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.

I was at the game. Really nice effort by the Ags to come back and take this game to the final seconds against a very good team that had a significant size advantage. Seattle is 9-2 now including a win over Stanford.

The Ags only had 5 fouls with the score tied in the final 8 seconds so they one to give without Seattle going to the line except for a shooting foul. I couldn't believe that the ref called that last foul a shooting foul. It looked like the Seattle player wasn't anywhere close to shooting when the foul was called. What did it look like on TV?

Sac hires a new Associate Athletic Director who is known for his fundraising success:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Veteran college athletics administrator Michael Izzi has been named the Senior Associate Athletics Director for Development at Sacramento State, it was announced by Director of Athletics Mark Orr.

In his role, Izzi will work collaboratively with University Advancement and oversee all fundraising activities for Intercollegiate Athletics.

"To have someone with Michael's experience in college athletics join our department is exciting," Orr said. "His proven record of success in fundraising, program development, and team building makes him an exceptional addition to our athletics leadership team."

Izzi brings over 30 years of leadership experience in collegiate athletics, development, and strategic advancement. His distinguished career includes serving as Director of Intercollegiate Athletics at both UC Irvine and Cal State Northridge, as well as Senior Associate Athletic Director at Stanford University, where he helped raise over $300 million in athletics gifts.

Whole article here: https://hornetsports.com/news/2025/12/16/general-izzi-joins-staff-as-senior-associate-athletics-director-for-development.aspx

Here is an article from The State Hornet about each of the ten starters that have said they are entering the portal:

https://statehornet.com/2025/12/sacramento-state-football-college-transfer-portal-brennan-marion-luke-wood/

I would be nice if Mercer would join into this legal action for the benefit of their players who are affected by this nonsense

Man, that's sucks! So many damn injuries in pro and college. I really do wonder if the size and speed of the players today is adding to the big number of injuries in spite of much better equipment and elite physical training.