Aggie Basketball Journal January 16 to 30, 2020

1-16-20 MBB at Utah Valley Wolverines

I picked up the Aggie Men playing Utah Valley on the road at halftime when the Aggie Women finished their game.  The Aggies were up 34-27.  The WAC Digital Network was featuring a clip of a Johnny McCants’ dunk.  Unfortunately, there was no live game video available, so I had to settle for just the radio call.  I was busier at work than I thought I’d be and wasn’t able to listen much.  The Wolverines got close, but a big defensive stand led to an 18-1 Aggie run.  The Aggies rode that to a 70-56 victory.

Terrell Brown and Trevelin Queen both had 17 points, though Trev may have been hurt in the second half.  Coach Jans thought it was probably a minor injury.  The team had 11 three’s and went 15 for 17 on free throws.  This was another good win.    

  

1-18-20 MBB at Seattle U Redhawks

First up, there’s a Terrell Brown on both teams.  Both are good too.  Obviously, broadcaster Jack Nixon was concerned about calling tonight’s game.  AD Mario Moccia was unimpressed with Seattle U’s arena and grateful for playing home games at the Pan-Am Center.  The Aggie Women had beaten the Redhawks in the tough game this afternoon.  The Men were also expecting a tough game tonight.     

The Aggies were offensively sluggish in the first half.  The Redhawks got off to a good 16-5 start after nine minutes of play.  The two Terrells were guarding each other.  By the next timeout, it was 18-15 SU.  The Aggies got within a point, but SU went back up by six.  With two minutes left, Shunn Buchanan got a three, his first points in WAC play this season.  Jabri Rice tied it at 29 on a three before halftime. 

A drum corps performed during halftime while Jack was reading the stats.  For the first ten minutes of the second half, the lead went back and forth.  Evan Gilyard had a steal and Trevelin Queen tipped in a missed layup to put the Aggies up 33-29.  Apparently, there was a contingent of Aggie fans there in Seattle cheering.  An Ivan Aurrecoechea dunk put the Aggies up 50-45 Aggies. 

Johnny McCants put in a three, his first points of night, to make it 53-47.  There were lots of fouls tonight.  A Redhawks player fouled out with seven minutes left.  They retook the lead on a three, 57-56 SU.  McCants got it back on free throws.  He threw down a two-hand jam as part of a 6-0 run to make it 64-59 Aggies with three minutes left.  After an Aggie turnover, the lead went down to one.  Another SU player fouled out with two minutes left.  Rice put in another three, 69-64.

The answer to tonight’s trivia question was Anita Maxwell, who is Aggie basketball’s all-time leading scorer.  Jack got this one right.  Free throws iced the game for the Aggies, who won it, 75-67.  Ivan Aurrecoechea finished with 19 points and 11 rebounds.  Jabari Rice had 17 points and 11 rebounds.  That’s a pair of double-doubles.  Trevelin Queen had 10.  The other Terrell Brown, on the Redhawks, had 25 points.  The Aggies won it on the nail with 11 more made free throws.  They also led 35-23 in rebounds.

1-23-20 WBB vs UTRGV Vaqueros

Ron was at this game.  I could only watch this Aggie Women’s game from work on the WAC Digital Network.  I was jealous afterward because this was a pretty great game.  When I found out the game was on the radio, I called dad to let him know.  Didi Echols was indeed injured in the previous game.  Adrianna Henderson started tonight.   

Gia Pack came out firing in the first quarter with a jumper and a three.  The Aggies were lightly pressing full court, so they were very defensive-minded to start.  Henderson got a basket early.  UTRGV hit a three that was waved off for coming after the shot clock buzzer.  They did get a layup on a steal on an inbounds right after.  Tayelin Grays came in and hit a couple baskets and got a big block.  Aaliyah Prince came in for Gia.  She knocked down a couple of free throws and looked energetic.  It was 19-9 Aggies after ten minutes.

The Dino Dash dinos got in a fight briefly during the contest before the second quarter, which they showed on the video.  I admit, I was hoping for more fisticuffs.  Gia didn’t start the quarter, but came back in after a few minutes as UTRGV made a bit of a comeback.  The Vaqueros coach had an interesting game strategy of subbing five players at a time.  Props to the Roadrunner Revue band.  They faked out a UTRGV player with a fake shot clock countdown and she rushed her shot.  Prince was in and got a steal and a layup.  The Aggies led at the half 34-23. 

The Vaqueros stormed back.  The Aggie lead whittled down as they went into a scoreless drought.  Down the lead went, until finally the Vaqueros took a brief lead.  UTRGV went off on an 18-2 run.  That “2” was a jumper by Prince.  The quarter ended with both teams tied at 48. 

Gia got back on track and started the fourth with a three.  Now the Vaqueros were full court pressing.  Freshman Shania Harper was given the rough task of guarding the Vaqueros’ best player.  She was accumulating fouls, but did draw some fouls in the process.  Gia hit another three.  She taunted the Vaqueros with a “You can’t guard me!”  She hit another three.  The crowd and broadcaster Adam Young went crazy.  The Aggies went up 62-53.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the end of the scoring.  The Vaqueros put in a couple of three’s to tighten the Aggie lead to one.  Gia made another three.  Soufia Inoussa, who’d scored 10 in the first half, got a layup.  Harper had a basket waved off on a shot clock violation.  Both teams were using up too much clock.  The Aggie lead was at one again.  Harper fouled out.  The score was tied at 69 with 11 seconds left.  At this point, a co-worker came by and asked to be walked out.  “Can you wait 11 seconds?” I said.  The Aggies had the final shot, but Gia didn’t get a clean look.

The game went to overtime as I was outside, and I got back late.  The Vaqueros had a 1-point lead with six seconds left.  Coach Atkinson drew up a play during a timeout.  Henderson got the ball and took it herself into the lane.  She made a left-handed baby hook to win it with .2 seconds left.  The team mobbed her and picked her up in the celebration.  Dad called right after.  He’d enjoyed the game.  Adam was actually starting to lose his voice during the postgame.  I’m not sure if he was getting sick or if he’d just gotten too excited doing play-by-play.

Gia Pack had another MVP game with 26 points and 11 rebounds.  Soufia Inoussa had 12 points in a great effort.  Adrianna Henderson made the most of her start with 11 points.  Aaliyah Prince and Tayelin Grays both had 8 points, which is encouraging for the both of them.  Amanda Soderqvist only had 2.  She really goes hot and cold from game to game.  The Aggies were 9 of 10 at the nail and out-rebounded the Vaqueros 48 to 34.  The Aggies maybe should have run away with this one, but UTRGV is a good enough team that they weren’t going to be able to keep them down for the entire game.  I’m at least impressed with the Aggies’ toughness in finishing off the win.

1-26-20 MBB at UTRGV Vaqueros

So on Wednesday, I heard this missive late in the afternoon on sports talk radio, “And Trevelin Queen had successful knee surgery today.”  I nearly fell out of my chair.  At that Utah Valley game on January 16-th, I mentioned that Trev had been injured.  He seemed okay in the next game, so I’d forgotten about it.  Trevelin was opening topic on the Aggie Coach’s Show an hour later.  He had been hurting.  Hearing Coach Jans explain it, Trev was still going to miss games just having the fluid drained from his knee and would be more susceptible to worse injury.  Getting the surgery was the best option to have him possibly available later in the season. 

So add another casualty to the list of injured Aggie players this season.  It’s been pretty amazing that they’ve been this good to this point.  One wonders how good they would have been if everyone had been healthy.  In any case, Aggie fans were nervous about this road game on Saturday.  Obligingly, UTRGV was missing their best player for the game.  He was out for a death in the family.  Jack Nixon mentioned this right before the tip-off.  “And here we’d spent most of the pregame talking about him,” he said. 

While I was listening, I admit that I wasn’t taking much in the way of notes, because I was busy going through stuff in my apartment.  The Aggies wore white for the game, though being the visiting team.  The Vaqueros went up to start.  Johnny McCants was all of the Aggies’ scoring early.  A 9-point run would put the Aggies up with a slim lead.  McCants, already having nine points, passed up on a jam on a steal, and instead made a layup.  This left Jack hanging awkwardly, as he was about to do his, “Here’s Johnny!” call.  It was 36-29 Aggies at the half.

The Vaqueros clamped down on defense. The Aggies went on a scoring drought and were giving up lots of turnovers.  But, UTRGV’s offense wasn’t able to get ahead.  Evan Gilyard and Terrell Brown hit three’s to put the Aggies up by nine with eight minutes left.  Several of the players did get into foul trouble and couldn’t press hard on defense. In the final seconds, Evan missed two free throws and the Vaqueros cut the lead to only three.  When Ivan Aurrecoechea was fouled, he hit his shots to ice the game.  Aggies win 67-62. 

Ivan Aurrecoechea was big with 19 points.  Johnny McCants finished with 12.  Evan Gilyard and Terrell Brown both had nine.  According to the Sun-News, Jordan Jackson for UTRGV had 26 points and also trash-talked Terrell at the start of the game.  He’s not even their star player.  If the Vaqueros had been at full strength, this game might not have gone the Aggies’ way.  In the postgame, Coach Jans was a bit unhappy with Evan and his foul-shooting.  Evan was interviewed afterward and was bubbling with confidence regardless.  In my mind, after losing two guards to injury, Gilyard’s defection from UTEP to the Aggies may have saved their season to this point.

1-30-20 MBB vs CSU-Bakersfield Roadrunners

I’m looking forward to going to Saturday’s Pack-the-Pan-Am event.  I was hoping though that the Aggies weren’t looking ahead to that game and were focused on tonight’s game.  Coach Chris Jans promised a dogfight on the Aggie Coach’s Show and in the pregame.  We got it.  Bakersfield is nationally-ranked in rebounding, hard-nosed, and have a deep bench.    

The Aggies got a pair of three’s off of their first two shots.  Evan Gilyard would hit a second three and the Aggies were up 12-4 early.  They even got a couple of layups with fouls for some old school three-point plays.  After the game, Coach Jans said he was worried about getting a big lead right off the bat like that.

CSUB was playing hard.  They’d been fouling a lot, but it paid off in a pair of back-to-back Aggie turnovers that they scored on.  It was 21-17 Aggies after that.  Justin Hawkins on the radio call did immediately see a Roadrunner three attempt with the player’s foot on the line.  The officials did review and change it. 

Johnny McCants had a big block late.  It was 35-30 Aggies at the half.  Ivan Aurrecoechea was having another great game with 13 points already.  Cam Allen on the Roadrunners was keeping them in it with 11 points.  Surprisingly, those were all his points for the game.  I was busy at work for the second half, but listening in the background.  I could tell it was very tight.  CSUB tied it at 42 early on.  It was tied again at 50 with four minutes left. 

I finally stopped everything to listen to the end of the game.  Bakersfield took the lead, 53-52, on a three with three minutes left.  Jabari Rice got a couple of free throws to get the lead back, but the Roadrunners got it back on another jumper.  Ivan got the lead back once again on a layup.  With a minute-and-a-half left, Shunn Buchanan made the play of the game with a steal.  Ivan converted that into a couple of free throws, 58-55 Aggies. 

Shunn then grabbed a rebound off a Bakersfield miss, but it was ruled a tie up.  CSUB got the ball back, but missed again.  With 30 seconds left, Shunn was fouled and made the first shot.  Jack Nixon and Hawk were already wanting him for the postgame.  The officials had an inexplicable review delay after that and Shunn missed the second one.  The Roadrunners immediately hit a jumper with eight seconds left.  Shunn was fouled again and put them both in to ice the game.  Aggies win 61-57.  Whew!

Ivan Aurrecoechea finished with 23.  Jabari Rice had 20.  These two accounted for nearly all the scoring.  Everyone else was in low single-digits.  Bakersfield had four players in double figures, nearly five.  In the postgame, the coach was happy that the Aggies had held their own in rebounds.  He credited crowd noise with helping the team and disrupting play.  The students were back in force.  Unfortunately, that noise included disrupting the Aggies’ play too.  “Maybe be a little quieter when we’re on offense.”  I’ll keep that in mind on Saturday.   

1-30-20 WBB at CSU-Bakersfield Roadrunners

Unfortunately, there was heartbreak on the Women’s side. They lost 60-59 at Bakersfield.  The Aggies had the last shot, but it didn’t go.  Gia Pack continued her tremendous season with 21 points, including going 10 for 10 at the free throw line.  Encouragingly, Aaliyah Prince had a great game with 14 points and looked good in play.  There wasn’t any video available for this game, except for clips on the team Twitter.  They posted the final score reversed there.  On the website, they accidently posted the Men’s score.  I had to get the actual final score on Bakersfield’s website.