Speaking of Spencer Lee: He's back!
https://www.flowrestling.org/articles/7910423-2022-23-ncaa-125-pound-preview-the-return-of-spencer-lee

And according to Wikipedia Hawkins played two pre-season games with the Miami Heat before being released.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corey_Hawkins_(basketball)

Moneke is not the first Aggie to sign with the Kings' franchise. The then Kansas City Kings drafted Preston Neumayr in the 8th round (176th pick overall) of the 1983 NBA draft. He didn't make it in the NBA, but went on to medical school at UCSD and UCSF and is still a practicing physician in the Bay Area.

"Have we ever had an Aggie play even in the summer league?"

If I read this right, (always a big IF,) Corey played in 4 Las Vegas summer league games for Golden State in 2026-17.
https://basketball.realgm.com/player/Corey-Hawkins/Summary/9308

As do most Big Ten schools. I meant lesser in the sense of overall sports on a national level. In the broader sense wrestling falls in the “Olympic” sports area like gymnastics, swimming, field hockey.

It’s a huge sport in the Midwest, not so much In other regions.

Growing up in Iowa a long time ago I could go to Iowa wrestling matches (or swimming, or gymnastics…) just showing my parents’ basketball season tickets. I believe wrestling at Iowa now has separate season tickets. (And the Hawkeyes have dropped mens swimming and gymnastics.)

This past season the Wildcats finished tied for sixth in the Big 10 regular season standings, fifth in the conference tournament, and sixth in the NCAA tournament. They were one of only three teams to send ten wrestlers to the NCAAs. This was their second top ten finish in a row. Their program is really taking off, as is Michigan’s, much to my Hawkeye loving dismay.

Particularly surprising in a lesser sport and at a school like Northwestern, known more for academics than for big-time athletics.

"Now, the WAC might have been a little bit too difficult for Lamar [men's basketball] — I’m not going to sugarcoat it. It beat their ass."
"Lamar went 0-18 in the program’s only season in the league. Only three results were within two possessions and 11 were by double digits."
https://www.midmajormadness.com/2022/7/11/23204187/a-wacky-monday-in-the-western-athletic-conference-ncaa-expansion-realignment-basketball

Conference moves dribble down.

Incarnate Word has announced it will back out of its agreement to move to the WAC and will remain in the Southland Conference. (Their swimming & diving teams will move to the MPSF where the women will compete against UCD.) Also Lamar will leave the WAC after one year and return to the Southland.

Whelan is one of two punters currently on the Saints' roster.

In other "footnotes" Colby Waldman was the punter for the USFL champion Birmingham Stallions.

The way things are going CBU and UALR might be in the same conference before you know it.

Joe Davidson of the Bee ran an article in this morning's paper about prospects of UCD and Slack State moving in the wake of the USC & UCLA moves. He spoke with both ADs and both said they had no plans to move anywhere. Both are content at FBS and the Big Sky.

One fact to keep in mind is that the NCAA has attendance requirements for FCS schools and neither UCD or CSUS come close to meeting those.

I'll add a link. (Cutting and pasting articles from the Bee is labor intensive. Not sure if the problem is on the Bee's end or mine...)
Here's the link: https://www.sacbee.com/sports/article263187653.html

Now I’m hungry.

I have heard or read that the Big 10 and Big 12 are interested in Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, Stanford, and the Arizona schools. Little if any mention of Cal, Oregon State, or Washington State.

Not being asked to the senior prom has to sting a bit.

At this rate, there's a better chance of Cal joining the Big West than of Davis ever being considered for the Pac-12.

"Aggies may be playlng a big 10 team in 2027"

...or faced with difficulties scheduling among the 16 teams in the BIg "10" another LA school may back out and pay us to stay home.

Finally, just spoke with another neighbor whose child was in the Friday ceremony. Parent ended up in the way too small cooling tent....child did walk before the cancellation. Neighbor said the stories from people shceduled for Saturday were bad. School changed plans with less than half an hour to go and people who did not plan on attending rushed to throw on gowns and attend...though a lot simply skipped it altogether....but the school graciously is waiving the fee for the gowns. Good luck raising contributions from the class of 2022.

On the other end of the country and of the weather spectrum a neighbor’s child just graduated from the Naval Academy where commencement was shortened due to inclement weather and a tornado warning.

I remember having muddy, soggy, shredded turf issues at Toomey back in the D2 days. Someone commented it was a shame that a major agricultural university couldn’t come up with a better grass surface.

Someone in my neighborhood, probably thinking it’s a great water conservation idea, just put in an artificial turf front yard as part of a landscaping overhaul. Be interested in how it affects comfort and temperature around the home. Reportedly the whole project cost $9,000.00.

Coincidentally the artificial turf is being replaced.

https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2022/6/15/athletics-uc-davis-health-stadium-set-for-new-fieldturf.aspx

(To sprinkle a little salt on the wound, we lost to a D2 team that dropped its football program at the end of that season.....)

Pac 12 is always looking for wrestling schools. Right now only three full-fledged Pac-12 schools have wrestling teams; Stanford, Arizona State and Oregon State. To reach the minimum of 6 teams for NCAA purposes they've extended affiliate memberships to Cal Poly, CSU-Bakersfield and Arkansas-Little Rock. UC Davis used to be a Pac-12 affiliate in wrestling. I don't think SFSU ever was. They continue to wrestle at the D-2 level as a member (probably affiliate...) of the D-2 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference where they went 0-5 this past year. I can only assume the Pac 12 requires a team to at least compete at the D-1 level to even be an affiliate member in any sport. That makes some sense and would explain why wrestling was the only acknowledged D-1 program at one time.

Cal Baptist is a struggling D-1 wrestling program. They will be wrestling as an affiliate in the Big 12. Good luck to them there. Former UCD head coach Lenny Zalesky just announced his retirement as head coach at CBU. Derek Moore, UCD's only D-1 champion, has been named interim head coach.

(Wouldn't it make more sense for Cal Baptist to wrestle in the Pac 12 and Arkansas-Little Rock in the Big 12?)

Men's water polo, like men's volleyball, does not sponsor different levels of post season play. There is one single tournament. It is, as expected, dominated by the four California Pac 12 schools who compete in the Mountain West Sports Federation as there are not the required six teams and the conference has not seen fit to follow wrestling and offer affiliate memberships to other schools.

The small Southern California Schools, I think all of which are D-3, would send their conference water polo champion to the NCAA's with the expected result. A few years ago they created a post season national D-3 tournament and no longer competed in the NCAA post-season tourney. Not sure it that has survived the pandemic.

I doubt that inviting UCD and SDSU to join the Pac-12 for women's lacrosse is going to be a game changer in the near future. Not sure why the conference invited the schools other than as a courtesy and perhaps a scheduling convenience. You could put the schools in divisions similar to the football divisions with SDSU in a southern division and UCD in a northern one. They also have a history of competing against each other in the MPSF until Arizona State elevated its club lacrosse team to varsity and the conference now had six schools so the schools left the MPSF and established women's lacrosse as a conference sport. That and unlike men's water polo there are not a lot of other D-1 women's lacrosse programs, so UCD and SDSU were alone in the wilderness. There are a lot of men's water polo programs throughout California which are spread out over the Southern California Intercollegiate Conference, the Western Water Polo Ass'n and the Golden Sun Conference.