#19 South Dakota 23 #4 SDSU 20 Final
#1 Sam Houston State 48 Eastern Kentucky 28 Final
#8 Villanova 33 Stony Brook 14 Final
#3 Montana State 20 Idaho 13 Final

Montana State is going to win this game 20-13. They just got the ball on downs in the final minute.

Those are great numbers for Sage and Hall had 5 boards. You're right though, where was the rest of the teams when it came to the boards?

No one else had more than one rebound. Sage is great when the ball comes of the board near her and she's in good position but the Gaels where getting the 50/50 balls that came off the rim wide. It looked like they just went after those balls harder than us.

Jen can use this for a teaching moment for this team because St Mary's exposed the current weaknesses that the Aggie need to work on especially rebounding. St Mary's won the game by out rebounding the Ags 42-27 of which 13 were offensive boards which led to 10 second chance points to only 2 for the Aggies. That's the difference in the ball game right there. Rebounding is a combination of blocking out, physicality and determination and St Mary's did it better than the Aggies.

The Gaels also locked down on defense when it counted. They got themselves back into the game when they were 11 down and the Ags relaxed on defense and got out hustled on rebounds. They forced 3 Aggie TO's in the final 1:38 and held the Ags to 1 of 7 shooting in the final 3 minutes. In short, they closed out the game.

Even though we lost, I thought there was a lot of improvement overall by the Ags except in rebounding. There was better ball movement on offense and stretches of very good defense, They can build on that. These two teams seem to battle like this each year and the Gaels executed better when it counted the most this year.

#5 NDSU 49 Youngstown State 17 Final

The Ags need to tighten up their defense. Poor rebounding early but doing much better now, This game will probably go down to the wire.

I would think that it has more to do with other schools having already established their non-conference schedules than anything else.

The reported hazing is so lurid and disturbing that it's getting a lot of media attention and it's really a black eye for the program. It's going to take a long time for the program to recover. Hopefully, the program will come back better and more competitive.

Comments from Coach Les:

Aggie coach Jim Les, who picked up his 300th victory between coaching stints at Bradley and UC Davis, was high in his praise of Anigwe.

“I challenged him before the game that we need him to be a double-double guy for us,” Les said. “He has such great versatility, and when he plays like that it gives everyone a little more confidence.”

“I loved our start,” Les added. “Our attention to detail and our aggressiveness on defense was impressive. We set the tone right at the beginning. The challenge, of course, is to maintain that edge from starters to bench and back to starters.”

“I really like this group,” he said. “They’re allowing us to coach them and they’re practicing well and performing well in games. I’m not going to say I’m surprised because there’s a lot of ability there.”

https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/uc-davis-mens-basketball-tops-eastern-washington-coach-les-picks-up-300th-win/?utm_source=DE&utm_campaign=0b90d2e7a0-Daily_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_be64fee185-0b90d2e7a0-171004309

I thoughts the refs took over the game in the second half and destroyed the flow and rhythm of the game for both teams but especially the Aggies in the final 10 minutes. I really do not like it when officiating crews do not allow the players to play. Basketball is not a non-contact sport. Of course, the refs can't let the game turn into free-for-all but every bump and touch doesn't warrant a foul and the refs turned the second half into an interminable march to the FT line.

There were several offensive fouls on the Aggies where the EWU players were obviously flopping to sell the charge and the refs bought into it. Flops are supposed to be a focus this year since there has been so much flopping and refs often react to the defensive player going down without having a clear view of the contact that would warrant a charge. This officiating crew needs to review the difference between flops and legitimate offensive fouls before they officiate another game.

Last night's great game between #4 Villanova at #2 UCLA was a great example of an officiating crew letting both teams play physical basketball while keeping the game under control. It's the way the game should be played, IMO. No one enjoys hearing whistle after whistle especially when the fouls being called are so inconsistent.

Pint the Wonder Dog is retiring and will be honored today too:



https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/wonder-dog-for-aggies-football-set-to-retire/?utm_source=DE&utm_campaign=0b90d2e7a0-Daily_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_be64fee185-0b90d2e7a0-171004309

How cool is that! I'm super proud that the Ags are doing this!

Wow...the hazing was much worse than I could have ever imagined and it reportedly has been going since as far back as 2009/10. Truly shocking!

They took us to us on the boards in the second half though. They ended up with 51 rebounds to our 41 and they had 20 offensive boards to our 12. They have a height advantage and we battled but 20 offensive boards is way to many. We did a better job against Utah State 41-41.

We definitely want to beat either both EWU and Sac or at least one of them so we don't either up with this kind of geographically biased, predicted bracket:



https://herosports.com/fcs-football-2021-playoff-predictions-10-bzbz/

You could take in the women's game and then have a couple of hours to poke around the campus before the football game.

Here is someone who thinks the Ags are a lock regardless of how they do in their final two games:



More playoff possibilities here:

https://www.missourivalleybeat.com/post/pre-week-11-fcs-playoffs-snapshot

Caleb showed his frustration with his shooting when he finally hit a 3 and then threw his hands up like he was saying to himself, "Finally, thank God!" He's 1 for 9 from long range so far this year. I think he'll turn it around. Hopefully, Kane Milling will start hitting from the outside also. That is supposed to be his strength. Lots of frustration to spread around since no one has shot well from distance so far.

Nice...a bike ride down memory lane with your son.

I really liked our energy, hustle and defense in the first half although our perimeter shooting was not good. EWU's zone gave us problems offensively in the second half and we couldn't buy 3 point shot. It's tough to break a zone down against a team with superior height inside when you can't hit from the outside. Then there game got ragged in the final 10 minutes with lots of fouls and poor FT shooting.

We have not shown that we can hit the 3 so far this year. We are 12 of 47 for 25.5% from beyond the arc. We're going to see a lot of zone until we can establish that we can be dangerous from the perimeter.

I feel like we have more depth this year and can get some solid contributions from the bench. It's nice to see Murphy getting minutes. He's battles tough inside. McGill is coming along nicely this year and he looks like he could become and inside/outside threat. DeBruhl is young but you can see the talent is there. He plays hard and he's going to continue to get better as the year goes along. He'll be able to give Manjon a breather and we'll be able to have a different look with both of them in the game on occasion.

We finally saw BJ Shaw for a couple of minutes today but Cameron Ba hasn't played. I'm not sure what's going on with those two.

We've got work to do but a 2-0 start is promising.

Five resignations counting the spring,,,that a lot of unhappy coaches who were originally hired by Best. EWU might be better served if Best resigned...