Top seeded UCD (10th nationally) easily defeated 8th seed Fresno Pacific in the first round of the WWPA Men's Water Polo championship. Ags will play 4th seed California Baptist (17th nationally) , a 12-6 winner over host and 5th seed Concordia, in a semi-final game tomorrow.

In an all UC first round game UCSB defeated Cal, 3-1. Gauchos advance to play St. Mary’s.

College of Idaho will host Ottawa (Arizona) in an NAIA first round game this Saturday.

Men's basketball: CSUS 61, UCD 51
Overall score: UCD 25, CSUS 5
Next event: Football Nov. 23.

The less said, the better.

We need an OC like that guy at Dartmouth.

Playing strictly for pride now. Sac is in the playoffs for sure and barring a complete flop against us they will get a first round bye. Can't see a letdown happening with a Troy Taylor coached team. Weber State's loss gave them a little extra to play for. With basketball and football this could be a long week.

UCD women placed 8th and the men 19th at the NCAA West Cross Country regionals in Colfax, WA, today. CSUS men finished 24th and CSUS women finished 25th. “Running” (Ha!) score is now UCD 25, CSUS 0. Next event is men's basketball.

Ags won the regular season conference title with a 9-7 win over UCSD this afternoon in San Diego. That gives them the No. 1 seed in the conference tourney. Winner of the conference tourney gets an NCAA bid. Second place goes home for Thanksgiving.

Ags and Tritons have battled for the conference title for the last few years. They have played three times this season (twice in tournament play) with the Tritons winning both of the earlier meetings. All matches have been close.

Conference tournament will be Nov. 22nd-24th at Cal Baptist in Riverside. NCAA's are December 7th and 8th at the University of the Pacific. There are "play-in" matches on November 30th and on December 4th or 5th. Winner of the WWPA (Davis' conference) will probably have a play-in on the 4th or 5th.

Go Ags!

Age defeat Sac 1-0 in men’s soccer to assure at least a co-championship of the Big West regular season championship and 2.5 more points in the Causeway Cup. Running score is UCD 15, Sac 0. Next event is men’s and women’s cross country to be decided at NCAA West regionals on Nov. 15.

Barring a meltdown they are in the playoffs, with a home game and probably a first round bye. Taylor would seem to be a unanimous selection for Big Sky coach of the year.

So yeah, they’re back.

So it looks like our season boils down to hoping Weber beats Sac next week, and because in rivalry games "you throw out all the numbers," we beat them in the season finale, thereby possibly denying them a first round bye in the playoffs.

From what little I recall in psych classes, the lowest point isn't when you hit the bottom, it's when you hit the bottom, start to improve, and then backslide and head towards the bottom again. That's kind of how I feel right now. However I will blame it all on the wind and call it some variation on a seasonal affective disorder (and in so doing prove that I recall even less about psych than I thought.)

NDSU woke up. 16-6 with under 5 minutes to go.

To be fair San Jose State always seems to be about one heart beat away from dropping to FCS.

Florida has Florida Atlantic on their schedule for Sept. 4, 2021. Maybe we could play the Owls. If Lane Kiffin is still around then, he will probably have self-exploded and the Ags could give them a game.

Which other FCS teams has SC scheduled? Their website has yet to list any on the future schedules page.
https://usctrojans.com/sports/2018/5/21/usc-football-future-schedules.aspx

Back to wrestling....with their football and wrestling programs NDSU could probably transition smoothly into the Big Ten conference. (If the Big Ten decided they needed a fifteenth team.)

Having nothing to do with wrestling....the Pac 12 water polo schools (Cal, Stanford, USC, UCLA) compete in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. Several other schools that were in the MPSF, mostly Big West and WCC schools, formed the Golden Coast Conference. (Perhaps the only way any of them were going to get to the NCAAs as long as they competed against the big Pac 12 California schools for bids.) Meanwhile the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation has added Austin College and Penn State Behrend.

Interesting that Fresno State is an affiliate member of the Big XII in wrestling, and Arkansas-Little Rock is an affiliate member of the Pac 12 in wrestling.

I'm just saying that the Taylor & Co. connection to a local power and to area coaches gives them some credibility with HS players and HS coaches throughout the region....I think having them at J Street will make recruiting easier than some of the other recent coaches....Mooshagian and Sears come to mind. Sac will always suffer for being a low profile, commuter school, and will suffer with a small budget. I have friends who went there and told me they didn't even know the school had athletic teams. (Maybe that says something about my friends....)

I think Taylor and the coaches he lured from Folsom High School can keep this going. They built a power at Folsom and have a good network for area wide recruiting. They hosted the Folsom “at” Jesuit game at Hornet Field this year which helps their local visibility. Biggest issues regarding their sustainability might be Slack’s budget and offers from FBS programs.