Jalen Canty, UCSB's 6'8 big man, has been indefinitely suspended also and it is unknown if he will play on Thursday either.

Coach Les says that the win over Long Beach may be the greatest game in his experience.

Excerpt from today's Davis Enterprise:

Jim Les says he has played in, coached or simply watched a great number of basketball games in his life, but he’s not sure any of them can top UC Davis’ 105-104 double-overtime road win Saturday night at Long Beach State.

“It’s certainly in the conversation as the greatest game in my experience,” said the Aggie head coach, who played collegiately at Bradley and then seven years in the NBA (including four with the Sacramento Kings).

The dramatic win was sealed when point guard T.J. Shorts II hit a running 3-pointer with 1.9 seconds left after Long Beach had taken a 104-102 lead with 6.4 seconds remaining.

Joe Mooney started the play with a pinpoint in-bound strike to Rogers Printup near midcourt. Printup responded with a perfect bounce pass to the streaking Shorts, who took it in stride and raced downcourt uncontested before launching the game-winning shot.

“We run that play in practice every day and it never works,” said Les with a knowing laugh. “But the attention to detail on that play was fantastic. Rogers’ pass hit T.J. perfectly.”

Shorts pulled up just behind the 3-point arc even though the path to the basket was relatively clear for a layup that would have tied the game and sent things into a third overtime.

“I probably would have gone for the layup at that point, but these guys are way smarter than I am,” Les said.

“They’re UC Davis students. I’m glad they didn’t listen to the coach. I saw T.J.’s shot go up and I thought it looked pretty good. It’s got a chance.”

Shorts said he never considered anything but the trey, given that three of his teammates were out of the game with five fouls.

“There was no way we were going to go into a third overtime,” Shorts allowed. “We were going to end it right there.”

https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/a-coach-led-team-can-be-good-a-player-led-team-can-be-great-ucds-jim-les/

Great job, CA Forever!

Great video story on Chima!

I like it that Hawkins is mining the Sacto area and landing some impressive recruits. That should also help us promote Aggie football in the area and will bring more fans across the causeway too.

Honestly, I would prefer a play-in game than a 16 seed also. Playing a #1 seed is pretty much a guaranteed trouncing. Last year we were all delighted to see us win the play-in game and we got a ton of national publicity from it.

I haven't been able to find anything so far.

You're absolutely right about the impact of potentially not having Chima for the BW tournament. The win over LB and Lamar without him says a lot about the character of this team but we're a different team without him and it would be a huge loss. I'm hoping we'll see him back on the floor soon.

It's fun to speculate and I'd be happy if we were a 15 seed. A 16 seed has never beaten a #1 seed but eight 15 seeds have upset a #2 seed.

I think it's far too early, Toke69. We still have 7 conference games to play and 2 of those are against UCSB who may be the odds on favorite at the moment. We may also be without Moneke for who knows how long...? Then there's the brutal Big West Tournament which will decide who goes to the NCAA tournament. We're still a one bid conference so even if we win the BW title we won't go to the NCAA tournament unless we win the BW tourney.

This was the most assertive that I've ever seen him on offense and I hope it continues. I've always been a bit puzzled as to why he seems to struggle so much when it comes to scoring the ball. Chima goes out and all of a sudden Goode steps up....

Thanks Toke69. I fixed the link. I had to do a different copy method to get the link to work. Strange...never had that problem before...something was wonky with the first link.

Some recognition for these guys stepping up:

Garrison Goode - career high 14 points including 8-11 from the line and 6 boards. It was so great to see how aggressive he was in the paint. Chima was out and he really stepped into the void.

Rogers Printup - 13 points on 5-7 from the field and 3 boards.

Siler Schneider - 27 points on 10-17 from the field and 7-7 from the line and 4 rebounds.

Michael Onybalu - career high 11 boards.

Total team win!

Comments from Coach Les after the game (excerpt from the Davis Enterprise):

(Regarding Moneke's suspension)

“It’s indefinite right now,” explained UCD head coach Jim Les, who added he didn’t know for how long. “And the release kind of speaks for itself. What I like is these guys didn’t hang their heads. I talked to them about the foundation of our culture. It’s tested when you have adversity."

“And I thought it was tested,” Les continued. “It brought our guys together, not broke them apart. And that tells you the character of this team.”

https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/heart-stopper-at-long-beach-won-by-aggie-men-despite-monekes-suspension/

Here's a classy post-game interview with LB Coach Dan Monson and a brief interview their star player, Gabe Levin, who scored 45 points:

https://youtu.be/3ct1Wd42GiE

I wish we had post-game videos like this after each game.

I love that video!

Nice post, SoCalAg. My wife said the same thing about Les out coaching Monson in the game. Les knew that Monson was probably going to try and double TJ if he got the initial inbound pass and designed a play with that in mind.

If you replay the video of the final 6.9 seconds it looks like LB was set up in a 2-2-1 zone press alignment with 6'8 Jordan Roberts and 6'3 Deishuan Booker guarding the area in front of Joe Mooney who was going to inbound the ball. Monson was betting that the Ags would try get the ball to TJ and let him take it to the rim. He wanted Roberts and Booker to double team and trap TJ if he got the ball. Les thought that might happen so he let TJ be a decoy as he raced in front of Booker and Roberts. As that was happening, Mooney made a deep pass into Printup while TJ was curling around those two defenders and was flying up the left sideline. Printup then made a nice pass to TJ who was now at full speed and the rest is history. Really smart coaching by Les and brilliant execution by the Aggies!

For anyone who wasn't able to watch the game and for all the fans who just want to see the game again, you can watch the entire game replay here:

http://www.espn.com/watch/_/id/3252368/uc-davis-vs-long-beach-state-m-basketball

A quote from Bruce Weber - Head Coach Kansas State;

"The biggest thing, and the hardest thing, to judge is the heart. You can have the athleticism, you can have the skillset, but if you don’t have the heart and if you’re not a student of the game, then you don’t have the complete package."

More than anything, the players on this Aggie team have HEART...

We finished the game with 5 guards on the floor and 3 of them had 4 fouls. Thank God the game didn't go into a 3rd OT. We cold have ended up playing 2 on 5!