Survive and advance! The Ags come back and hold on for a gutsy win over a very tough CSU team 58-57.

The Rams game plan almost worked to perfection. Their plan was to take Morgan Bertsch completely out of the game and deny the Aggies anything in the paint. They certainly accomplished that. Morgan ended up with 0 points, 5 rebounds and fouled out early. She barely played in the second half.

So the rest of the team needed to step up to live and play again and they sure did. Rachel Nagel went down with a knee injury when she slammed into the Aggie bench trying to make a save in second quarter. Then she hobbled back in the third quarter hit several treys to get the Ags back in the game and finished with 16 points. Kourtney Eaton and Pele Gianotti added 12 apiece and Marly Anderson filled in nicely for Bertsch with 7 points and 6 boards including a critical 3.

The Aggies are now 25-7 and will play the Cougars of Washington State at a site TBD. The Aggies and the Cougars have won their first 2 games on the road. WSU beat BYU 72-64 and Wyoming 68-67.

It would be great if the selection committee decided to give the Aggies a home game. The Cougars are only 14-19 on the season so, regardless of being a PAC-12 team, I think the Ags deserve the home court in this one. We'll see, the PAC-12 is a power conference with a lot more influence than the Big West.

Great win by the Aggies!

Also the AGGIES are ranked higher than Washington state by a significant margin in the rpi posted 3/12. But I AGREE THE Pac12 is politically way more powerful than BIG WEST SO EXPECT A TRIP NORTH

Excellent job, Ags!!

I mean WSU is making it work right now, but I'm not sure how you make any post season tournament with a record of 12-19 (their record before tournament play)... even if you are from a power conference. As 69aggie stated, at least according to RPI this should actually be an easier game than CSU (WSU RPI - 101, UCD RPI - 83, CSU RPI - 55) but it's basketball in March, wacky stuff happens.

Are the seeds re-calculated with each round? If so, you would have to imagine a home game for the Ags.

I don't know if they recalculate the seeds after each game. If that was the case, as you say 6th, the Ags should get a home game. I hope it happens. This team deserves a home game. Unfortunately, I'll miss the game if we are fortunate enough to get it at home. I'll be in Florida and Atlanta until April 1st...darn!

I just looked up WSU and apparently they were auto-qualifiers. How they got auto-qualification by losing in they quarter final of the Pac-12 Tournament by 30 points is beyond me but whatever. Bring on the Cougars!

The Women's Basketball twitter account announced that the game will be Thursday at Washington State, 7 PM start time.... that's some bull.

Complete BS that shows just how much power the big conferences have!

I'm not sure what the justification is other than because power conference. WSU has a worse record and ranking than the Aggies, by a fairly large margin too. Oh well, that's out of our control just gotta keep winning.

Not to mention that both teams we beat (Utah and Colorado State) had higher rankings than both of Washington State's opponents (BYU and Wyoming). No respect at all.

Very bad indeed. What have we played 5 straight away games? I don't think gross expected the double-triple teams on Bertch today. And those Swedish girls are toughies, you betcha. But we will be prepared next time. 3 on 1 means 4 on 2, so theres a few plays to be made off of that situation.

I feel bad about saying this, especially after Friday, but if there was ever a time to run up the score it would be at WSU's house. The committee screwed up and I hope the Ags can make them painfully aware of it.

That said, wins are wins! Great job Aggies in surviving a tough out!

"I just looked up WSU and apparently they were auto-qualifiers. How they got auto-qualification by losing in they quarter final of the Pac-12 Tournament by 30 points is beyond me but whatever."

The WNIT selection process states: "Thirty-two (32) spots in the Postseason WNIT will be filled automatically by the best team available in each of the nation’s 32 conferences, after the NCAA Tournament committee makes its picks." http://www.womensnit.com/event-info1.html

WSU finished tied for 7th with Cal. Cal had a significantly better overall record http://pac-12.com/sport/womens-basketball and only lost thier quarterfinal game by 18 to OSU, while WSU lost by 30 to Stanford. http://pac-12.com/womens-basketball/womens-basketball-tournament

Seven Pac 12 teams including Cal were invited to the NCAA's, leaving WSU as the auto-bid.

Further,(same cite): The host site for each game is selected by the WNIT committee based on several factors such as fan base, host bids, facility availability, tournament seed, travel constraints, etc.

This should provide some incentive for our road warriors.

Go Ags!

Well... then we can't really expect to have any home games in this tournament if we make it past this point. If we beat WSU we will face either Iowa or Colorado. If then we happen to get past that round we would face one of Tulane, Alabama, Middle Tennessee, or Georgia Tech. This is why games should be neutral site or based on seeding/ranking because then you get biased BS like what we're facing now. Like I said before, just gotta keep winning.

Great win. And again silence from the bee. Not a mention. Sad for the women. BAD Road selection AFTER 5 ROAD GAMES would be a story for any other paper but the bee

Beating CSU in their house is no easy feat. The Rams were 16-1 this year going into the game with the Aggies and they also won the Mountain West regular season title for the 4th straight year. With Morgan Bertsch completely bottled up and sitting with fouls, the Ags found a way to win. This is a really good win by the Aggies.

CSU coach postgame comment:

On the flow of the game and the fouls on each side...

"It was an aggressive basketball game. They were aggressive with the drive and they were aggressive in the post-up. We got them in a little foul trouble and they got us in a little foul trouble. We're used to having certain kids on the floor all the time. We pride ourselves in not fouling. We had to adjust. That's just the way the game played out today. I thought UC Davis was really aggressive in that fourth quarter; they really drove it at us and that might've been the difference."

http://www.csurams.com/sports/w-baskbl/recaps/031917aaa.html

Yeah, I think the team can put the white home uniforms away for the year. Not trying to jump ahead of ourselves here, but should we win we might be able to make an argument that we should host Colorado, but we wouldn't get far with any suggestion that we could host Iowa.

Go Ags!

If you were told that Bertsch would foul out and have zero points, I doubt anyone would have guessed that we would have won a road playoff game against a Pac-12 team. Good team basketball - way to rally, Ags!

Jen Gross said the same thing, oldschool, in the Enterprise article about the game:

So how did the Aggies (25-7) beat the Rams (25-9) Sunday, 58-57, to claim a spot in the WNIT’s Sweet Sixteen on Thursday against Washington State?

“I have no idea,” head coach Jennifer Gross said. “If you told me that Morgan would have zero points and foul out with five minutes to go, I wouldn’t have thought that we had much of a chance.”

Rachel Nagel is a warrior also. She came back into the game in the third quarter after suffering a gash on her shin that would require stitches after the game, and hit some treys that gave the team a big lift.

Read more here: http://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/uc-davis-women-win-again-heads-to-pullman-wash/

Nice set of photos from the game:

http://www.davisenterprise.com/media-post/ucd-womens-basketball-v-colorado-st-wnit/attachment/27/

I've been thinking this before -- and winning with Bertsch scoring zero made me ponder it again -- I wonder if Coach Gross would ever consider a strategic redshirt on one of the current juniors in order to try to extend the success to a third year?

Like if you redshirt say Rachel Nagel then you still get 4 of the 5 starters back next year -- more than any team can reasonably hope for in a given year -- and then you get 3 of the current 5 starters back the year after.

The flip side is that it weakens next year's possible tournament run in exchange for a higher seed the following year. I don't know which one is better in the long run.

In the fine print on the lower right corner of page 4C of the sports section of this morning's Bee is a list of WNIT scores with the line "UC Davis 58 Colorado State 57." I think that is the most coverage the women have recieved to date.

Oh, and in the crossword on page 9C, the clue for 41 across is "Playing marble." The answer is [SPOILER ALERT] "aggie."

Wow!. The ladies in the NIT Sweet 16. Pretty awesome!

Pathetic coverage by the Bee! They are totally snubbing the women.

If only someone on the team had taken advantage of UC travel policies, approved the hire of relatives, sat on boards whose goal was to prohibit intercollegiate athletics, or hired someone to scrub the internet. No, we just get students who are playing at an optimum level and taking it to bigger schools in a national tournament.

I am pretty sure the strategic redshirt notion has come up with the coaching staff. and it might be a good idea especially if we can recruit to one of our present weaknesses: the lack of a very quick and athletic point guard. I love the Eatons a lot and they are very talented, but against the top teams our guards are sometimes simply are not fast enough. plus, we lack a slashing type penetrating presence on the court who could help Nagel do her stuff inside. rebounding is another issue. Now maybe this can be addressed off season. Kourtney can work on speed and Morgan can add some muscle, but these issues are what may be called somethings that cant be coached: speed and rebounding skills/fearlessness and athleticism. Is there a JC player out there who fits that role? that's the question. Plus, with this close nit team I would put it to a vote of the team before making such a move. there is great chemistry there that you don't want to mess with. complicated! Also, I see Nina as a real star next season, so maybe not to worry so much.

Bob Dunning writes about the women not getting a home game:

http://www.davisenterprise.com/update/bob-dunning-march-21-keep-winning-ags-and-maybe-well-get-a-home-game/