• BlueGoldAg
    1.1k
    The Ags are 1-0 so far this year against the PAC12 and they'll get another chance tomorrow night in Corvallis against #17 ranked Oregon State. This game will be much tougher than the game against Washington State. OSU thumped the Aggies last year 93-52 and the Beavers are every bit as good again this year.

    The Aggies will need to play very hard on defense and be aggressive in blocking out on the boards. The Beavers can score from everywhere on the floor. They shoot 55% overall and 45% from 3 and are averaging 84 points per game to their opponents 54. They also average 7 blocks per game and 5 steals and win the rebounding battle by an average of 12 more boards per game. Nothing in their stats indicate that they have any weaknesses.

    OSU has had numerous blowout wins along with two close loses to Duke 72-65 and Notre Dame 72-67. They are led in scoring by their 6'5 Sr Center Marie Gulich from Germany with 15.7 ppg, 5'10 So G Mikayla Pivec at 13.4 ppg, 6'0 So G Kat Tudor at 13.2 ppg and 5'8 Jr G Taylor Kalmer with 10.3 ppg. The Beavers have a deep bench also with 4 more players contributing between 6.6 and 9.6 ppg.

    The Aggies came out flat against Central Florida in their last game and dug themselves a big hole that was too deep to climb out of in the end and suffered their first loss of the season. They can not do that against a team like the Beavers. They will need to be much more aggressive from the start and keep the energy going.

    The key to the game for the Ags will be their defense, rebounding and taking care of the ball. If they do that and shoot the ball as they typically do they can stay within striking distance and put themselves in a position to win. This will be a huge test for the Aggies but this team has the talent to be able to play with OSU when they are firing on all cylinders.

    Live online stream from the PAC12 Network at 6 pm:

    http://pac-12.com/live/oregon-state-university

    Go Ags!
  • aggie6thman
    158
    Ags will have to play a near flawless game to come away with the win.
  • BlueGoldAg
    1.1k
    Ags hanging in there but are not shooting well.
  • BlueGoldAg
    1.1k
    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.
  • BlueGoldAg
    1.1k
    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.
  • Oldbanduhalum
    589
    This feed is driving me nuts. After every made OSU shot, they show TWO replays, no matter how routine the play was. So of course, we then miss most of the Aggie possession on the other end.

    Ags playing tough.
  • BlueGoldAg
    1.1k
    I hate that as well. The WAC does that as well so you miss half of the game.
  • BlueGoldAg
    1.1k
    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.
  • BlueGoldAg
    1.1k
    50-36 OSU after 3. Aggies ice cold...shooting 27%..that won't get it done...
  • BlueGoldAg
    1.1k
    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.
  • aggie6thman
    158
    Hanging with a Top 25 team on the road and only losing by 4 is a very good result.
  • BlueGoldAg
    1.1k
    It was 61-47...my bad...typo...
  • aggie6thman
    158
    Haha, still not bad. The lack of parity in women's hoops is astounding. Losing by 4 or 14 is a good result.
  • BlueGoldAg
    1.1k
    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.
  • aggie6thman
    158
    No doubt they wanted the win. Games like this will help the Ags schedule games against ranked opponents.
  • aggie08
    51
    Well there are some positives here. Last yr, we lost to OSU by 41 pts. Shows you how far we've come. 3 of the 4 quarters were within 3 pts. We lost this game in the 3rd quarter alone. This despite everything going wrong: shots weren't falling all game (our 4 most volume shooters went 13 of 56. Yikes!) and got outrebounded pretty badly (we absolutely need to fix this to compete w elite competition). I agree this team absolutely had a chance to win. They're scrappy and extremely disruptive. Generated 18 turnovers and a lot of pressure on OSU. If we can fix some of these issues over the course of the yr, who knows how good this team can be. Rough outing, but very promising if that makes any sense.
  • BlueGoldAg
    1.1k
    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.
  • 69aggie
    370
    Bad shooting by a good shooting team is entirely mental. Jen has to know this and get it fixed. We took too much time off the passes. Hesitated too much. Skunked around the perimeter too much. This is fixable. Dame those finals!!!
  • BlueGoldAg
    1.1k
    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.
  • Oldbanduhalum
    589
    This was a particularly frustrating game to watch. I've watched the Ags through the years be totally bulldozed by top 25 teams (mostly Stanford)...we just didn't have anywhere close to the talent needed to compete at that level. But last night wasn't like that. Talent wise, we deserved to be on that court. Defense was good, we worked hard on the boards, but players just seemed to rush shots when they really didn't need to (focusing more on who's running at them and not enough on the shot itself). That comes from just not being used to playing against the big girls, I think. I know it's nice being ranked in the mid-majors, but with the talent level of this team, I would have liked to see them play 3 or 4 more Pac-12 level teams this OOC, even if it meant losing those games (and this goes for the men's team, too, I think). Get them used to playing top level competition, knowing how to succeed when the other team is taller and faster than the teams we'll face in the Big West. It'll get them ready not only for the regular season and the BWT, but also, hopefully, the level of competition in the NCAA tourney.

    On to the Fordham Classic. Go Ags!
  • aggie08
    51
    It was definitely a lost opportunity and no doubt we had the chance to win. But here’s the bright side. We held OSU to their lowest fg% all yr including their games against Duke and Notre Dame. And matched Duke in turnovers generated. It’s too bad we won’t face competition of this caliber again until (hopefully) the postseason. This is a dangerous dangerous team- and we can get better
  • BlueGoldAg
    1.1k
    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!
  • BlueGoldAg
    1.1k
    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.
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