Les is not an easy coach to play for. He is intensely competitive and a tough disciplinarian. That combination does not always work well with today's athletes.

Scott Marsh just said that Chima will not play today and he doesn't know why. He said Chima was warming up but has been told he will not play. Wow...I wonder what's going on between Chima and Coach Les...??

No doubt about it. This is a game that it would be very easy to be flat as a pancake. I hope that's not the case. Lamar is a very tough defensive team and the Ags have struggled to find a good offensive flow this season...not a good combination of factors for the Ags. They'll need to dig deep.

Some post-game quotes form today's Enterprise recap:

OSU HC Scott Rueck on the Aggies: “They came in here with a great plan. They’re a very proud team that’s used to winning every night, and it shows. They’re a team that’s laser-focused.”

“(Wednesday) was interesting because we honestly haven’t experienced this year a close game where we had to hold on to a lead late.”

HC Jen Gross: “I’m just extremely proud of our team. We played really hard, we played with a lot of passion,” UC Davis head coach Jennifer Gross said afterward. “There was a lot of focus and defensive urgency. I thought our defense was very good.”

“Offensively, we just struggled with that stretch in the third quarter, and that’s what kind of got us into a hole … but I’m extremely proud of our effort."

“When you’re facing 6-5 and 6-8 and they’re playing their bigs inside, it makes it more difficult to finish at the rim,” Gross pointed out. “They challenged us to make outside shots …"

“We made a few, but we didn’t make a high-enough percentage to make them think about changing their plan. It was taking us a little too long to get into our action … we just didn’t keep the ball flowing fast enough.”

http://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/stingy-defense-isnt-enough-for-aggie-women-at-osu/

I think I underestimated just how much of a size advantage OSU had over the Aggies. It's pretty tough to shoot over the kind of size that the Beavers had and I'm sure that had a lot to do with our poor shooting percentage. Holding OSU to a season low of 61 points says a lot about the Ags effort also.

I agree with everything you said, Obdh. I'd like to see the men and women ramp up their level of OOC competition also. There's a fine line though. I'm not a fan of the Dan Monson approach at Long Beach State where the 49ers often play the toughest OOC schedule in the nation and rarely win any of their games against those power teams.

Like you said, the Aggies deserved to be on the floor with OSU last night. They have the talent and they are a veteran team with good depth but, once they started missing open looks, it snowballed into very poor shooting. I was amazed that we were still within striking distance while shooting 24%. With Morgan and Rachel misfiring like they were we needed someone else to step up a can a couple of 3's and that just didn't happen which is not like this team.

OSU's big girls created problems for Morgan inside and pretty much took away her spin moves to the bucket. It was interesting, though, that the Beavers were very willing to let Morgan shoot from the high post. Their strategy was to not let Morgan beat them inside and they did that. Our problem was that our perimeter shooters were ice cold from distance also.

I think that this road trip to NY is an important couple of games for the Aggies. They have not played up to their ability in their last two games. It will be tough to travel across three time zones and play against two good teams. This will be a big test to see how this team responds to their recent adversity.

Go Ags!

As you noted, there was a lot of hesitation by everyone offensively and, as the shots continued to bonk off the rim, their confidence sunk also.

Good points, aggie08. They've had a couple of rough outings in a row. Now they have a long road trip across the country to The Bronx for two games before they open conference play on the road at Irvine. Gotta put these two loses behind them, move on and get better.

The score looks good against the #17 team but I think the Aggie will not be happy with the way they lost tonight. They just missed a lot of shots that they normally hit at a good percentage. This was a winnable game for the Ags with an average offensive effort. The defense was there...the offense just didn't make it to Corvallis. It's too bad because we don't get many opportunities to play the elite teams.

It was 61-47...my bad...typo...

OSU 61-47 final. Well, the final score was a lot better than last year but I don't think Jen Gross and the Aggies will be happy with the way the Aggies played overall. The Ags played well on defense but their offense was not good at all. The Ags shot 24% overall and only 21% from 3. OSU's defense certainly had something to do with that but, really, we missed tons of open looks.

Morgan Bertsch and Rachel Nagel lead the Ags in scoring but tonight they were a combined 10-42. That's 32 missed shots from our two best offensive players...ouch! Morgan was 8-28 and Rachel was 2-14 and quite a few of those shots were wide open looks. Just an awful night offensively for the Ags.

The Beavers did not look like a top 25 team to me but the Aggie defense had something to do with that. Unfortunately, our offense was missing in action. If the Aggie's would have had an average shooting night, this one was there for the taking. This was a missed opportunity.

Oops...wrong thread...

Welcome to AST, SoCalAggie!

50-36 OSU after 3. Aggies ice cold...shooting 27%..that won't get it done...

The Ags need to settle down. They've come out in the second half and are not playing with confidence. Turnovers and missing open looks.

I hate that as well. The WAC does that as well so you miss half of the game.

34-30 OSU at the half. Somehow the Ags have managed to stay close despite the Beavers out rebounding the Aggies 26-13 and cold shooting by the Ags. If the Aggies can get some shots to fall they have a chance.

15-12 OSU after the first quarter. The Aggies are defending pretty well but are having a tough time with OSU's size. They have 9 second chance points.

Ags hanging in there but are not shooting well.

Plough has every right to express his disappointment. We don't know what went on with Plough and Baker over time and we don't know what their communication has been in the last few days. My guess is that Plough had had good communication with Baker and had spent some time with him and perhaps even his family and felt stung when Baker bailed.

I don't judge Baker for his decision either; it's 100% his choice. I hope it was a wise decision and that he doesn't end up warming the bench most of his career.

I also believe CA Forever makes a great point about what "commitment" means. For all we know, Plough may not have seen this coming and felt that Baker was truly committed to playing for the Aggies.

The Aggies and Baker will move on...

After their loss to San Francisco the Aggie men dropped 4 spots to #24 in the Men's Mid Major Poll:

http://www.aggiesportstalk.com/discussion/411/aggie-wbb-up-to-8-in-this-weeks-mid-major-poll#Item_13