Playing decent mid-majors on the road is challenging in my opinion. We are obviously not able to get high mid-majors and power conference schools to come to Davis. Road games against just about anyone are always tough and can be especially tough when you travel to places like UNC and Seattle etc where the arenas are practically empty for the home team and there are only a handful of Aggie fans in the seats. The players just have to play for each other as a team in those situations and the empty environment makes it even tougher.

The curious thing about this game is that you would think that the Ags were playing well when they got up by 17 at the midway point of the second half. But, it was more because Pacific was ice cold and they were turning the ball over about as much as the Ags were. Aggie passes were sailing into the stands, guys were dribbling off their feet and dribbling into double and triple teams and getting tied up. It was ugly for both teams.

We have to have more offensive balance or we will not have a good season. Chima and Siler can not carry this team offensively all season long. Mooney has shown that he can shoot but our offensive schemes are not creating many open looks from the perimeter and it doesn't appear that we have shooters who can confidently create open looks off the dribble by themselves. So our offense is going to have to create openings for the shooters off high screens and kicking the ball out off dribble penetration. TJ Shorts had a nice game at UNC and I think we'll continue to see him get better as the season progresses.

As you said, we seem to be very thin when comes to help from the bench. It appears that AJ John is going to be the first big off the bench so I hope he'll continue to improve with playing time and Mooney is capable of being a big scorer when he's feeling it. After that though, the few other bench players we've seen have not looked comfortable at all on the floor. It's early but that's a big area of concern right now.

Everyone knows that Les preaches defense first and foremost and I think he recruits for players that he feels have a very high work ethic on defense. We haven't seen him bring in much elite offensive firepower outside of the Hawkins' era group with the exceptions being Chima, Siler and Brynton Lemar for the most part. He produced a winner with last year with that philosophy so what do I know!

Last year's non-conference schedule was awful also. I expected this year's schedule to be better since we got a lot of publicity from being in the NCAA Tournament and winning a game.

Coach Les has said a couple of things in regards to the non-conference schedule: 1) He says it's just really hard to get teams to come here an play us and 2) he has said that he is willing to play a lot of non-conference away games since he believes that it brings the players together and teaches them to play through adversity.

From a fan's perspective, the non-conference schedule leaves a lot to be desired.

Basketball can be a beautiful game and this was not one of them. The Ags had 20 TO's and Pacific had 16 and Pacific had 14 steals while the Ags had 7. Both teams capitalized on the sloppy ball handling; UOP scored 23 points off TO's and the Ags scored 20. There were stretches in which it was hard to tell which team could play worse on offense.

Les builds his teams around defense but you can't win on just defense alone and right now the Aggie offense is a constant struggle. I love the way this team works on defense but Heaven help us on offense if Chima gets in early foul trouble and has to sit. Siler is a great shooter but our offensive sets are not creating many open looks for him. We don't seem to have anyone who can confidently create an open perimeter shot off the dribble one on one and, for whatever reason, we are not penetrating and kicking the ball out for an open perimeter look very often either.

We shot a decent 51% but only put up 41 shots because we turned the ball over so often. Pacific also helped us out by shooting a dreadful 14 of 24 from the line and some of those were the front ends of one and ones. The Tigers manhandled us on the offensive boards 14-4 which led to them getting 32 points in the paint. These kind of stats tell me that we were very fortunate to win.

Yes, I'll take the win for sure but this game showed me that this team has got some serious work to do.

That was an odd half of basketball. The Ags committed 10 TO's and didn't ever seem to get into an offensive flow yet two 3's by Chima and one by John briefly gave the Ags a 9 point lead before Pacific got a bucket at the buzzer.

Chima has 15 and Siler has 9. We really need some offensive production from some of the rest of the team.

Ugly first 4 minutes for the Aggies. No offensive flow and TO's. Lucky to be down only 2-0.

i had it wrong in the thread title and corrected it.

Vegas has the Ags as 4 point underdogs. I've always liked being an underdog in rivalry games.

Go Ags!

Here's how the Big West has done so far this season:

Big West overall: 11-5
and 8-5 vs D1 competition

vs. Big Sky: 2-0
vs. MWC: 0-1
vs. Pacific-12: 1-3
vs. SWAC: 1-0
vs. Summit: 2-1
vs. Sun Belt: 1-0
vs. WCC: 1-0

home: 7-0 (3-0 vs. D1)
away: 4-5

Did any of our new bigs look very promising from what you saw in the Bethesda game? It looks like Jackson may work himself into some PT this year. Do you think Strom will be redshirted?

They have a much worse fan support problem than we do right now. This is one of their best teams of the D1 era and there's not much interest around Sacramento.

There's a big vacuum when it comes to D1 college sports in the greater Sacramento area. If either school was ever able to begin competing with the likes of the bigger name schools in the west on a consistent basis, the sports hungry fans in the area would eat it up. I hope that will be the Aggies in due time.

We haven't seen much from our new big guys so far this season though. I'm hoping that we get some production from Russell, John, Underwood or Strom. Somebody will have to set up if Chima gets in foul trouble and when he needs a blow.

I watched part of Riverside's win over Cal and they looked impressive. The Big West is off to a nice start so far this season. League is shaping up to be a real dog fight.

Hahaha...80-80...toughest loss ever!

Like Oldbanduhalum says, "He has definitely earned playing time." He's stuck it out and is always full of energy and willing to contribute in whatever role Les has asked of him. He's truly a team player.
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Nice summary Oldbanduhalum.

I was worried while watching the first half. Chima was carrying the team and keeping us close. We were getting hammered on the boards and we were not getting much offensive production from anyone else. It was really nice to see Shorts and Mooney step up in the second half. Shorts also had 4 steals.

To be successful this year we have to get some solid offensive production from players other than Chima. Teams are going to try and make things very tough for him. UNC committed a flagrant 1 on him and I expect teams will try to be very physical with him to try and slow him down.

The Bears did a good job of bottling up Schneider most of the game. He's an ultimate competitor though and, as usual, he battled back and hit some crucial shots. Onybalu has won a starting role and, although he doesn't score much, I think his athleticism and defense will get him quite a bit of PT. Garrison Goode is a defender first but he also showed signs that his offensive game is a little better this year. His FT stroke is vastly improved. When he first arrived in Davis he had one of the most awkward looking FT shots I've ever seen and he was miserable from the line. His FT stroke against UNC looked pretty darn good so it's evident that he has really worked on it.

As you noted, AJ John, Printup and Jackson did not look that comfortable out there. John had 4 fouls in only 8 minutes of PT. We'll need some productive contributions from the bench to give us some depth as the season progresses.

I'm excited to see how we do at Pacific.

Go Ags!

What...thanks wild...!!!

Good catch. The tv announcer didn't know what Les was getting worked up about. Glad the the Aggie bench was on top of the score. In a close game those 2 points could have ben the difference between winning and losing.

Wow...good for him. He's playing for Las Posiitas CC in Livermore this year.

The Ags got off to a pretty ragged looking start and Chima managed to keep us within striking distance at the half. I think that was to be expected with 8 new players in an Aggie uniform for the very first time.

The Bears burned the Aggies from 3 and to it to them on the boards in the first half. It was different story in the second half as the Ags held the Bears to 0-11 from downtown and, after getting out rebounded by 10 in the first, the Ags won the battle of the boards by 6 in the second half.

Chima carried the team offensively until TJ Shorts, Joe Mooney and Siler Schneider got it going in the second half. Chima finished with 28 points and 8 boards and Mooney scored 14 on 5-5 shooting and TJ Shorts dropped in 15. Siler was bottled up most of the night but when he did get open he canned the shot. Siler scored 10 points on 4-7 shooting from the floor.

The Ags won this game first and foremost with their defense and forced the Bears into 16 TO's while committing only 9 themselves. Defensively the Aggies played with good energy and kept battling even though they trailed until about 13 minutes to go in the game. Chima mentioned after the game that the altitude in Greeley had the team pretty gassed late in the game but they pushed through it for the win.

This is an interesting team with a lot of new pieces that will take some time to come together. Tonight was a very nice start.