"It's the most wonderful time of the year!"

I debated over if I should continue my "take" on Aggie basketball, but then I realized this is what I have been waiting 19 years to do. I am finally a part of the "I believe" and "Winning Team/Loosing Team" cheers, and turning my back as the opposing team's starting line up is called. To my favorite part yelling "Welcome to HECK"(that is the nice way of saying it). 
These dreams of standing with the loudest and craziest fans ever is finally here, so I am going to talk about it. I hope you are ready for this crazy ride called "Aggie Basketball."

Once again there are many new faces on this basketball squad, their was a lot of new guys picked up from JC schools as well as some High School seniors who are now Aggies. Oh and we finally have the two "twin towers" that were red-shirting last year here to help out in the low post area. A word that has been tossed around a lot lately would be "potential". We have a lot of potential to being a great team. It all comes down to the ability of the players to want it bad enough to be a great team. Here is a nice picture roster for this years squad, for those of us who study it like there will be a test on it at the end of the semester ;)

 

Alright, now onto the season opener. I am going to skip the two exhibition games, they were boring and the expected happened in both. Last night on the other hand left much to be desired for Aggies everywhere. 

Game 1Aggies v.s. Idaho State(No this is not the team from Moscow)

I am going to display my "take" in a list of random things I saw through out the game. They are in no way shape or for in any specific order. 

• The team debuted their new warm up jerseys. (Side note: Heather said I was probably the only one who would even notice or care that we had the right warm ups on, haha)
• Holy moly do we have some tall guys on our team.
• Preston Medlin is a beast and I love watching him play. 
• Kyisean can still jump really high. 
• The Aggies at one point pulled out the press on Idaho. Either that is one aspect of the game that I have not noticed and it is never done (the press) or this is a rare phenomenon and it is in fact rare to see the Aggies press. 
• Our press breaker is being broke by guards! Holy Cow, amazing, fantastic woot woot!  Not saying anything about when Tai would barrel down the court and would break the press nicely. But it is great to have the bigs down underneath the basket. 
• Some one needs to teach Mr. Jarred Shaw about having his hands wide to receive the ball in the low post.  I am no expert, but from experience having my hands wide made it a whole lot easier to catch the ball while holding off my defender. It made me sick the number of times the ball went to him on the low block and was deflected away because his hands were not wide. Wow, that was harsh. I guess it was so firmly instilled into my head at practice that I get carried away when talking about it. I hope to never have to mention it again...or I will have to discuss this with Coach Morrill....
• TeNale Roland is a baller. He passes well, shoots great and plays some pesky "D". I mean at one point he stole the ball two times in a row and went and scored a layup. He stuck his hands in the passing lane as well as swatted it a way while the other point guard was dribbling. I was very impressed with that last night. It was nice to see that in our point. 
• Speaking of point guards, we have a very bright future. Freshman Marcel Davis (aka "Doc", his initials are M.D.) looks to be a great ball player. For the first time in my memory(I have only been watching closely Aggie basketball for like 6 years) we have a point guard with great promise starting his career at USU. The past two-three guys have each come here as JC transfers and were only in the system for 2 years. Marcel will be here for 4. He is a small scrappy player that leaves everything out on the floor. I know his shot will fall eventually, I can only imagine playing in the Spectrum as a true Freshman...
• Marvin Jean...a left handed wonder. Remember the last lefty wing? Yup, that would be Pooh Williams. He is a great scorer and I to him to be a very key role to this Aggie squad from the outside scoring position. 
• Berger...no mission legs this year. He seams taller than last year, but that could be because he is stronger and more in shape than the start of last season. He hustles and goes after every rebound. One time actually tipping it away from his own teammate...
• Jordan Stone is still huge and looks a lot more comfortable in the system.

Upon typing this I realized these comments were a conglomerate of the things I saw during the preseason games as well. So I hope this helps get a feel for the season. By no means was this game a spectacular and beautiful game. It was ugly. 
The Aggies host St. Mary's on Thursday so pretty much all cob webs must be lost because the real deal starts in four days!!!

GO AGGIES!

p.s. I guess I got carried away and I wrote a TON! Sorry.