it so far. The author also is critical about how difficult it has been for the Bee to obtain factual information from the university concerning the actual plans, projected costs and funding for all the changes that Dr. Wood has said are currently underway in Sac State Athletics.

It is going to take about twice as long as planned for Sacramento State to get its first glimpse of what it may cost to build a gleaming new football stadium. The project’s first cost estimate, initially scheduled for completion in February, now won’t be done until this summer at the earliest.

Frankly, the university could use the time. It has been struggling ever since that initial September announcement to promptly provide some basic public information about where things stand with this ambitious project. The best chance for success is for Sac State to be an open book, particularly with the students who are paying a disproportionate share of the cost of university athletics.

University President Luke Wood had no cost estimate in hand when he confidently unveiled his plan to build a 25,000-seat stadium on the same site as the temporary facility that has been the football team’s home for decades. But he did set in motion a crucial analysis to get a better idea of what a stadium might cost and to assess local residents’ interest in watching Sacramento State football play some tougher competition in a truly modern facility.

That September announcement included plans to contract with a San Francisco-based architectural firm, Populous, “to create the conceptual design for the stadium.” To its credit, the university has provided The Bee with its $318,000 contract with Populous.

Other than releasing the Populous contract, every other attempt by The Bee for information about university athletics has been slow-walked by the university. Sacramento State has been committing its own version of “delay of game,” a football penalty when the offense doesn’t get the play off in time.

Wood is attempting to achieve something that has eluded all his predecessors: pooling public and private funds into the nine-figure sum needed to build a stadium suitable for the Sacramento State and for top-division football. This feat will not be easy. Yet belief in its prospects is diminished by Wood’s administration slow-walking any request for basic information about this project.

In hindsight, it’s now pretty clear that Wood did not have much research about costs and revenues when he confidently announced his plans to build this state-of-the-art football stadium last September. He’s now learning on the fly. It would be a coup for the region to climb into the higher echelons of this treasured college sport. But given how little we currently know, it’s simply too soon to tell.

Whole article here: https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/article297901063.html

Sacramento State President Luke Wood revealed to The State Hornet that the school’s new multi-use stadium will be built in three phases and shared new information about Sac State’s potential move to the FBS

Wood said the first phase of construction on the stadium will begin this year, adding around $2.5 million in new amenities, but did not share what the estimated final cost of the stadium would be.

This information comes off the heels of Wood making several public statements about Sac State making the jump to the FBS, the highest subdivision in college football. Wood said that Sac State has spoken with three FBS conferences in the region and that a move will not happen in 2025.

Whole article here: https://statehornet.com/2025/01/sac-state-stadium-construction-plans-fbs-luke-wood/

From Bob Dunning's Substack column:

"I can't fault our energy and our desire, but they just made one more play than we did," said Aggie head coach Jim Les afterward.

"It's hard to get a win on the road, but we battled the whole way and gave ourselves a chance to win. We had a little bit of a breakdown on their three-pointer at the end. That's not the look we wanted to give them."

As it turns out, that was the only score that Pickens had in 26 minutes of action.

https://www.thewaryone.com/p/late-3-point-dagger-stops-aggies?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2582284&post_id=156152601&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=31ratq&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email