40-19 Ags at the half. A generally unimpressive performance by the Ags so far against a very over-matched opponent.

We'll miss this one...busy holiday calendar has gotten in the way. Go Ags!

It seems like I read something on this forum or heard it mentioned somewhere that the Aggies have struggled to get significant financial support from many of our former players some of whom have gone on to be very financially successful in football and/or in their professional careers. I also remember Plough practically pleading for former Aggies to open their pocketbooks during his first presser after being named our new head coach. I'm hoping that that has changed since he took the helm.

I'd forgotten about Pablo as well. He improved immensely during his time as an Aggie and it looks like he is continuing to get better at LSU. He'll have a nice career in playing in Europe somewhere and I think he'd probably love playing in his home country of Spain if he gets an opportunity there.

Ade was an awesome defender who knew his role and excelled at it.

I fear our Achille’s heel with be lack of depth at the center spot. — DrMike

Verbalcommits.com shows that we have an offer out to Ryan Hunt who is a 7 foot sophomore at Eastern Arizona College. He's from Perth, Australia. He is only averaging around 5 points per game so, like Noudjihidi, he appears to pretty raw and more of a defender but, generally speaking, we don't get high scoring big men with the more guard heavy style that Les likes. Hunt already has 11 offers including us, UCSB, Maryland, TCU, North Dakota, Manhattan, Bowling Green, UT Arlington, Southern Utah, Indiana State and Charlotte.

https://www.verbalcommits.com/players/ryan-hunt

I think Chima was the last elite big man that we had whose offense could take over a game. Les generally looks for big men who are strong defenders and rebounders first and foremost which isn't a bad strategy at the mid-major level. Look at the remarkable success of UCSD last year where the team was built around elite guards and forwards and, even with a new coach, they seem to be doing the same this year too.

The post-game, radio interview with assistant coach, Stan Nosek, was excellent. He talked about how they feel it takes 10 games before you really know the team and the players know each other. He felt that the Ags showed their offensive confidence in the first 4 games of the season but then it went missing for a while and the players lost some of that confidence and the offense had its struggles but came back in the Seattle game and today. He also said they have been challenging the players to find the Aggie style of play which he calls "Aggie DNA" and it means "disruptive, non-stop aggression" and we played with that today especially in the first half.

I thought it was interesting when he said that a scorer like Sevilla will often have a tough time finding an opening for his shot in the first half against good teams and that he's learning to have the patience waiting for the game to loosen up and then finding the right time to assert himself. He said Sevilla did that tonight and he thought that this game was the best he has ever seen Connor do that. He also had praise for CJ Franklin. He said they saw his ability this summer but it's just taken a bit of time for him to get it going again. He said CJ is very athletic, long and good defender who can get to the rim and has a nice mid-range shot.

Nosek is impressive. He could be a good head coach somewhere if he wanted it.

We scored 50 points in the paint to the Bengals' 20 and we only had 6 TO's for the game. Really good to see the Ags "weather the storm" in the second half. We haven't seen much of Cyril Franklin Jr this year but he had 10 points in 16 minutes on 5-6 shooting. Nice depth for the Ags!

The officiating is ridiculously bad especially on those calls where the offensive player initiates the contact under the basket when the offensive player simply jumps into the defender on the shot and gets the foul every time. Impossible for Rocak and Chapelle to play defense under the basket.

This is as good a first half that the Ags have played this season so far. 9 of 11 players have scored and no one has more than 7 points. Now that's spreading the scoring around! The ball movement and passing on offense has been great.

I'm happy to see Illinois State in the finals. They certainly deserve to be there. One of the things that was fortunate for them this season is just how healthy they have managed to stay and that's huge. I wouldn't be disappointed to see them win the title but I'll be pulling for MSU to make the Big Sky Conference proud.

We were so close this year even with all the injuries...without them, we could very well have made it to the championship game. Can't wait for next year...

MSU pulling away now 41-23 with 7:57 to go. Big plays for the Cats...

Did you hear anything recently?

Ditto...my feelings are exactly the same...

Let's do it for sure next season!

Carter said that he is currently talking with many of the players who have already announced that they are going into the portal and he believes that quite a few will change their minds. We'll have to wait and see.

From Bob Dunning's Substack column:

“The game started at 6 and we didn’t show up until about 6:15,” said Aggie head coach Jim Les afterward.

“I appreciated our fight to get back in the game and we did a lot of good things. When we got down 15-2 we could have mailed it in, but our guys fought back.”

Sevilla hit nothing but net on all three attempts to tie things at 78, but Heimbrodt was fouled with 2.2 left and made the second of two free throws.

The Aggies had committed only five fouls in the half up until that point, meaning a non-shooting foul would simply result in Seattle having an inbounds play.

However, Heimbrodt was ruled to have been in the act of shooting and was awarded two free throws.

“When you look at the video, he was not attempting a shot,” said Les, and most of the crowd agreed with that assessment.

https://www.thewaryone.com/p/late-free-throw-sinks-aggie-men-in?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2582284&post_id=181964279&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=31ratq&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

BLUEGoldAg was beside himself! — DrMike

Still am! :lol:

The Seattle player did not appear to be in the act of shooting, not even close and, generally speaking, when the game is tied in the final seconds, refs rarely call a foul like that unless it is absolutely obvious that the player was fouled hard in the act of shooting. It wasn't "obvious" at all and, 99 out of a 100 times, the refs allow some contact in the final seconds because they don't want to decide the game with "the wrong call." The teams can go on and fight it out in OT. The ref who made that call decided the game.