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BlueGoldAg
1.1kThe Ags open their 2019-20 season tomorrow when they travel to Chicago to play the Ramblers of Loyola-Chicago. Basketball fans will remember the Ramblers from their tremendous, Cinderella run in the NCAA Tournament 2 years ago when made it all the way to the Final 4 before losing to Michigan.
Tipoff is set for 5:05 pm PT at Gentile Arena (4,486) and the game is listed to be televised on ESPN3 and Scott Marsh will call the radio broadcast on KHTK 1140 am.
From the Ramblers website:
CHICAGO (November 3, 2019) - Loyola opens up the 2019-20 regular season Tuesday night when it welcomes UC Davis to Gentile Arena. Tuesday's game begins a season-opening stretch that will see the Ramblers play three of their first four contests at home. Loyola is coming off a 20-14 campaign in 2018-19, in which it captured a second straight Missouri Valley Conference regular-season title and earned a National Invitation Tournament (NIT) berth. Under head coach Porter Moser, Loyola is 7-1 in season openers, winning each of its last seven. All-time, the Ramblers are 79-22 (.782) in their first game of a season. Loyola has won 14 of its last 15 home openers, including each of the last 10. The Ramblers have won 20 of their last 23 home games versus nonconference opponents.
Loyola – UC Davis – The Series
Loyola and UC Davis are meeting for just the second time and the first since November 23, 2013, when the Aggies pulled out a 64-61 victory in overtime at the Portland State Tournament. In that contest, Devon Turk netted a team-high 17 points and Christian Thomas added 14 for the Ramblers, who let a four-point lead with 21 seconds left slip away. Loyola is 7-5 all-time versus current members of the Big West Conference.
Scouting UC Davis
UC Davis is coming off an 11-20 season in 2018-19 and will be looking to replace its top two scorers from a year ago - TJ Shorts (15.2 ppg) and Siler Schneider (10.4).
The Aggies' top returnee is Wauconda, Ill. native, Joe Mooney, who shot 38.8 percent (62-for-160) from three-point land last year and contributed 9.9 points per game. A 6-foot-3 senior guard, Mooney is the younger brother of former Texas Tech guard Matt Mooney. Junior center Matt Neufeld is back this season after tallying 7.8 ppg and shooting 54.7 percent (93-for-170) from the field in 2018-19.
A year ago, the Aggies, who are coached by former Bradley standout and Chicago native, Jim Les, went 0-7 in true road games in nonconference play. Les' 2019-20 squad will feature 10 new faces.
Go Ags! -
Oldbanduhalum
590Thanks BGA. Looking forward to another season. I wonder how many other teams in the nation have 4 5th year seniors (Mooney, Neufeld, Printup, Gonzalez) and still considered a young inexperienced team. After those 4, we only have Squire and Fuller who have ever step foot on a D1 court, and those were pretty limited minutes. It'll take some time to gel, but hopefully we'll see glimpses of a team that could compete with the big dogs in the BW. -
BlueGoldAg
1.1kI think this team has some real potential. We've got some good, experienced players with our 4 seniors to provide leadership. Mooney and Gonzalez can both be streaky shooters from deep. I'm hoping for more consistency from them. Neufeld began hitting his stride offensively last year but had trouble staying out of early foul trouble. We need more minutes on the floor from him. Printup is just a solid player all around. He can get hot from 3 but, generally, he's more of a tough defender and hustle player. This could be a good year for him to step up even more.
Squire has some big shoes to fill at PG but he's loaded with potential. He should be more of an all around player for us this year with the experience he has now under his belt. We'll need some production from our JC transfers too. Hopefully, they'll be able to come in and contribute well. Fuller looked promising early on last year and then just seemed to fade away. I think he was hampered with injuries. He's a big, strong guy and I hope he can adjust more to the American D1 game this year. We can use his size and strength. The wild cards are all the new players. Hopefully, we'll be pleasantly surprised with them. -
Firefan17
34I think the biggest thing for the team this year is simply not getting buried early in the non-conference schedule like last year. I firmly believe that all the tough losses early in the year took its toll on the team mentally and they were never able to dig out of that hole and get rolling and really feel good about themselves as a team. Just a little bit of positive reinforcement with a few wins early in the year this season will go a long way. I can't wait to tip it off!!! -
BlueGoldAg
1.1kWelcome to the AST Forum, Firefan17. I think you're completely right about how all the early losses affected the team emotionally last year. We had some great efforts against some power conference schools like Indiana, USC and Arizona, but a loss is still a loss and it took its toll after a while. The team was pressing, Les was unhappy and the many fans lost interest early.
This year's OOC schedule is more balanced yet still challenging especially the fact that we play 12 of our first 16 games on the road. I'd love to see us go at least 8-8 and head into the conference games with some confidence and momentum. There are a lot of unknowns about the team this year but I'm always an early season optimist and have my fingers crossed. Go Ags! -
BlueGoldAg
1.1kLoyola leads 12-8 with 14:31 to go in the first half. Ags getting beat off the Loyola drives and backdoor cuts.
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Firefan17
34Thanks for the welcome to the board, I've been a lurker for a while and figured it was time to join in! I live in Dallas so I don't get to see the team in person a ton, but I am able to stream most of their games one way or another. You're definitely right, the schedule is much more manageable than last year but still challenging with the high number of road games. I'd take an 8-8 start in a heartbeat, anything but last year where there seemed to be a black cloud over the team that it could never shake. I'm a big believer in Coach Les and I think he's going have the team ready to bounce back from last year and sneak up on the "top dogs" of the conference.
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BlueGoldAg
1.1k39-22 Ramblers at the half. The only bright spot so far for the Ags has been Neufeld with 11 points. Other than that...nada. Terrible interior defense...28 points in the paint for Loyola and 56% shooting overall. The other disappointing stat is 33% shooting for the Ags...including 1 of 11 from 3.
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Zander
180Shoot, nothing's worse than realizing a) I had the game time wrong and missed half of it and b) it might already be over. At least it didn't sound like I missed much.
Les will not be happy about lack of defense in the paint. Or about 3-pt shooting either, but that's an unlikely bad start that they'll rebound from. -
BlueGoldAg
1.1kWe struggled on offense a lot last year. We're getting decent looks but we are missing badly on a lot of shots. The team seems tight.
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Zander
180New 3 line might not be doing any favors either. Does Coach Les not do the thing where he has them shoot dozens of threes every practice anymore?
Had to turn it off because it was too painful to watch. Might be a one-off, or might just be that Loyola's really good. Or this could be a serious rebuilding year, which somehow we've managed to put off much longer than maybe we should have thanks to Shorts coming along. -
Oldbanduhalum
590Rough game. Some bright spots from Manjon peppers and Koehler but a lot of work to do on team defense. No where to go but up I guess. Didn’t see Harris so I guess he is red shirting
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DrMike
649Loyola is good. Final Four team two years ago and they have recruited well. It’s gonna be a struggle this year to find scoring, although I expect Mooney to shoot better (trying too hard in front of the home town fans?). Same with Gonzo. Hopefully the team defense will come around. Hard to beat a team that shoots 60%. Too many easy buckets -
BlueGoldAg
1.1kWe were soundly beaten in every phase of the game by a much, much better basketball team. I didn't expect to win but I didn't expect a complete beat down either.
Les builds his teams around defense but that was seriously lacking tonight. LOC owned the paint...58-28! I don't think I've ever seen a team score so many layups on backdoor cuts. Do we have any tough, interior defenders at all on this team? The Ramblers shot 56% for the game. Allowing 56% shooting will generally get you beat against anybody.
We typically struggle to score consistently and, unfortunately, we saw a lot of that tonight. Gonzalez and Mooney have to be able to score from the perimeter. They both struggled last year with consistency but TJ was able to fill in for them when they struggled. Now that TJ is gone...where is the scoring going to come from when Joe and Gonzo are ice cold?
Les was remarkably calm on the sideline and in the post-game interview. He said he that Loyola was just much more physical and aggressive and we just didn't respond. He wasn't happy with how we competed.
Bright spots: Neufeld's offense...beautiful, soft hook shots. I also thought that Manjon showed a ton of athletic potential and Pepper is going to be a baller for us. Manjon did leave the game late favoring his right knee after he landed awkward on a layup. -
Oldbanduhalum
590I thought my son was going to Explode watching that game. Seemingly no defensive adjustment at half to deal with the back cuts. Yeah I didn’t expect to win either but you would think we’d see changes once we saw how they were playing. I hope William Jessup isn’t too much for us Thursday
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BlueGoldAg
1.1kIronically, USF beat us by 34 at home last year in our home opener 76-42 and we lost tonight by 34.
And now for a shocker: Riverside just beat Nebraska on the road 66-47. It was the Cornhuskers first opener loss in 28 years...last time they lost a opener was 1981. Riverside is extremely athletic and can shoot the 3 as well. -
BlueGoldAg
1.1kLes said that they told the team that they had to be much more physical and aggressive on defending those back cuts but we didn't adjust and they kept us on our heels. He said Loyola was just cutting so hard and we just did play hard in return. A tough but good lesson for our young players. I'm just disappointed from what we saw from Mooney, Gonzalez and Printup. They have to provide leadership for this team along with Neufeld. Didn't see that tonight...
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SoCalAggie
43This is the worst team we have put on the court in the last few years. Definite rebuilding season. -
BlueGoldAg
1.1kThey have a long way to go for sure and, if we don't play a whole lot better, we could lose to Willam Jessop on Thursday. They stayed close last year until we pulled away late.
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BlueGoldAg
1.1kQuote from Les:
"(The Ramblers) did not play well in last week's exhibition game, and we talked to everyone about how they were going to start tonight's game with a higher level of intensity. We just did not respond well to that," said head coach Jim Les.
"Once we fell behind, we fell out of character … and started getting away from what we do."
https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2019/11/5/mens-basketball-neufeld-leads-aggies-in-season-opener-at-loyola-chicago.aspx -
BlueGoldAg
1.1kPost-game comments from Les from the Enterprise article:
“They were more physical, quicker to the ball and then we got out of character once they were kinda out-hustling and out-pacing us,” explained UCD coach Jim Les. “We started to get away from what we do.”
“That’s a really good team, but we didn’t put up much of a fight and that’s disappointing,” pointed out Les, now in his ninth year as Aggie head coach. “We’ve got great kids, we’ve got nice kids, but when you step between the lines, there’s an expectation of how we want to compete, and we really didn’t bring that.
“(The Ramblers) did not play well in last week’s exhibition game, and we talked to everyone about how they were going to start (Tuesday’s) game with a higher level of intensity. We just did not respond well to that.”
“A lot the credit goes to them … but with that being said, we can always man up and take a loss, but we have to put up some resistance — and our resistance was at a minimum tonight,” the Illinois native Les continued.
“(My players) are not going to like the film … not so much from an execution (standpoint), but from (a lack of) ‘Hey, I’m gonna compete; I’m gonna get after somebody. If someone gets physical with me, I’m going to get physical back.’ And we just didn’t respond to that.”
https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/aggie-men-stumble-in-lopsided-opener/
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