Big West Basketball: In-depth look at UC Davis Aggies star Ezra Manjon

Expectations for Ezra Manjon in 2020-21

To be blunt, the last two seasons in Davis have fallen short of Coach Les, the players and the fans’ expectations. Last year was better than two seasons ago, but this looks to be the season that the Aggies are going to be able to get it back on track. Coach Les returns a ton of experience and has a good chunk of his contributors returning. The Big West still has its great teams in UC Irvine and some teams who are on their way up like UC Riverside. UC Davis has a great chance to win this conference and return back to the NCAA tournament.

As for their star Manjon, he is looking to build off of his tremendous year and has his eyes set on the conference player of the year. The point guard would put his name next to former Aggie TJ Shorts as the two players in the history who have won the conference player of the year. The guard is going to have some competition from a few players for his race to the crown.

Amadou Sow at UCSB and Collin Welp at UC Irvine are going to be the two biggest threats to the player of the year. Going into the year it is going to be a three-man race. Manjon isn’t going to care if he is overlooked again, he has been his whole high school career.  He is just going to put up numbers and make someone else take it from him.

2016-2017 was the only time the Aggies qualified for the NCAA tournament at the Division 1 level. At the Division II level they were national champions in 1998. In their lone NCAA tournament appearance, the Aggies do have a win in a First Four game against North Carolina Central.

This year they have an extremely young roster, but the roster does have experience as most of them played last year. With the roster the Aggies have returning and with a budding superstar in the backcourt the Aggies have a great chance to make their way back to the tournament.