Big West Conference Season to begin I think that Hawaii, UCSB and Irvine are the odds on bets to be the front runners at this point for sure. Hawaii looked very good winning 3 tough games in their latest tournament. They haven't played away from home yet and, like Toke noted, they generally don't play nearly as well on the road.
At this point, I think we are a middle of the pack team. We have had stretches of brilliance that have given us glimpses of just how good we can be but we haven't been able to sustain that excellent level of play throughout the game. We've let big leads slip away too often which has turned potential routs into close wins or loses and that's a big concern. We've also had several games where our 3 point shooting and FT's were shockingly poor. The FT shooting has improved of late but the 3 point shooting is still not as good as it needs to be for us to be a more dangerous offensive team.
As with any Jim Les team, we thrive on defense and, when we are locked in, we can be very good. Our rebounding has been very good this year also despite us not having great size. I like how hard we play and how we can hang in there with bigger, physical teams too. We're not a timid team; we'll go nose to nose with anyone.
Early in the season, I thought that our depth would be a great benefit of this team and, although we're getting some good defensive minutes from a few players, we aren't seeing much scoring from our bench. I hope that improves in conference play.
I like the overall makeup of this Aggie team and I think we've yet to play our best basketball consistently. We need to be one of the best defensive teams in the league to make things tough for those teams who rely heavily on their offensive ability to win. Our tough defense can keep us within striking distance against those kind of teams when we go through periods of offensive drought.
Overall, I think we're capable of being up there competing with the top BW teams but it won't be easy. It will be a dogfight for us but we are certainly capable of putting up a good fight.
Go Ags!