I'm not feeling very optimistic about this game. The following is from Gauchodan's Big West Substack Column:

The Matadors (10-4, 2-1) return home after tying a school record with 17 threes at Cal State Fullerton. CSUN was unconscious in the 1st half in jumping out to an insurmountable 60-26 lead. Unusually, Northridge is 2-0 in conference on the road but 0-1 at home. The Matadors are scoring 82.4 points per game and holding opponents to .379 shooting from the floor.

The Aggies (8-6, 2-1) have the opposite profile in conference, winning both of their home games and losing their one road game Thursday night at CSU Bakersfield. TY Johnson topped 20 points for the 8th time this year and is averaging 20.2 ppg. The problem for UC Davis is finding additional scorers. Thursday night, the 2nd-leading scorer (Connor Sevilla) had just 10 points. Sevilla, Pablo Tamba, Niko Rocak and/or Leo DeBruhl need to augment Johnson for UCD to be successful.

https://bigwestbanter.substack.com/p/saturday-showdowns?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3137908&post_id=154123025&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=31ratq&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Wow! That puts things into a rather concerning perspective...

Brennan Marion has been on a recruiting stampede. 247 Sports is currently showing 23 high school commits and 24 transfers. This is an astonishing number of commits and it makes one wonder what is going to happen to many of the players on the team who played for Andy Thompson and still have eligibility left.

It now appears that Marion will be letting players go to make space for his new recruits. This is starting to look very similar to what Deon Sanders did at Colorado when he became the head coach there and then immediately cut a whole lot of the current players to make room for all the players he was bringing in.

https://247sports.com/college/sacramento-state/season/2025-football/commits/

Teams like us who do not have a lot of interior size generally need to have good 3 point shooting to make up the difference against teams who are strong in the paint. Shooting 31% from beyond the arc won't cut it for us and it's uncharacteristically low for an Aggie team especially when you consider that Les puts an emphasis on elite guard play.

We've got our problems right now for sure. We lack the size and physicality we need to compete in the paint with teams that are bigger and stronger in the interior than us. Rocak does an amazing job for his size but he takes a beating and hasn't been able to do much offensively. Mani and Chapelle are more stretch 4's than bangers in the paint and they have a tough time defending big, strong players down low. Tamba helps out scoring inside and getting on the boards but he's been taking a physical beating too.

Our poor outside shooting compounds these problems and puts a lot of pressure on our defense to keep us in the game. You can see the frustration in the players when the shots are not dropping and then they start pressing too hard trying to make something happen.

I won't miss playing in Bakersfield once we start play in the MWC!

Les was not a happy camper in the post-game interview. He said it was a very physical game but they were more physical and we were on the receiving end of it and "we say that the team that hits first wins." He did not like that we only had 5 assists and said that "our offense was awful."

We only have to play down there one more time next year.

Ags lose 75-64.

I won't miss playing Bake when we start playing in the Mountain West. This is just street ball and the refs are just adding fuel to the fire...

This game has turned into street ball game.

Blue collar, physical basketball game...refs have been very inconsistent...allowing lots of rough play and then calling touch fouls...not a pretty basketball game to say the least...

Thanks for your excellent write up about this game, TR67! The Aggie WBB team deserves a good following here on our forum. The Ags have come together nicely this year and certainly look like a team that could be a frontrunner in the Big West. Go Ags!

Bakersfield is a tough place to play on the road and the Runners are always very athletic. I hope having Mani back will help us have some better offensive consistency. However, the Aggies have been up and down so far this season so it's hard to know what to expect.

The women's 115-29 win over Cal Maritime set a couple of records:

An 86-point win marks the biggest winning scoring margin in Aggie history, beating the previous mark of 85 in a win over Santa Cruz on November 22, 1974.

115 points is the most scored by the Aggies in the Division I era, it's also the most scored at home, with the previous record being 108 in a win over Patten on December 28, 1996.

https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2024/12/28/womens-basketball-womens-basketball-finishes-december-unbeaten-in-86-point-win-over-cal-maritime.aspx

Ags win 109-46 and Prongos got a bucket. Nice to see the bench players get some quality minutes.

The Aggie women beat Cal Maritime today 115-29. The score at the half was 53-7 and Cal Maritime didn't score a single point in the second quarter.

Sac adds a 6'2 205 QB who had offers from Cal, Florida A&M, Iowa State, Louisville, Miami, NAU, Oregon, SDSU, TCU, Tennessee, UNLV, Utah and Virginia Tech.