That was a fun ending.

Ok

New champ this year. South Dakota St has never even been in a title game before and Sam Houston lost their only two appearances, both to NDST in 2011 and 2012.

But the why is a very important part of the equation here when we’re talking about serious topics like this. Because if they’re just a bigoted hateful person who thinks being trans is made up or a fad or not real (to be clear, I’m not saying any of the women you’ve talked to are this way because I don’t know them) then their opinion on the matter is irrelevant.

If I heard a woman say they are uncomfortable sharing a locker room with a man who transitioned to a woman, I’d ask them if they are uncomfortable sharing a locker room with a lesbian. If they don’t care about the lesbian I’d ask why?

I’d also recommend that she just doesn’t shower in a public shower anymore if it bothers her that much.

To address the thread title, Caitlyn Jenner is an effing moron and nobody should listen to her opinions on just about anything.

This is an issue that the right wing has basically made up and then blown way out of proportion. If some 15 year old boy really wants to transition to be a girl so he can win a state track meet, then so be it. I mean, you get nothing from that other than a headline in a newspaper and then people forget you. Then guess what, you’re still a girl afterwards and you have to deal with all the bigoted morons who will hate you just because you’re trans. Because it’s not like you can just declare yourself a girl and start competing against girls immediately. I just don’t see the upside that would make someone transition to being a girl just for the sake of competing in sports.

Is there a reason we were scheduled to play Poly twice? Was it just to get an extra game?

Top 6 FCS teams are all from the Big Sky. Definitely has to be some sort of glitch.

Hell of a drive there. Loved going for it on 4th down. 45 yarder is no sure thing from a college kicker and I feel much better about getting a yard. If it’s 4th and 4, then the equation changes. But if you can’t pick up a yard there, you don’t deserve to win anyway. Always love going for the win.

Didn’t mind the clock management either. They had two TOs and had plenty of time if need be. Really surprised Idaho State didn’t take any timeouts though. Once we had 1st and goal, it’s likely we either tie the game or take the lead. And it’s not like we didn’t have any timeouts where you could view it as doing us a favor to stop the clock. Idaho should have gotten the ball back with 30 seconds left.

To quote a line from one of my favorite rants ever (after a Mich St-ND game about 15 years ago), timeouts aren’t like cell phone minutes - THEY DON’T CARRY OVER.

Plus a 50-something percent FT shooter makes 2 FTs to put Creighton ahead right before that also. Obviously anything can happen in OT, but he was only 33% or so to make both of those.

Feels good to finally see the school being more regularly referred to as UC Davis rather than Cal Davis.

Would have been interesting to see the seed we would have gotten in a normal year. Stanford is a 1 so we can’t be dropped that far. UCLA and Arizona are both 3’s so they could have dropped us two spots. Happened two years ago. Oregon is a 6 so depending on how close we were to the 11 seeds in the eyes of the committee, maybe they jump us to an 11. Or they could have bumped us to an 11 in the same region as UCLA/Arizona since those locations would host.

Regardless, definitely happy with a 12. Missouri State is tough and we’re probably not winning but it still beats playing a 1 or a 2 seed where you literally have no chance unless the other team has two key players tear ACL’s right before the tourney, which is what happened to Stanford when they lost as a 1. That’s still the only 1, 2 or 3 seed to lose in the first round of the women’s tourney.

I went through the NET ratings and picked out the other auto bids. If they just seeded by NET rating 1-64, we're ahead of 18 teams, which would put us as a 12 seed, which is where ESPN has us also. Even if you want to quibble with a couple of the teams close to us, we shouldn't be any worse than a 13 seed. The bottom 12 teams are all 100 or more (so 30 spots worse than us).

The reason we tend to get screwed over is travel, which isn't an issue this year. The last couple times the BW champ didn't play a Pac-12 school were 2018 (CSUN was a 16, sent to Indiana, other options were Kent, Miss, Conn; Stanford was a 4, UCLA a 3 and Oregon a 2 and played Seattle that year) and 2014 (CSUN played South Carolina but game was in Seattle).

So I wouldn't worry about us getting dropped a couple seeds just to not have to travel, which happened in 2019.

12 teams is so 7 years ago. They're up to 14 now!

Nebraska (2011) made 12 and Maryland/Rutgers (2014) made 14.

There's a few good ones.

DePaul (Chicago) and Marqutte (Wisconsin) are in the Big East
Notre Dame is in the Atlantic Coast
Big 10 is a traditional midwest conference but has Rutgers (New Jersey) and Maryland
Pac-12 having Colorado and Utah (not as bad as some of the others)
Missouri in the SEC (and to a lesser extent, Texas A&M, though at least they're in the south)
Chicago State in the WAC

Yeah, it seems pretty clear we're past any sort of potential "just got lucky with a recruiting class or two" phase. It seems like there's no true rebuilding year, just reloading. Obviously that doesn't mean we're going to rip through the league at 14-2 each year and win the tourney, but we're clearly going to be in the mix every year.

I mean, 2017-18 team went 28-7 and 14-2 in the league. They graduated players ranked #1, 2, 4 and 7 in minutes and #2, 3, 4 and 7 in points. The next year they go 25-7 and 15-1 in the league. I know you might say "oh, well they still had Bertsch, who won the BW POY and was a three-time first teamer, plus the Eaton's". Fair point. So you'd certainly expect a huge dropoff from that year after losing three of your top four players in minutes and three of your top six players in points, right, especially after what they lost the year before? Well they fell all the way to 17-2 but still ripped through the conference at 12-4.

Then this year, they go 9-1 in the conference. Missed out on Bakersfield (home), UCR (road), UCI (home) and Fullerton (road). I know Fullerton stayed close in the tourney but we're winning those games. Even if you say they split the other three series, that's still a 12-4 year. Realistically, they probably sweep at least one of UCR and Bakersfield so we're probably looking at 14-2 or 13-3 again.

So while it might seem a lot to lose our top two players in minutes and #1 and 4 in points (including the PG), neither one of them is close to what Bertsch was and we *only* were three games worse after she graduated. Konrad and Stobbart will be seniors and Turner just went for 22 in the BW title game as a sophomore.

I don't know who's going to step up next year to replace Hall and Trpcic but I feel pretty confident somebody will. Gross has raised expectations but that's a good spot to be in because it means you're doing a great job.

As for the tourney, with it all being at one spot, we should get a legit seed rather than matched up against whatever designated high seed from the PAC-12 is there. No worries about travel.

Irvine was up 32-30 with 4 minutes left and we ended the game on a 31-10 run. That’s one hell of a finish.

Ballgame.

If the Ags want to have a repeat of the 2019 tourney game against UCI, that would be fine with me.