tough loss. when they hit the jumper with 2 to go, i told my wife 'its over'. that's tough to overcome in OT. the rebounding really hurt, especially early in the game when they were killing us with second chance points. seems like JT has played much better of late on offense. Chima's struggles are a real concern, although he did get 12 boards (if you're struggling to score, find other ways to contribute).

they had 26 points off of our turnovers. that's a killer. we had 14 in regulation, which isn't a huge number against Long Beach, but they seems much more efficient at turning them into points.

now saturday is a huge night.

big game tonight; win and you have a chance of a road trip sweep to get to 10-2, and 18 wins overall. a loss tonight will probably leave us (at best, depending on Sat outcome) in a tie for 1st after the weekend. our remaining schedule is much harder than Irvine's so we have almost no margin for error (unless we were to beat them again on the road). tough place to get a win.

seems like TO's are the big culprit in our 1st half woes. i believe we had something like 13 in the 1st half, and 16 for the game. when we handle the ball, we play so much better. they had 22 TO's, which helps get our offense going. rebounding was/is a concern. they had 17 offensive boards and a 39-26 advantage overall. didn't kill us last night because we shot well, and had a BIG free-throw advantage (shades of Irvine). good win. 1500 isn't a great crowd, but hopefully saturday we have a much bigger lively crowd (early starts seem to draw a good turnout).

it would be a good move for Sac to get the Big Sky/Big West combo package. especially if we could get rid of Hawaii. Sac would be the NoCal partner (with us) for basketball roadtrips, like UOP use to be. much better league for them for all their olympics sports.

good for Coach Daft. I think his style will fit in well with the Ivy's. great opportunity for him.

i think Dan cautioned us about getting our hopes to high. he said something along the lines of 'to win the last game of the season, you have to run the ball, and be able to defend the run. well, we're not gonna be playing the last game of the season next year. so, we'll pass, be creative on offense and defense and build'. in other words, improve next year, and build up a program to be a consistent playoff team in the short term. at least, that's the message i heard.

one thing i liked in Dan's presentation was how he handled the question of injuries/depth. he was saying when he did TV, EVERY coach he talked to complained about 'depth, injuries, and playing freshmen', as if they were the only program in the world that had to deal with it. i think that's why they recruited athletes (he likes the term 'ballers') who can plug and play at multiple spots. you're always going to have key injuries -> prepare yourself to deal with them while minimizing the impact.

as for the questions about redshirts/grants.......i have no idea. that's the first i heard about either the FCS 100-man limit or the use of grants to help with partials, so i don't have any insights.

its been an exciting week to be an Aggie booster. the big comeback win on saturday along with the team aggie/alum reception. last night's event symbolizing a real change in culture. and the announcement of the return of ESPNU to the Pavilion. need to cap it with a basketball road sweep!

one more thing about the class: we went for speed, speed, speed, playmakers (we'll find you a position, we want the best 22 'ballers' on the field), speed, and versatility (lots of 2-way players, most are multi-sport kids).

did i mention speed? its a new game ('basketball on grass'), and this staff is trying to get the kids who can play that game

it was a really nice event. many former players (probably close to 10 from my 'era' back in the early 80's) which was great to see. we signed 32 BUT.....2 JC transfers are on campus, and 2 more are coming in spring so they can be counted against last year. 30 is the max at FCS, but, technically we're under the limit. sounds like between partials and some creative application of grants, we could cover the large in-flux. Hawk is jazzed about the kids here, the kids coming in and the future. its infectious. not many details about the game plan beside 'we're gonna throw the snot out of the ball' and 'we're gonna create turnovers on defense'. lots of motion, lots of formations, keep the offense simple (i guess the past offense was very west-coast like in the long play names and complexity). don't look for us to have a power run game (for now), and don't expect many 14-13 games (to the chagrin of Fred Arp!).

Staff introduced themselves; impressive group who are very excited about the class and the program.

Acting chancellor Hexler was there and was VERY excited about the event. when was the last time a chancellor showed up and showed genuine support.

big, big crowd. one of the staffers told me they expected 150, which is about 140 more than last year's event at the stadium.

apparently we can have 100 guys on the roster come fall by FCS rules. with incoming players, returners, walk-ons, we'll have 113......so, the kids will need to buckle up the chin straps and come out competing on day one!

where is the announcement for this? i didn't see it on the website.

can't figure out how we are signing so many, even with a handful of JC's. seems like we only graduated 15 or so last year, and have only heard of a few who may have left (not sure if they were on scholarship). maybe we'll get some insight tonight. should be a fun event!

In the East Bay Times today they had an article about NLI; there were 4-5 kids listed as signing with Davis from the East Bay. that's about 4-5 more than recent years!

i RSVP'd for Wednesday -> first signing day/preview i've attended. hoping the weather cooperates and makes my ride up and back reasonable.

really fun game to attend. good crowd that was loud throughout the 28-4 run that put us back in the lead, after trailing 18 in the first half. chima was very, very good in the 2nd half. once we reduced the turnovers, we got back in the game. kids went hard to the hoop and made the 'eaters pay with fouls and ALOT of free throws. good defense throughout. they held irvine scoreless the first few minutes of the 2nd half, allowing us to push the ball, and take the lead. looking forward to getting back up for a couple more games.

they had a team aggie reception between games and invited basketball alums and family to join. big turnout covering many years (we were sitting from a guy who played in 68, and near ryan howley). kevin blue and coach les addressed the crowd and gave really nice talks. les invited the alum into the team room for the final pregame talk, and that went over big with the former players. great event, and another example of how this regime is reaching out to the past to get them involved in the present.

UCR beat Hawaii 70-64 on Wednesday for their 4th straight win, putting them at 4-2 in the Big West. Eases the pain of this loss just a little bit. Yet another weird Big West campaign is off and running.

Nice win on the road (ocean?) against a pretty decent team. I'll be there on Saturday vs. Irvine. Hope the defense continues, and we are solid with the ball. Irvine looks to be on a roll.

that was both fun and agonizing to watch! the first 10 minutes looked like the Cal game where we were a bit overwhelmed with their length and quickness on defense. once we settled, and got the score to a point at the half, it felt like we could win IF we didn't revert to turnovers. good news is we handled the ball much better in the second half. back news? moneke's two fouls in about 30 seconds, both poor choices on him. but, they held on and should have won easily. a couple of misses on easy shots, some missed free throws and a couple of questionable calls (the one on Henn?) had us on our heels, but they pulled it out with some clutch plays (and weird last play by CSUN). nice bounce back.

Les seems much more calm on the bench this year, and the team seems to be responding by playing with a bit more freedom/flow on offense. if we handle the ball, we get good shots.

a couple observations watching the game, both from my wife:
1) announcing was not great. you'd have thought CSUN was 20-0 and we were 2-18, the way they talked about them getting back into a tie for the conference lead (they seemed to have penciled in a 'W' for CSUN early on and never waivered. they also called CSUN 'C-SUN' something like a million times. maybe one or two 'Matadors', never a 'Northridge'. after the millionth 'C-SUN', my wife said i'm glad their campus isn't in Covina.

2) she was enraged that they played the Andy Griffin theme song when SIlar shot free throws. it would be one thing if the students did it (if they had students show up), but over the PA? that's weak. in this PC world of ours, Silar was the only player on the floor that they could get away with joking about one's appearance like that! Red-head lives matter! She was calmed by the fact that he calmly knocked down all his free throws in the clutch! CLASS > NO CLASS.

i read something about one of the cal assistants getting a job at Ole Miss, and it got me to thinking about how the timing of this impacts THOSE guys. Dykes gets his $2M payout for not coaching, but these guys will be left scrambling for whatever jobs might still be out there. its a tough profession.

i heard Roxy Bernstein (he does alot of Cal broadcasting, along with his play-by-play on Pac12 network) on the a radio show yesterday and he was implying that the big push behind this was big donor discord, and a significant drop in season ticket renewals. I think the flirting with other jobs really hurt his connection with the alum, administration and players. He made it sound like it made sense to take a (hopefully) one-year hit in recruiting, instead of a multi-year hit in fan/donor interest that would probably come with Dykes sticking around through 2017. I guess that makes sense..but...why wait 2 months to come to that conclusion, unless it took months of negotiations with the administration to okay it?

i know UCSB is done this year (and maybe missing a couple guys) but i didn't see THIS coming. similar outing to last saturday in terms of defensive intensity (and integrity), good shot selection (and makes!), and solid ballhandling. we're deeper than i remember in the recent past, and can bring in guys who can defend and handle the ball -> so we shouldn't suffer long droughts, or give up big runs where we get sloppy. Be nice to follow up Saturday with another victory to get the conference off to a good start. hope for a bigger crowd, but don't expect it. students probably won't show in large numbers, and its supposed to rain heavy this weekend -> that will keep me from making the long drive up.