I think we still have to wait and see how good this team might become. The loss to Sac State was the low point of the season so far. Then they showed they can be pretty good in the loss to Indiana and the team seems to be playing better as a cohesive unit on both ends of the floor since then. We shot the ball much better last night but we also missed way too many wide open 3's.

The next few games are going to be very telling as to whether or not this upswing is here to stay or not. With road games at Northern Illinois, USC, Arizona and undefeated Loyola Marymount coming up it's not going to be easy to get many wins and we could easily be 4-10 entering conference play. I hope that won't be the case and they'll surprise a few of these good teams.

Then we open conference play at Irvine and the Anteaters are the cream of the crop in the Big West. We'll be thoroughly battle tested by then and we won't be intimidated by anyone in the conference after all the tough teams we've already played. Irvine and Santa Barbara are clearly the top teams in the Big West so far but, as usual in this conference, I expect it will be a dogfight for the title and we might just surprise folks if we continue to get better.

Les played a lot of combinations tonight and most everyone contributed. TJ is so much fun to watch. He's so quick and really controls the floor when he has the ball. Fuller continues to get better and I thought Siler played pretty well for the minutes he got. Neufeld had some nice moves in the paint but isn't as agile a defender as Goode. Gonzalez had an off night and AJ's shot was not dropping again and we missed an awful lot of wide open 3's tonight.

Our ball movement on offense was really good and I thought our defense was pretty consistent and we forced 19 TO's. One thing for sure with Les is that if you make a defensive mistake or two, you are most likely coming out of the game.

Up next is a tough road game at Northern Illinois. I hope we can finally get a road W but we'll need to play even better than we did tonight for that to happen agains the Huskies.

Nice to see the Ags shooting 56%. TJ doing his thing and Fuller getting better all the time. AJ missing badly though. Need to come out strong and stretch the lead in the second half. Small crowd.

I forgot about Gonzalez. He's a solid competitor and we need him to be able to shoot from the outside. It seems like we have enough players who are able to knock down perimeter shots so, to be shooting so poorly, was surprising.

Good points. Siler is a streaky shooter and Les gives him the green light to continue gunning even when his shot is not falling. He has struggled to score at a good percentage this year. We need him to come around offensively and we haven't seen much of that at all so far this year. Les keeps him on the floor even when he's cold because he's such a hard-nosed competitor and is fearless regardless of the situation in the game.

I think we need to get significant contributions from Caleb Fuller and Matt Neufeld for this team to become a contender in the conference. We need some offfensive firepower and everyone has struggled to put the ball in the hoop with any consistency this season. The first half of the Indiana game showed me that the team can play well offensively and the reemergence of AJ was encouraging.

Hahaha...and you could sneak a peek at the XXX drive in you were out that way! :scream:

Hahaha...I remember those days when a bunch of us kids would spend half the evening trying to find someone over 21 willing to buy us some beer...

I hope that forecast holds. It would be a bummer if rain kept the fans away.

Any idea if their will be food trucks in the tailgate area prior to the game?

Bob Dunning: Come on out for the Aggies’ big day

Aggie Stadium seats nearly 11,000 people and it would be shame if there were even a single empty seat come game time Saturday … game time, incidentally, is 4 p.m., which gives everyone a chance to shop till they drop at the Farmers Market, attend your kid’s soccer game, then pack up a picnic lunch and bring it to the stadium … yes, they allow outside food these days, so you may as well take advantage …

The game will be over around 7 p.m. if you wish to save your appetite for your favorite restaurant or prefer to go home and order a pizza … tickets are just 10 bucks, which is a steal by anyone’s standards these days … UC Davis officials have intentionally kept the cost low in the hope that a loud, raucous, sold-out stadium will give our local heroes the oft-cited home field advantage against the visitors from Northern Iowa …

https://www.davisenterprise.com/local-news/dunning/bob-dunning-come-on-out-for-the-aggies-big-day/

Morgan Bertsch and Kourtney Eaton are about to enter the top of two more UCD basketball records:

With her performance, Bertsch now needs just 12 more points to pass Audwin Thomas, a four-year letter winner for the men’s basketball team from 1975-79, to become the all-time leading scorer in UC Davis men’s and women’s basketball history, while Kourtney Eaton is now five assists away from matching head coach Jennifer Gross for the all-time Aggie record

https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/ucd-womens-rally-falls-short-against-loyola/

I watched the game and the Hoosiers were never in it from the start. Duke steamrolled them from the get go. Duke's Zion Williamson threw down one of the most thunderous dunks I've ever seen too:

I know exactly the play you mentions and it was the nail in the coffin. We were down 3 with maybe a minute and a few ticks left when we forced a missed 3 with good D and then, instead of going to the ball assertively, we stood there flat-footed. An LMU player came up aggressively from behind and snatched the ball away from an Aggie. It happened like that all too often in this game.

There's a long way to go yet this season but we need to find some offensive weapons on this team. Bertsch, arguably the best offensive player the Aggies have ever had, and she's essentially carrying the team offense with some help from Bessolo. Our opponents are going to focus hard on shutting her down especially when they do not think the Ags have much reliable offense behind her.

LMU beats the Ags 60-53 and fall to 2-4 for the season. The story of this game was that the Lions were the more aggressive team and the stats don't lie: they won the offensive boards 22-5 which resulted in 22 2nd chance points. They competed hard for the ball while the Ags lost one offensive board after another.

Two other areas that the Ags are struggling with are 3 point shooting and a lack of offensive scoring balance. Outside of Bertsch and Bessolo no one is scoring with any consistency. We were shooting 27% from 3 on the year coming into this game and today we shot 22%. Bertsch and Bessolo are the only two Ags averaging double figures and, after that, Cierra McKeown averages 5.2 ppg.

Our bench production has been anemic. We have not seen the offense that I'm sure Jen Gross had hoped for from Konrad, Toole and Stobbart so far and Cierra Hall, who is a great defender and rebounder, struggles getting shots to fall.

Offensive rebounding has always been the Achilles heel of the Aggies. It's hard to know why Jen Gross' teams are generally not good rebounding teams. Even last year's outstanding team got beat on the boards with regularity. We field good size but we tend to stand around flat-footed and get beat to the ball on the boards.

Last year's team would win games like these despite the rebounding woes though because they shot the ball well from downtown. This year's team does not shoot the ball well from 3 and, hence, they are losing games that last year's team would win. We'll have to wait and see if anyone other than Bertsch and Bessolo can bring some offensive balance to the team and whether Gross can will her troops to play more aggressively on the boards.

Video feed is down and the Ags fall behind quickly 46-42 to start the 4th. We really struggle to shoot the ball from the outside.

I'm sure that the Bee has more employees who have attended Sac St than Davis.

27-26 LMU at the half. The Ads are fortunate to only be down one at the half. LMU has been the aggressor and out rebounded the Ags by 11 boards which has resulted in 16 2nd chance points for the Lions. We are 2-12 from 3. No Cierra McKeown or Makaila Sanders on the bench either.

The Ags are being totally outplayed in the last 5 minutes. LMU turned up the pressure and the Ags have gotten ragged with the ball. We've seen that too often this season where the Aggies get lackadaisical and unfocused.

Ags lead 17-13 after the first quarter in a fast paced game.

Ok..I just donated $15 more so I hope that funds us completely. Thanks for your administrative support, PortlandAggie.

Thanks for coming over and writing such an informative post about UNI. When I think of the dominate programs in FCS history I think of UNI being right up near the top with NDSU.

Quite frankly, I'm not sure how we will fare against the Panthers for many of the reasons that you noted about the talent you have. I'm worried about the battle in the trenches with the size and skill of the UNI offensive and defensive lines. The Panthers could control the tempo of the game if we get pushed around a lot at the LOS on both sides of the ball.

How well our O line is able to protect Maier will be a key for the Aggies. Maier is a great field general who makes good decisions but he isn't particularly mobile. He does have the uncanny ability to throw the ball with good accuracy from just about any position his body is in when he is under pressure. However, he will also throw the ball into tight coverage when he's under duress. Luckily for us, it results in a completion more often than not since our WR's have consistently made great catches in traffic this season. However, throwing a pick or two against a team like UNI, who likes to control the clock when they get ahead, could be very tough for the Ags. We thrive on moving the ball quickly and scoring a bunch and we'll need to do that to win on Saturday.

Defensively, we tend to be a bend don't break team. We'll be severely challenged to slow down the Panthers' running game. We've been decent in our run defense this year but we haven't faced many teams with size and talent of the the UNI O line. I would think that the Panthers would be happy as a clam to run the ball at 4-7 yards a pop. Even though we bend on defense we have done a pretty good job of creating TO's this year and our LB's and DB's are very capable of making big plays.

On our behalf, we have great talent at the skill positions and we can score with lightening speed through the air and on the ground. I expect Maier will be pressured and will have to get the ball out quickly to our receivers and RB's. We have a bevy of players who can catch the ball and gain yards after the catch. We love to get the ball to our RB's in the flats and then let them do their thing in space. I don't expect we'll see many bombs attempted by the Aggies. It will be more of Maier finding receivers in the flats and in the seams on quick hitters and short to medium routes.

We also have a good stable of RB's who have speed and quickness. Gilliam is especially elusive and can cut and juke on a dime. Thomas has great speed for his size and can break tackles with his power. Modise hits the hole fast and can accelerate quickly. If we can establish a good running attack we'll be tough to stop once the offense gets rolling.

With all that said, the key of the game for me is who will win the battle of the lines in the trenches and who will make the fewest mistakes.

This game has all the makings of a good one.