ESPN now showing their selection show now since the bracket was accidentally already released.

http://www.espn.com/watch/?id=3502087

Common opponents: Washington St, Hawaii, CSUN, USF. All relatively easy wins for Stanford, though it's worth noting that CSUN did pretty well, relatively speaking.

Plus they beat us by 28 the first game of the season. We are a lot better now (obviously), and at least we won't have the jitters of facing someone we've never seen. Saturday at Stanford (on ESPN2). Let's Go Aggies!

Well, yes. The first game was the obvious previous data point. :)

The Aggies are a much different team, IMO, now than they were in game 2 of the season--100% agree. Let's see if they can do better than the 2011 team did!

that kind of sucks.

It's tough to finally make it and then not seem like you're being given a chance to be competitive.

Ah well. Local game, should have a good crowd. :)

(Listen to us, getting all greedy. :D)

What a bunch of crap from the NCAA. This team is much more deserving than being a 15 seed. I think this is mostly the NCAA thinking that this game will bring in more fans and that will mean more money for them. Pure BS...

https://www.sbnation.com/college-basketball/2019/2/15/18225099/ncaa-womens-march-madness-tournament-bracket-seeding

Here's the blog post I read last month complaining about the seeding process in WBB. It focuses on the top 16, but the principle is the same all the way down, IMO.

The bracket leak ruined Selection Monday

The leak, and subsequent adjustments, ruined the entire evening for all involved, in so many ways. Viewing parties were likely cancelled. There will be no raw emotion and tension captured on camera, no live reaction shots of bubble teams finding out they’ve received a bid

Oregon star Sabrina Ionescu summed up the players’ perspective pretty well:

I'm curious, if they would have crushed Hawaii, would it have made any difference? Or is it simply that UCD is simply the local team and just like that SB Nation article says, "The committee winds up prioritizing geography because the support for women’s college basketball teams is still growing, and making games as accessible as possible is a way to make sure people are actually there."

All that being said, I'd like to try to attend the game. I just need to prioritize the UCD/Stanford game with watching the NCAA wrestling tournament finals with my nephew Saturday afternoon ;-)

I guarantee that I will be the only person at the Ironstone Vineyard release party on Saturday following the game! Their loss.

My daughter (UCD alum also) is home on spring break from UChicago (another lemon C logo school), so we might end up trying to go. We've been to two previous women's games at Stanford (both big losses), but this would certainly be our first NCAA tourney game.

Or stay in Davis, save the ticket $$$ and go to the grad and watch it...hmm.

They could have beaten Hawai'i by 40 and the NCAA would have still sent them to Stanford because of their geographic prioritizing. It sounds like it makes sense since women's basketball doesn't generate the fan numbers that the men do. However, if you want to grow the interest in the sport, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to continue to penalize up and coming programs by matching them up with #1 and #2 seeds and thereby practically guaranteeing they go one and done. That just continues to feed the big programs and it hurts recruiting for the up and coming programs since the lopsided losses look bad. The Aggies have dominated the Big West for the past 3 years. I think they were at least a 14 seed if not a 13.

Don't get me wrong though. Stanford will be facing a very good 15 seed that simply got jobbed. We'll bring a good contingent of fans to the game and the NCAA will have a few more bucks for their overflowing coffers. The Ags just may show up with a big chip on their shoulders too with everything to gain and nothing to lose. Nothing like a little disrespect to motivate a team.

We stunned Stanford in football once and we just may stun them again in this game.

Hawai'i is going to the WNIT (opponent TBD) and Riverside is in the WBI and will host Utah State.

Darn. This pairing is what I have expected, but I'd rather be wrong. Back in 2011, I thought UCD should have been a #14 seed instead of a #16 seed playing against #1 Stanford.

I've been somewhat bitter ever since.

The only silver lining is that our chances of playing Stanford next year in the first round have decreased due to this:

"Rematches of previous years’ tournament games should be avoided, as well."

Urgh on the surface, this is the best 2-seed we could face. Experience against them, very close by, not an intimidating fan base, etc.

It's just terrible because it's unexciting and because it's crazy for us to even get the 15-seed

Remember 2005-2006!!:
Men’s Soccer: UC Davis 1, Stanford 0
Football: UC Davis 20, Stanford 17
Men’s Basketball: UC Davis 64, Stanford 58
Wrestling: UC Davis 38, Stanford 6
Baseball: UC Davis 3, Stanford 0; UC Davis 8, Stanford 3

We live about 20 minutes from Stanford, so it's an easy trip for us. My son (11) and I made it to the football game this year, too. Don't give him a hard time if you see him in his Stanford hat... His flag football team was the Cardinal a few years back, and after attending a few events at Stanford, he's a fan. Fine by me, if he can get accepted with a scholarship ;-)

I was at that 2005 football game! What a day that was. And I'm still pissed we dropped the wrestling program. But I'm excited to see what Derek Moore and Lennie Zalesky can do down at Cal Baptist as they transition the program to D1.

Back to women's basketball... Go Ags!

I get that...I still have a picture of my son in a Dodger's hat...just about killed me!

I know a guy who can get your son in the “side door.”

I just got an email from UC Davis Alumni & Affiliate Relations, tickets purchased through Aggie Tickets. Maybe I'll see some of you at the game.

I just ordered 3 tix. Go Ags!

This site gives us a 4% chance of advancing- better than any other 15 or 16 seed, half the 14 seeds and even one of the 13 seeds. This just reinforces that our team was underseeded. Need to play our best game and let the chips fall where they may.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2019-march-madness-predictions/womens/

I think the most striking point in that graphic is that if Davis were to beat Stanford, they are predicted to have a 57% chance of beating Auburn/BYU and moving on to the Sweet 16. If the other 15 seeds were to win, they have projected chances of 10%, 16% and 19% to advance to the Sweet 16.

Run, run, run?

It was simply a draw based on geography and money for the NCAA and not on the strength of the Aggies. I read where the Stanford coach, Tara VanDerveer, was not happy with the draw either. She had this to say:

She also said she was “not excited” about playing the Aggies because their head coach, Jennifer Gross, and her staff were a huge help to the Stanford coaches several years ago when they were learning the Princeton offense, which UCD has used for many years. VanDerveer wanted to open up the offense after All-American Chiney Ogwumike left in 2014.

“I’ve been rooting for them all year,” VanDerveer said. “It’s hard to play someone you’re close to and want to win, too.” But she added, “It’s every woman for themselves.”

https://www.sfchronicle.com/collegesports/article/Stanford-women-will-host-UC-Davis-ESPN-botches-13698532.php

If we're going strictly by RPI (which is not a perfect metric), UCD would get a 14 seed, since there were 10 teams worse than them. Is there much of a difference between a 14 and a 15? Not really since no 14 or 15 seed has ever won a game in the women's tournament.

They like to prioritize travel in the women's game. That's why they have the top-4 seeds playing at home. Looks like this year the one exception is South Carolina which has to travel all the way to North Carolina to play. Women's hoops doesn't make the money the men's game does so they try to prioritize ticket sales and limiting the travel.

I mean, I guess it would be cool for the women to get to travel to somewhere other than Stanford to play a game. Could they have swapped us with New Mexico State - a 14 seed in our region and sent us to Ames, Iowa? I suppose. NMSt has to take a flight regardless but now you're spending more money to send UCD on a flight also.

But it's not like being dropped 1 seed line based on RPI is that big of a deal. It's not like any of us have watched one second of any of the women's tournament teams outside of the handful of top teams so there's no eye test here. Looks like there were at least 6 teams who got screwed way worse than we did (seeded below at least 3 teams with worse RPIs in their own region).

I'd normally trust 538 more than RPI, but it seems fishy that we're rated slightly lower than BYU but would be 59-41 favorite if we played them and a decent amount lower than Auburn but would be 55-45 favorites. I can't imagine any perceived home court advantage from playing 2 hours away (if it's even factored in) would matter that much.

Like with the men's team a couple years ago, just happy they won the tournament and got in, even if they're likely to lose by 30.

I tend to agree with most of your points, and am happy we’re in the tournament esp where fans can travel. However, there’s the flip side of the coin. Had the committee erred the other way and seeded slightly better than rpi, we would’ve been a 13. And 13 seeds have won 6 times. It’s not that far fetched considering our win streak, winning the BW regular season 3 straight years, and our average margin of victory (how many 20+ point wins have we had this yr). On Saturday, ESPN even predicted a 13 seed. Again, I do understand the travel angle, but imo we got the short end of the stick. And hopefully the ladies will still compete on Sat.

Harvard beat Stanford as a 16 seed in 98. And Harvard IS the Davis of the East, so........

Looking forward to going to this one. As a fan, I'll be rooting hard for the Ags to pull the huge upset. Realistically, I hope we play to our potential, play hard and smart, and make the plays that we are capable of making. The WBB have been a top performing UCD athletic program for years now, but we haven't been able to take that next step of beating, or really competing closely with a top 25 team. Last few years, here are the scores against top ranked teams:

2018-19 vs Stanford (#7) 43-71
2017-18 vs Oregon St (#17) 47-61
2016-17 vs Stanford (#11) 42-68
2016-17 vs Oregon St (#15) 52-93
2015-16 vs Stanford (#16) 45-74

Maybe this is the year...Go Ags!