WBB & MBB: Exhibition Double Header Thursday, November 1st The Aggie website still doesn't have a recap or any stats available for these two games. Maybe since they were exhibition games they aren't going to provide any information. I was able to find a brief recap of the women's game on the CSU East Bay website but nothing for the men's game anywhere.
Here are a few of my thoughts about the Aggie women:
1. The starting line up for the Aggies was the Karley Eaton, Kourtney Eaton, Morgan Bertsch, Cierra Hall and Nina Bessolo. Even though we lost 3 starters to graduation, Pele Gianotti, Dani Nafekh and Rachel Nagel, this is a pretty experienced starting 5 and they played well together as a cohesive unit.
2. The experience and maturity of Hall and Bessolo was immediately apparent. They look much improved from last year. Both are very athletic and they were shooting the ball well from deep range. Bessolo's quick release is impressive and her long distance shooting is much improved.
3. We need Morgan Bertsch to continue her stellar play this year and, although she looked poised and comfortable on the floor, she was uncharacteristically off her game all night long and looked frustrated that most of her shots were not falling. I chalk this up as more of a fluke for Morgan. However, opponents will be playing Morgan very physical and with double teams in an effort to slow her down this year so nothing will come easy for her. She'll have to go out and match the intensity with determination.
4. RFr post Sage Stobbart was impressive when she was on the floor. She quite agile for her size, looked comfortable and poised and has a very nice, soft shot from distance. She's going to be a good one for us as she gets more experience but I expect she'll be able step right in an contribute immediately.
5. Sofia Song will be a solid defender and a good 3 point shooter coming off the bench. She adds to the Aggie deep bench.
6. Utah State transfer Katie Toole and RFr Kayla Konrad both looked solid and look to have the talent to be able to come off the bench and make significant contributions. They both play hard and are not afraid to take the ball to the hoop.
7. JC transfer Cierra McKeown is as deadly shooter as advertised. She'll get better as she gets more experience with the speed and physicality of the D1 game but this young woman can flat out shoot the ball especially from distance. She has a beautiful shooting stroke and you can see that she's comfortable in firing away when she gets and open look.
8. Jen Gross was able play a lot of combinations of players and you could see that this team is still a work in progress but there is a lot of potential there.
9. The Aggie defense was pretty good all night long holding the Pioneers to 27.1% shooting while offensively we shot the ball well at 53.7%. Problem areas appear to be rebounding, getting outhustled on the 50-50 balls and poor FT shooting (8-17). The Aggies seem to have difficulty with rebounding each year and it appears that we just aren't as quick to react to the ball even when we are in position. It's an area of the game that could prove problematic for us and needs some definite work.
10. Things get a lot tougher right away as the Ags travel to Palo Alto next Wednesday to take on Stanford. It will be interesting to see how this relatively young team reacts to such a big challenge in a tough environment.
Go Ags!