“They’re a big, strong, fast, physical, well-coached team and you have to give them credit for how they played,” said Aggie coach Dan Hawkins of Weber State. “They do enough things to throw you off-balance a little bit, plus we had so few plays in the first half that we didn’t really have many chances to get things going.”
Said Weber State coach Jay Hill, whose team is well on its way to a third straight championship, “We expected a very good team and they were. We put pressure on them early, but they hung in there. When it looked like we were going to pull away, we never could. That’s the sign of a very well-coached team. That was a team that had all of our focus and attention because of how good they are and how good they’ve been. But we executed.”
Added Hill, “I think we have the three best defensive linemen — defensive ends Adam Rodriquez and Jonah Williams and tackle Jared Schiess — in the conference. Those guys are big-time players. When our coverage is where it needs to be, like it was today, we’ve got a chance to give quarterbacks fits, and we did. For us to come here and play the way we did was huge.”
“I’ve never been prouder of these guys,” he said. “They battled and they stayed in it and they kept competing. People think Aggie Pride is all about winning. It’s not. It’s about how you live your life. Tonight we showed Aggie Pride.”
By the slightest of margins, UC Irvine edged UC Santa Barbara as the media favorite in the quest for the 2019-20 Big West men's basketball regular season title.
The 31-member media panel split their first place votes among UCI and UCSB. UCI prevailed with 258 points and 15 first place votes. UCSB collected 256 points and 15 first place nods of its own. CSUN was a popular third place pick and had 202 points. The middle of the pack included Hawai‘i in fourth place with 155 points, Cal State Fullerton in fifth with 152 and Long Beach State in sixth with 118. The remainder of the poll included UC Riverside (107), UC Davis (104) and Cal Poly (43). UC Davis grabbed the remaining first place vote.
