After the fall

DURHAM, N.C. -- Watching the second half of UC Davis’ 116-73 loss to Georgia Southern tonight, all I could think of was the scene in Anchorman where, following a fight between San Diego’s news teams, Ron Burgundy sits nursing his wounds with the Channel 4 crew and marvels, “Boy, that escalated quickly... I mean, that really got out of hand fast.” I had walked into the press room at halftime believing that the Aggies were still in that game. I thought Georgia Southern had looked ragged in the final three minutes of the half and UCD was a couple of misses on absolute sitters away from being in the game. I still don’t think I was wrong. But by the 8-minute mark, my emotions were echoed by the shirtless guy with blue face paint and a kilt, who just wanted it to be over.

Gary Stewart opened his press conference tonight by calling his team’s performance against Georgia Southern “a complete abomination.” It was pretty bad. UCD played tentatively in the second half and was athletically overmatched from the jump. The overall quality of Aggie player has improved, but Stewart has nothing on his roster of counter a guy like Louis Graham, who is a pretty good shooter has great (I can’t believe I’m using this term) length.

It is too early to start making judgments on the run-and-gun system the Aggies have installed this fall. But with the style UCD wants to play, it’s impossible to hide flaws for very long. There are too many possessions in the games to do that. The Aggies need to get better, and the good news is they have time to do that. The bad news is that to get there they may have to endure some more nights like this one. It's hard, though not impossible, to create momentum that way.

UCD plays Columbia Nov. 13 at 1 p.m. Pacific. There's no TV, and I don't know if the game is going to be on Internet radio.