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Toke69
497The Highlanders and the Roadrunners are fighting it out for tenth place in the Big West, but Aggie fans should be quick to recall when the Ags lost at home to Bakersfield back on January 3 and not take this game too lightly. UCR has lost to some very good teams: UCLA, BYU, New Mexico and UC Irvine, not to mention an unsung St. Thomas which is 15-5. They have a very good new coach in Gus Argenal who has moved up from CSU San Bernadino which he has taken them to the Division 2 final four. Some fans will remember that he played for UC Davis from 1999 to 2004 and still holds the school record for assists in one game with 14. He was also briefly an assistant coach under Gary Stewart. He has had to deal with a completely new roster which helps explain the team’s record, but Coach Argenal has made good use of the transfer portal. The six players with the most playing time come from such programs as Massachusetts, Utah Valley State and Montana State. Their poor record in the Big West—four straight losses prior to last week’s win over Fullerton-- is most likely a reflection of the time it takes to integrate players from such disparate backgrounds.
The most important additions are guards #12 Andrew Henderson from Division 2 Sonoma State. He is currently fourth in the league in scoring with a 16.2 ppg average. His backcourt mate, De’Undrae Perteete, Jr. is a diamond in the not so rough, having been the PacWest freshman of the year last season at Westmont. This year, he has hit an amazing 61.7% (but only 34 attempts) from the 3-point line. He left in the first half of the UCLA game on December 23 and on his return on Thursday, he scored zero points in 15 minutes. He might be back in form against UCD. The point guard is Marqui Worthy Jr.,#10, their second leading scorer and assist leader.
The two starting forwards are 6’ 9” Osiris Grady (#9) and 6’10” B J Kolly (#80). They do much of the heavy lifting off the boards both averaging over 5 rpg. but judging from the stats the whole team crashes the glass. Grady also pours in 12.6 ppg. The only other player who gets significant court time is forward Jailen Daniel-Dalton, who contributes well at both ends of the court. This reveals a possible problem for Coach Gus: lack of depth. He usually only puts six players on the floor and with Perteete back, maybe seven and three of their starters average well over 30 minutes a game. The Aggies should win this one even if they trail early. -
Toke69
497In all three of those games the Ags led at the half or shortly after the half by 7 to 10 points and lost. In two of those games they had defensive let downs. Versus Cal Poly they allowed 30 in the first half and 54 in the second. Versus the Tritons it was even worse, 25 and 55. Bakersfield was slightly different in that they had a guy who scores less than 10 per game go off for 35. Sightly different because they never were able to defend him even after the half. Note, too that against Fullerton we won, but gave up 45 in the latter half as opposed to allowing only 24 in the first. In all four cases the question is why? We saw them play very good defense against both UCSB and UCI. It's up to Coach Les to figure this out.
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Toke69
497Hope the Aggies don't have second half let down. They showed some signs of it near the end of tghe first half, giving up an 8 point run by UCR and missing a lot of shots. At the half, they have tgwice as many assists, 3 fewer turnovers and 5 more rebounds than the Highlanders
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Toke69
497Too close for comfort. It's beginning to look like opposing coaches are trying to be physical with our guards to take advantage of their relatively small size. Their #10, worthy, was getting easy layups against Sevilla, but then he stopped. I think it was because Niko Rocak was shading his man to the left to help out with Worthy who has 4 inches and 40 pounds over Conner. Too bad they didn't use that against UCSD.
It was nice to hear Scott mention Gordon Baranco who was the Ags point guard when I was an undergrad. I still remember a tight game at Sac State when the Hornets were fouling to try to cut into our slim lead. Coach Hamilton kept the ball in Gordie's hands and they kept fouling him and he kept making the free throws. Aggies won, 73-67 -
69aggie
416Was that the same game where John frost was decked by a sac guy is the back court. Which I saw with my own eyes and was never called a four. I later knew that guy who was an insurance agent in sac.
When I confronted him about this he totally ignored the question. 1967? Or so. Why do some memories never die
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abridge
154As I watched the game today I saw us lose the snappy passing and start dribbling more and more. That doesn't suit us. Fagbemi is especially dribble-happy and it seems to infect the rest of the team.
But it's Nico that really makes the Aggie team - when he's out there he's taking care of business - directing players but in a positive way. He contributes more than the stats show. -
DrMike
1.1kAnother head scratching second half. We go through a period where the offense just stagnates and we let teams back in. Today it was around the 12 minute mark when it looks like we’d put it away, but, like abridge said, the offense slows WAY DOWN and they sneak back in. Hold them to 25 in the first, followed by 41 in the 2nd! They gotta figure that out.
Riverside is really bad. That’s a game we should have en by 15 or so.
Wilson is in the doghouse. Les ripped him in the final few minutes if Thursday’s game, and he sat him most of the second half tonight. Feels like he’s gets the blame for the team’s deficiencies. We’re better with him out there, although Brendan is a terrific defender. -
Toke69
497One point that needs noting is the quality of officiating in this game. I thought it was pretty poor. The refs missed a few and made a few "phantom" calls as well. Those who were at the game might have noticed it too, but on TV, the replays made the errors very apparent.
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DrMike
1.1kfunny, I was thinking this crew had less of an impact than most. I didn’t recognize any of the officials in this crew - I wonder if they are a new team which led to some coverage problems? My biggest complaint was that they went to replay ALOT and took a really long time to determine what should have been a straightforward call (there was a questioned 3 of theirs that comes to mind). Those tend to suck the energy out of a crowd with little energy to start (we need a student leader!!)
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DrMike
1.1kBy the way, the negativity of my post game wrap up was due to be written right after we got home. Our normal - 1 and 1/4 hour drive turned into close to 2 3/4! 80 west was its normal Saturday parking lot so my wife decided to take the slightly longer (10 minutes) backroad through Dixon, Rio Vista, Antioch. Great plan ……until a crash on the two lane Rio Vista Bridge! Backtrack the back way to Fairfield and back on 80/680. All I could think was had we blown them out, they wouldn’t have started fouling with 3 minutes, and I’d have been past the accident and in a much better mood!
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abridge
154At least one of the officials is a Big West regular - I've seen him for several seasons. The others I'm not so sure about.
I just shrug about officiating unless it egregious. This game wasn't that. The officiating seemed consistent over the course of the game. I hate when the officials go into the half and come out with an entirely new theory about how to call the game. THAT just does't work for me. Unless, and it's a big unless, they lost control of the game in the first half and are trying to re-establish some player boundaries. That shouldn't happen often, however.
I watched the UCSD-UCI game and the announcers were applauding the officials for "just letting them play." Which always makes me ask: "Why have rules if we're not going to enforce them?"
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