WBB: Saint Mary's (1-0) at UCD (1-0) 12 noon Saturday 11/13 Jen can use this for a teaching moment for this team because St Mary's exposed the current weaknesses that the Aggie need to work on especially rebounding. St Mary's won the game by out rebounding the Ags 42-27 of which 13 were offensive boards which led to 10 second chance points to only 2 for the Aggies. That's the difference in the ball game right there. Rebounding is a combination of blocking out, physicality and determination and St Mary's did it better than the Aggies.
The Gaels also locked down on defense when it counted. They got themselves back into the game when they were 11 down and the Ags relaxed on defense and got out hustled on rebounds. They forced 3 Aggie TO's in the final 1:38 and held the Ags to 1 of 7 shooting in the final 3 minutes. In short, they closed out the game.
Even though we lost, I thought there was a lot of improvement overall by the Ags except in rebounding. There was better ball movement on offense and stretches of very good defense, They can build on that. These two teams seem to battle like this each year and the Gaels executed better when it counted the most this year.