I'm sure that Jen and her staff take everything into consideration when they bring in a transfer and our transfers have often had significant, previous playing experience and some have been starters here from the get go. Examples of experienced transfers who came here and were starters immediately are Tess Sussman from Harvard this year and Mackenzie Trpcic from Albany from a couple of years ago. Players like this have no trouble fitting right in to the Aggie offense.

Other transfers are often players who the coaches see as having a lot of potential and still have enough eligibility left to develop significantly. Lena Svanholm from Colorado State and Victoria Baker from Irvine are examples of players like this. Svanholm suffered a knee injury before the season this year and it appears that she will miss the entire season. She was expected to be our 6'6 post this year. Baker is only a RFr and she's a dynamic fireball on the court and, although she isn't starting, she is brings energy and dogged determination to the floor when she enters the game. She may well work her way into being a starter in the future.

So, overall, I think our transfers have fit in very well to the system that Jen runs.

I've had a chance to watch most of the BW teams a bit in the past two weeks and here's how I would rank them at this point with plenty of room for teams moving up or down in the coming weeks.

UCSB and Irvine are most definitely the front runners and I'd give a slight edge to SB for having a small, overall talent advantage.

I'd place Riverside just a dab above the Aggies, Hawaii and Fullerton. Any games between this group of 4 will be an absolute dogfight.

Cal Poly is the sleeper in my opinion and could upset anybody on a given night with the rest of the teams being capable of creating some havoc of their own when they're having a good game.

Of course, there will be upsets along the way as the BW always seems to be quite balanced and competitive with lots of close battles between any two teams.

I watched the second half of Riverside's 1 point win at UCSB last week. They opened a double digit lead by shooting over 70% in the second half before barely hanging on for the win which was their first in 25 games played at UCSB.

What impressed me the most was that, although SB clearly had the edge in talent and size, the Highlanders were extremely disciplined and deliberate and they stuck to their game plan beautifully. They knew they couldn't get in an up and down game with SB and win so they slowed it down and worked the ball until they got a good shot and then nailed it. They were also doing a great job on the defensive boards. The only downside for them was a high number of turnovers which they managed to negate with their hot shooting. They will certainly be a tough out when they come to town on Thursday evening.

I think this game will be a very evenly matched contest. Our defense will need to be energetic and aggressive for the whole game in order to prevent the Highlanders from getting on a prolonged, shooting hot streak like they are capable of and we'll need to continue our remarkable rebounding while shooting a good percentage. We're getting some very good contributions from Rocak, Milling, and DeBruhl off the bench right now and we'll need that to continue as well.

The Ags are playing some of their best basketball of the year right now so this game should be a battle royale.

Hawaii 58 CSUN 51 - Final
Fullerton 76 Bakersfield 46 - Final

In other BW games:

UCSB 73 Irvine 66 - the Gauchos pull away in the final 2 minutes for the win at Irvine.
Fullerton 27 Bakersfield 19 at the half in Fullerton.
Hawaii 33 CSUN 17 at the half in Hawaii.

Totally agree that the TO's mostly due to TY and Eli trying force the ball into the lane or to the hoop. However, I don't think it's too wise to try and split 2 or 3 defenders who are collapsing on the ball and 6 quick hands slapping at the ball. You might get through on occasion or get fouled but the likelihood of a TO is quite high leading to a loss of possession.

We've had so many years when we got out rebounded often so it's so nice to see this team work the boards.

Nice comeback for the win by the Aggies after a lackluster first half being down 7. We had 15 offensive boards...incredible! Milling and DeBruhl are really contributing coming off the bench. Only downside to this win is too many TO's by our guards: Johnson had 6 and Pepper had 5. Fortunately, it didn't hurt us too much but it could against the top BW teams.

I really liked listening to the the Triton announcers. They had a lot of good things to say about the Aggies during the game which was nice to hear instead of the usual homers. They both said they feel like the Ags are a team that could contend with the top of the BW.

This is a very fun team to watch and we have a huge game next Thursday when Riverside comes to town.

The Ags lose a tough one 65-63 to San Diego with 1.7 seconds to go on an inbounds play when the Aggie defense broke down and the Titans made an easy layup. Hard way to lose a back and forth game.

41-35 San Diego at the half.

Down 37-30 at the half. We look either tired and/or uninspired or both. 9 TO's already: TY has 5 and Pepper has 3. You really can't have your guards turning the ball that much. I hope we come to life in the second half.

In other BW action today:

Poly at Riverside at 5 pm
Santa Barbara at Irvine at 6 pm
Bakersfield at Fullerton at 7 pm
CSUN at Hawaii at 7 pm

Thanks for the head up, Mike.

The schedule for these last 3 games is unusual: CSUN las Thursday, then home Saturday against Fullerton and now down to San Diego. That's a lot of up and down the state and, like you said, an empty gym with and odd start time could be problematic. This team is coming along nicely right now so I'm hopeful for a 4th BW win in a row.

The following is part of a post by zer21 over on the Big West Boards Men's BB Forum and I think it's an accurate evaluation of the the Hawaii fans in general:

We might have the saltiest fan base in the Big West, theyre going to complain about every call cause thats what they do. I doubt it will ever change.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/bigwest/1-14-games-t26996-s20.html

Quotes from the Enterprise:

Aggie head coach Jim Les credited his team’s physical presence on offense down the stretch as the difference in the second half.

“I think we were aggressive on the offensive boards and getting second chances,” Les said.

“Getting those second possessions was critical. It was an exciting Big West game where we made a lot of winning plays, and those plays came from a lot of different places. I love the resolve of this team.”

Taylor, the Fullerton coach, played two seasons with the Aggies and was a teammate of current UCD assistant coach Kevin Nosek.

He was disappointed in the loss, but gracious in defeat.

“When you’re on the road, the margin for error is very small,” Taylor said.

“That was Big West basketball out there, with both teams fighting and scraping. We turned it over too many times and their offensive rebounds gave them too many second chances.”

https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/basketball-pepper-sprinkles-free-throws-for-aggies-victory/

Hawaii 79 Long Beach State 70 - Final

Hawaii pulls it out in the last 2 minutes in a wild, physical game and, of course, with the typical rowdy Hawaii crowd making their feelings known very loudly.

LB is extremely long and athletic and they play fast and push the ball hard up the court on nearly every possession. The had 50 points in the paint but their defense was undisciplined. The next game between these two teams in LB is going to be a war. They don't seem to like each other very much.

Hawaii 30 LB 27 at the half.

LB had travel problems and didn't check into their hotel until 4 a.m, I would imagine they are a weary team.

Riverside just upset UCSB 65-64 for their first win in the last 25 games they've played at Santa Barbara.

It was a heck of a game with Riverside playing very deliberately while shooting over 70% for most of the second half and built an 11 point lead with 3 minutes to go before the Gauchos went on a 13-2 run in the last 3 minutes to take the game down to the wire.

Other scores:

Irvine 71 CSUN 57
Bakersfield 56 San Diego 52
Long Beach at Hawaii is just now getting underway.

My wife and I finally made it to our first game of the New Year after coming down with Covid over the holidays. Great win for the Aggies in really tough, evenly matched basketball game.

Fullerton and the Aggies are similar teams in many ways. Neither has great size, both get contributions from a lot of players and both teams play hard, physical defense so it was no surprise that this game went down to the wire. The Ags got nice contributions from everyone who took the floor. This was a solid, unselfish team win for the Aggies.

Anigwe and Rocak both had two fouls very early in the game and I thought that would be big trouble for us but Les really managed it masterfully by swapping those two in and out every 3 or 4 minutes and neither picked up their 3rd until the second half.

DeBruhul is really giving us some good minutes each game now. Pepper's 3's weren't dropping but then you look up and he's 29 points and his FT's iced the game. Johnson's 3 point play and Anigwe's put back were huge in the finally 2 minutes and Ade's boards were big as well.

This team thrives off their defense and it's really a fun to watch them communicating, switching, helping out on the weak side and just being so doggedly determined. You have to be in really good physical condition to play that hard on defense throughout the game and still have some legs left for offense at crunch time. We're going to be in a lot of games like this and it will be our defense that keeps us close.

The official attendance was 1247. Not great but certainly the biggest crowd of the season and there was good energy in the house too. That number should go up if we keep putting up some W's.

Poor shooting has hurt the Aggies in the games where they have been soundly defeated and, unfortunately, today's loss to the Titans, 67-51, was another cold shooting affair for the Ags. 32% shooting overall and a dismal 6-25 from 3 for 24% won't put you in a position to win very often. Fullerton shot 52% overall and 60% from 3 to win it easily.

The LB at Poly game scheduled for yesterday was canceled due to flooding in San Luis Obispo.