No news is good news, I hope??

Some of the Big West fans over on the Big West Boards Forum are convinced that Jim Les took advantage of the "no contest" rule to cancel the game against Fullerton so that we could maintain our current 6th place standing rather than playing the game and risking a "sure loss." I think that's total bunk but it's not worth trying to reason with those folks who have their minds already made up.

Other Big West Games on Saturday:

Fullerton at Bakersfield 1 pm
CSUN at Long Beach 3 pm
Santa Barbara at San Diego 7 pm
Irvine at Hawaii 7 pm

Current Big West Standings:

1. UC Irvine 13-4 20-9
2.UC Riverside 13-5 20-10
3. UC Santa Barbara 12-5 21-7
4. Hawai'i 11-6 20-9
4. Cal State Fullerton 11-6 17-12
6. UC Davis 9-7 16-12
7. Long Beach State 9-8 15-14
8. CSU Bakersfield 6-11 10-18
9. UC San Diego 5-12 10-19
10. CSUN 4-14 7-22
11. Cal Poly 1-16 7-22

Irvine came back from 22 down in the second half to pull within 4 with 1:29 to go before running out of gas.

Riverside 54 Hawaii 52 Final

54-41 Fullerton at the end of the third quarter.

Really disappointing defense by the Aggies in the first half.

The Titans roar out of the gate and take a 26-11 lead at the end of the first quarter.

There's an interesting discussion going on over on the Big West Boards Men's Basketball forum where some folks feel like Aggies may be taking advantage of the Big West "no contest" rule. The general thinking is that the rule makes it easy for a team like the Aggies to simply cancel the game without penalty rather than play it with a depleted roster.

So, they essentially saying that if the Ags had to take a loss via a forfeit, they might be more inclined to show up and play the game with a depleted roster rather than to cancel it without penalty. In other words, the Ags can escape what is likely a "sure loss" and their decision to cancel can then negatively affect other teams in the overall standings and in the Big West Tournament seeding since they don't have an opportunity to get a probable "sure win" against the Aggies.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/bigwest/uc-davis-why-are-you-copying-us-that-s-our-strateg-t27192.html

Well that sucks.

We were getting quite thin with injuries to Beasley, Losé and Anigwe and I saw Milling grabbing at his taped leg although he finished the game. It could be a combination of injuries and illness. I hope it's not Covid. I wouldn't be surprised to see Poly game cancelled on Saturday as well now.

From the Davis Enterprise:

San Diego head coach Eric Olen, whose team is in the third year of a four-year transition from Division II to Division I and is ineligible for the conference title this season, had high praise for the Aggie effort.

“Davis really impacted us with their defense and their physicality,” said Olen.

“We felt pretty good at halftime (trailing 33-31), but we just weren’t able to get over the hump. We knew they were a very good team and they showed it.”

https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/basketball-uc-davis-men-win-despite-bad-shooting/

Other Big West games on Thursday:

Long Beach at Santa Barbara 7 pm
San Diego at Irvine 7 pm
Bakersfield at CSUN 7 pm
Riverside at Hawaii 9 pm

Current Big West standings:

1. UC Irvine 13-3 20-8
2.UC Riverside 12-5 19-10
2. UC Santa Barbara 11-5 20-7
4. Hawai'i 11-5 20-8
5. Cal State Fullerton 11-6 17-12
6. UC Davis 9-7 16-12
6. Long Beach State 9-7 15-13
8. CSU Bakersfield 6-10 10-17
9. UC San Diego 4-12 9-19
10. CSUN 3-14 6-22
11. Cal Poly 1-16 7-22

These "official' attendance figures are baffling to me. 1700 seems low to me from what I saw.

Wow...the portal is becoming the primary recruiting source for many teams who feel like they can quickly increase their overall talent and build their program. Look at what Taylor did at Sac utilizing the portal and JC transfers heavily. We're seeing this in college hoops also.

No worries, Toke, you're doing just fine. It's a group effort here!

Other final scores in the Big West today:

Irvine 59 Poly 56 (Irvine came back from 10 down in the 2nd half to win it in the final minute)
Riverside 96 CSUN 74
Fullerton 74 Santa Barbara 60
Hawaii 61 Bakersfield 50

Toke, we won the first game against Fullerton 83-79. Beasley had 23 and TY had 20 for a combined 43 points.

This was a good win for the Aggies over a team that's much better than their overall record.

It was interesting listening to Les in the post-game. He was really happy with how the Ags just kept grinding. He said the team was tired from all the travel and games since last Thursday and, with Losé and Beasley injured and TY out most the game with foul trouble, he needed everyone to step up and they did. He said we got good minutes from Rocak and Manu and was especially happy with how DeBruhl and Milling stepped up. He also noted how team came out aggressive on defense to start the second half and got us going on the right foot.

We got off to a quick start and then went cold. The Tritons’ zone is making tough for us.

Attendance is much better than I expected with a good student turnout.