Well, I thought that the Bob Dunning article in the enterprise today about the lack of lighting at Dobbins stadium was right on. It really does not help one our major sports teams to be so lacking in competitive abilities not to have lights on such a beautiful baseball stadium. Which if you have any memory was basically first built by volunteers. Rocky was not the AD back in the days when this happened. Same thing with the soccer stadium which uses the same berm to the east for seating. So I give rocky a pass. But to see sac state and other programs be an able to do lights and we cannot is just frankly embarrassing. Rocky, please issue a statement on this issue!

I started off with track and field and looked at the upcoming championships. This was in the preview.
The Aggies hosted the championship last season where the women eclipsed 100 points to finish fourth overall at 100.50. The men capped off the championship weekend with a sixth place showing, compiling 50 points. The Aggie women last won a conference title in 2016 and won three straight from 2012-14. The men own four top-three finishes and their best finish was a runner-up showing in 2011.

This year the men placed last 9 out of 9 with 18 points. The women 7 out of 10 with 71.83. This is a big tumble in a peer competition.

I then looked at the Big West Cup standings where we are 7th out 10 with only baseball left. In peer competition our overall record is under 500 with no league championships this year.

I then did the NCAA RPI for some other sports for the year.

RPI Women Lacrosse 76 out of 126
Beach Volleyball 144 out of 344
Women's Gymnastics 39 out of 84
Women's soccer 148 out of 348
Field Hockey 68 out of 82

Football 184 out of 280
Men's Water polo 6th in the top 20 not sure of the total

In my opinion these stats for UCD show a mediocre athletic program. With our athletic budget being larger than our conference peers I would drop our performance even lower.

Comparing NCAA-wide RPI and then making a judgement of expenditures vs conference peers isn't an apple to apples comparison.

I think it's more valid to evaluate how the athletics programs are serving the needs of the student-athletes and the community than national performance rankings. Unfortunately the former is not easily measured by statistics and the latter is what people use instead. Only some colleges can be winners, but are the non-winners losers by virtue of their records. I think it's pretty subjective.

Evaluating and comparisons are foundational parts of getting better in sports.

Chancellor Katehi was a very flawed person and a Chancellor. She asked why our sports were not as good as athletics. Seems like a valid question, but to a nuanced follower of NCAA sports not a good question. However, is it a better question to look at where the athletic department was under her leadership and now see where it is. In general the UCD program is weaker now than 10 years ago. Further it may be headed toward fielding weak teams and athletes for an extended period.

That is a good point in that for most NCAA sports there are more than just wins and loses. In what areas does the current sports department excel at?

Sure, but you need to be making meaningful comparisons. UCD has a relatively large athletic budget compared to other BW schools, but UCD supports football which only one other BW school does (SLO). UCD also has overall more sports within Athletics than most BW schools.

When UCD left D II we believed that we would be a top tier program “Crown Jewel of the Big West” . This did not happen though our sports in the Big West were way more competitive 10 years ago than now.
In recent history the PE program was dropped to give more resources to the sports team. A campus service was taken away and the teams with more resources have not improved.
Comparing our records with our competitors is fair. I was not asking to compare our teams to the SEC.

Honestly I'm not invested enough in UCD athletics to know where they do succeed, but I will say there a couple of important questions that I think determine the community impact.

Are the student-athletes good role models ?

Does the program give back to the community ?

Is the program welcoming and accessible to everyone ?

Each sport has its own marks here. For example, I would've graded the baseball team down on the role model question in previous years due to the hazing.

Similarly I would grade field hockey down for accessibility. This is not the fault of the players or coaches, but is a result of the facility not being very fan-friendly. First you're having to trudge out near the cow barns where you get hit with cow smell. And when you get there where do you even sit ? Maybe they have some bleachers during the season but I didn't see any when I happened by it in June. If it's bring your own seating, sit out with the cows then this isn't very accessible. Who would want to go so badly they would bring their own chairs, food, and watch through a gate ? Family only I imagine.


I mean if you're donating money to the university or spending money there and even a penny is being used for field hockey then you have a right to go see their regular season contests and not feel like an unwelcome intruder. Not that I want to see their matches, but I would like to if I wanted to. Millions of dollars being spent on a niche sport.

Speaking of the cows, are they staying forever in the middle of the campus? I love cows. I also happen to love pigs, but they were summarily kicked off campus years ago. I missed the poor guys. I thought it or they brought a much needed sense of a rural essence (?) to what is the best ag school in the world. The kids over on the quad never even knew about them. Emil Mark famously said that he loved his students for their intelligence, but much more for their humility and the ability to walk through cow/horse/whatever shit without fainting or having a nosebleed, girls included. Yes, the smell of cows sometimes wafts through the football field during games. Who cares? The opposition? Again, who cares! After all is said and done, we are Aggies and we don’t faint over some “bad smells”. So I say to the field hockey team, play on, may the wind be always at your back, may the sun shine warm on your face and hope the breezes from the cow sheds flow in to your opponents faces. Hey, it’s our secret weapon! Use it. (Modified Irish blessing??)

I mostly read the topics on here but this is a great topic to examine. While the department has a larger budget than the rest of the Big West it would be interesting to compare sport for sport and not athletic department wide. The biggest separator is likely facilities. Where would you rank the UC Davis facilities compared to others in the Conference. I've seen all the facilities in the Big West for baseball and softball as well as several of them in soccer, volleyball and basketball so I may not be able to rank them myself but from my experience many of the UC Davis facilities are no better than middle of the pack.

A quick scan of Fullerton vs UC Davis
Baseball: $392k (Fullerton) vs $201k (Davis)
Softball: $293k (Fullerton) vs $158k (Davis)
Volleyball: $123k (Fullerton) vs $125k (Davis)
MBB: $524k (Fullerton) vs $294k (Davis)
WBB: $292k (Fullerton) vs $279k (Davis)
MSOC: $107k (Fullerton) vs $132k (Davis)
WSOC: $99k (Fullerton) vs $152k (Davis)

Also, I assume that a lot of this is eaten up by travel budgets for Davis seeing as though they are the only Northern California School in the conference.

Having football makes our budget higher than anyone else (poly being the only other football school). I think we have too many sports, but football and title IX drive that.

Dunning also mentions his preference that MBB move to the WCC for a few fans who might travel to away games in the Bay Area. Play them in pre season.

I agree. Football is the most expensive, but can UCD afford not to have it ? Aside from Picnic Day and classes football is the biggest draw on campus.

Required. Many of the Olympic sports have brand new facilities, and we have the Athletic Performance Facility.

Field hockey, swimming, baseball, football, lacrosse - all have new facilities. OK, baseball needs lights.

I spoke with Coach Les a few years ago and asked him why don't we play Pacific, Santa Clara, St Mary's and USF all that often. He said he tries to schedule them each year but they won't play us very often. He said that Gonzaga puts a lot of pressure on the other WCC teams to schedule tough opponents in their pre-conference games so that they can hopefully keep their RPI's high and a loss to the Aggies can hurt their RPI more than a win over the Ags can help their RPI.

I like the BW conference and I think it is a good fit for all our sports other than football, of course, but, as Dunning points out in his opinion piece, being in the WCC would certainly allow us to play more schools that are located close to us..

HOOP DREAMS … While the Big West is an excellent conference that provides a wide variety of sports for its 11 member institutions, if I had my way I’d love to see Aggie basketball compete in the West Coast Conference, mainly because a number of WCC schools are a short drive from Davis, which would make attending away games much easier. As it is, there are virtually no Aggie fans when UCD plays a Big West road game.
The closest Big West school to UC Davis is Cal Poly, 235 miles away in San Luis Obispo. The next closest is Cal State Bakersfield, a nifty 266 miles down U.S. 99 to the bottom of the San Joaquin Valley. After that, it’s UC Santa Barbara, 308 miles away in Goleta.

https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/bob-dunning-time-to-bring-lights-to-dobbins-stadium/

What happened to us playing Sac 2x a year?

The opportunity for a single game to be played in the Golden 1 Center ended the annual, home and home games against Sac. The coaches from both schools liked the idea of the players getting to have the experience of playing in an arena like the Golden 1 Center. Les also said that Sac did not particularly like playing the Aggies twice a year. They preferred a single, annual game.

Les would really like to schedule the D1 teams in northern California often as possible but the other schools are not as interested in scheduling the Aggies on a regular basis.

i remember we played St Marys in the 15-16 season and got beat bad. I heard Randy Bennett talking later that year about being on the bubble and how OOC games were so critical to them -> he mentioned that game in particular because we were Big West Champs the previous year, but ended 15-16 season something like 11-19. those wins did nothing for their hopes of sneaking in as an at large (they were denied with a 27-5 record)

That's exactly why the WCC teams are hesitant to schedule us. The only way it will ever change is if we become more of a mid-major power program with a consistently high RPI or if we leave the BW and join the WCC someday. Unfortunately, for us Aggie fans, we will not see games with Pacific, St Mary's, Santa Clara and USF very often as it is. I would like us play Nevada, Cal, Stanford and San Jose on a more regular basis as well.

we've played UOP the past couple years; i hope that continues.

The 2 games with Pacific last year were a real surprise. I hope it continues as well.

I don't think it would be possible for just basketball to be in the WCC. I believe the only reason you can be an affiliate member is if your conference doesn't offer competition in that sport.

Also, would seeing Saint Mary's and Gonzaga every year be worth four guaranteed drubbings, assuming the WCC were to let the no-religious-affiliation Aggies in ?

Yes, we'd have to join the WCC as a full fledged member and we'd be competing in all the other sports that the WCC sponsors. St Mary's and Gonzaga would be tough in basketball for sure but they would be games that would generate a lot of excitement for the team and for Aggie fans as well. We'd most definitely have a big crowd for our home games with them too.

21-22 was the doubleheader (we swept). Last year, we lost by 2 at home. Should have won that one

WCC teams have been more willing to play our WBB team but maybe that's due to them being more successful or some schools caring less about WBB vs MBB? Ags have played Gonzaga women and SMC relatively recent I think???

edit: last season they played both away.

SMC has been a nearly annual game; ditto USF. UCD has had a couple home/home arrangements with Gonzaga--seems like that will continue?

A poster previously mentioned new facilities but over half of the facilities he mentioned aren't Big West Sports so that isn't going to help us there. As for facilities as a whole, we need to take a long and honest look at them because even in the Big West they are substandard. Baseball is nice but not close to what other teams have, plus there is no real locker room, meeting space etc. Go look at Cal Poly's new addition or even the team facility down at UCSD who just moved to the conference. Soccer is nice, but again, no locker rooms. Softball, was just redone, and took us from the worst facility to probably 7th best. For basketball (M/W) and Volleyball the pavilion is a nice facility but really lacks character.

So, a quicker way to look at this is, the individual programs have lower budgets than many of their counterparts, have worse facilities and next to Hawaii have the second most travel required. Not exactly a recipe for success.

I felt the basketball arena had more character and personality when it was Recreation Hall. They gave it a sterilized look to make it D-I worthy. But the name is so stupid and empty that even Recreation Hall would be better (at least it implies that fun is had there) Pavilion is a pretentious nothing word applied to the names of buildings to make them sound special (also fieldhouse). At least name the freaking building after a generous alum or something.

University Credit Union Center

Women's Volleyball • Men's & Women's Basketball • Women’s Gymnastics

Thanks to a 10-year partnership between UC Davis and University Credit Union, the home court advantage for the university’s men’s and women’s basketball, women’s volleyball, and women’s gymnastics teams was renamed the University Credit Union Center in July of 2021.

Formerly known as Recreation Hall and The Pavilion, the arena seats 6,003 for basketball games and continues to rank as one of the largest on-campus basketball facilities in Northern California. The arena opened to the sport in the 1977-78 season and has been home to all the excitement of Aggie basketball since that time.

https://ucdavisaggies.com/facilities/university-credit-union-center/5