The Aggies drag themselves home with a losing record in conference play and needing a sweep this week, which will be tough given their opponent on Saturday. In the meantime they need to get past the Titans who aren’t exactly burning through the Big West, but have good victories over UCSB and UCSD, the latter on the road, although the Tritons have stumbled a bit after going 11-2 prior to January. Their road record is 2-6 with the best win being the aforementioned one over UCSD. Statistically they resemble Cal Poly in that the Titans score a lot of points, first in the Big West by a large margin, 86.7 ppg. (UCD is second at 81.2) while giving up a lot of points, 85.9 ppg. 9th worst in all of Division 1. They don’t, however, make a high percentage of 3 point shots or one scorer, like Hamad Mousa, rather they rely on balanced scoring and they have a lot of depth.

Again, similar to Cal Poly, Fullerton often has five guards on the court, although they have been including a forward in the starting lineup. In fact, looking at their roster, there are only two forwards on the entire team. One of them, starting forward Kendrick De Luna, 6’ 10” is the only player returning from last year. The fact that he has shot 100% from the 3 point line does not mean he is much of a factor (he’s 1 for 1). He averages 4.2 ppg and 2.6 rpg. The forward most likely spend more time on the floor at the Credit Union Center is Landon Seamon, a 6’ 8” forward from Vacaville who transferred from Menlo College. He’s been good for 21 minutes a game, 13.5 ppg. and 3.9 rpg. Hope this means that Coach Les will start Niko Rocak.

The four starting guards are Joshua Ward, a transfer from Life University (there is Life in Georgia), Jefferson De La Cruz Monegro from Valparaiso and freshmen Bryce Cofield and Christian Williams. Also getting double minutes of playing time so far are freshmen guards Davis White and K. J. Garris plus transfer Jaden Henderson, from Jessup, and Bailey Nunn, from Sac State. The scoring comes from Seamon, Ward, De La Cruz Monegro, and Cofield who all score from 12 to 14 ppg combining for 53 ppg. I’m guessing that they swarm to the ball for rebounds because for all their lack of big men, they have 11.2 offensive rebounds per game v, 9.3 for the Ags

Unlike Cal Poly, the Aggies will be at home for this one, so it’s time to get back to .500.

Chris Peterson, Jake Maier (who we grabbed early).

After the teams have played 5-6 games most of them are bunched in the middle of a pack of 7 at or around .500. This is the good news for the Aggies who are only one game out of third place. The bad news is that 6 other teams are in the same boat. It's seems like there are only two teams who are at the top: UCI and Hawai`i who played last night in a real close game that saw them exchange one point leads for most of thw second half until Hawai`i one on a buzzer beater, 67-66, after the Anteaters had taken the lead with 12 seconds left. At this point, neither UCSB nor UCSD are as strong as they have been in the past. I'd have to predict that the regular season and tournament champs will be either UCI or Hawai`i.

I think he might have outsmarted himself by sitting Niko the whole game. Last year, they strategically put him in when Poly made a substitution with a (relatively) big man, so he played about 6 minutes a half. No big guy for poly this year - no Niko. I’d have like to see him in the last 5-10 minutes when we had all 5 guys around the arc, never challenging the rim (except Sevilla). Maybe that pulls a defender inside and opens the passing lanes? Maybe the pick and roll gets us to the hoop, or opens up a three when they collapse? I can see how he’d struggle with defensive matchups, but their picks isolated Sevilla time and time again in the second half.

They know a ton more basketball than me - I just had to see the other team completely change how we play.

I'm sure shells/boats are expensive and that tranpsorting them is also expensive, but seems to me that crew is popular enough on the west coast and would add enough numbers to the Title IX formula that it would be a better sport than stunt or field hockey.

All sports involve some judgment and some physical fitness, but I prefer the ones where the winner relies more on physical attributes which can (hopefully) be measured objestively rather than sports which are so reliant on the opinion of judges. The Olympic motto is "Faster, Higher, Stronger," not "Better in the opinion of some judges."

Having said that, gymnasts are some of the most physically fit athletes around, so what do I know?