Pepperdine 19-12, 10-8 WCC; 6th place in conference. 127 in Massey ratings - below UCI, UCSD & Hawaii. Definitely a winnable game. Davis 152 in Massey ratings.

UCD at Pepperdine (19-12) on Thursday, 3/19

UCSD down early to Hawaii, but now up by 12 with ):15 left. I THINK this assures UCD of an invitation to the WNIT.

Aggies go down fighting, 84-79.

Gotta be rooting for UCSD to beat Hawaii in tomorrow’s championship. If Hawaii wins, they go to the NCAA, Irvine gets the bid to the WBIT, and San Diego gets the WNIT invite. Aggies odd team out. As we know a 17-16 SEC or A10 school will somehow be deemed more deserving.

Good response.

I think it really started to change at the college level when UCLA recruited Lew Alcindor, later Kareem. I remember hearing that Lucius Allen and Kenny Shackelford went to UCLA specifically to play with Kareem. Allen had all but committed to Kansas if I remember correctly. That started a parade of top players to the Bruins who attracted other top players.

At the same time, wealthy LA area businessman, Sam Gilbert, became heavily involved with the Bruin program. Wooden personally kept a distance, but the AD, and probably Wooden let Gilbert have lots of direct involvement with players, their families and influential friends.

I imagine other schools started to allow the same thing as far as boosters, if only to compete with UCLA. Not that it helped much. As John Madden said of Wooden, "He can take his and beat yours, then take yours and beat his." But after that, the "blue bloods" became even more dominant. I can only remember Marquette under Al McGuire and Georgetown under John Thompson being like La Salle and UTEP. Probably forgetting some.

First, I wasn't trying to be smart-ass. I just read that line last night, and liked it. So, apologies if it came across the wrong way.

A discussion of fairness in sports would be interesting. And probably a whole other topic I know that we, myself included, want to believe that 'fairness is a central tenet of sports', but I'm not sure that's accurate. Aren't upsets when an underdog defeats a team with "all the advantages"? Isn't that why we've loved Gonzaga? Boise State? Loyola of Chicago? They overcame the disadvantages, right?

If we acknowledge that some teams have a distinct advantage, like financial resources, facilities, etc, when it comes to obtaining/signing players and coaches - be it Alabama, USC, Ohio State or the Lakers (Showtime era), Yankees (1960's), 49ers (Eddie Debarolo era) or Patriots (Brady-Belichick era), how can we claim competing with them is fair - i.e a level playing field?

Doesn't NIL, by its nature, by and large do away with fairness? The whole discussion about NIL isn't about making it fair for all D1 schools, but making it manageable or at least marginally enforceable. It's been said in other thread on this site that the top 40 or so schools, don't want to share the pie.

Or prior to NIL, the booster networks at some schools that were already paying players under the table?

Even at the youth level, we hear about high schools recruiting players. About parents holding a chid back so that he/she is more mature for their grade level, and therefore have a competitive advantage. In youth soccer, it's an openly acknowledged fact that the better players (and/or their parents) gravitate toward the best teams...the good kids want to play with the other good kids. I've watched that happen on my granddaughter's club team, and listened to the conversations. Year after year, the top clubs field the strongest teams, while other clubs see their players move to those teams. None of that contributes to a level playing field.

What's fair or unfair, anyway? And who decides that? A UCD anecdote to illustrate: I remember watching the UCD men's basketball team win the D2 National Championship in 1998. During the telecast, the announcers repeatedly mentioned that Davis had an advantage - they didn't quite call it unfair, though it was obvious they meant it was - over ALL OTHER D2 schools because of the size of the school. They went so far as to say that UCD really needed to move to D1 because of school enrollment. Even though their opponent in that game, Kentucky Wesleyan, had already won 6 national championships, and had 16 D2 Final 4 appearances on its resume. UCD was in its 1st Final 4, but apparently had an unfair advantage.

Go figure.

A mystery I'm reading has a good line when one of the characters says something isn't fair. The main character, an attorney, replies, "Fair is where they sell cotton candy".

From a conference perspective, the Big West format does make a kind of sense for a perennial 1-bid conference. A conference wants their best team going to the Big Dance, since that team is probably the only one that might win a game or two...like UCSD almost did last year, only losing to #5 seed Michigan in the first round.

Winning 1 game is an extra $2 million for the conference.

A conference doesn't wanting a lower seed, like a 7 or 8, pulling an upset, and knocking out one of your top teams. Or worse, winning the whole conference tournament and then getting totally blown out in the first round.

Possibly contributed to UCD - UCR being called more closely? Which would benefit the Aggies.

If Riverside was following the recent script against the Aggies of aggressive, physical play, maybe it backfired?

Davis vs. UCSD Round 3.

The more important game might be Irvine vs. Hawaii on the other side of the bracket. An Anteater victory pretty much locks up a bid from the WBIT or WNIT for the Aggies.

The energy in the legs is the question, 100%. Davis has 4 players in the top 25 in the BW in minutes played; Riverside has 2. Bennett (#2) and Norris (#4) have the most. For Riverside, Wickstrom (#7) is up there as well, with Kaylani Polk (#16) comparable to Epps (#14) and Sussex (#21). Offensively, I think it's affected Sussex the most as her shots come largely from beyond the arc. Oddly, I think her defense has been better over the last part of the regular season.

Still on the same side as a team that swept us...UCSB. And the long minutes for Ryann, Nya, Megan & Avery are exacting a toll on their shooting. For the season, we shoot just under 31% from beyond the arc; last 3 games: 20.3%. Tired legs IMHO.

Santa Barbara has the best 3-pt defense in the conference, holding opponents to 26.1%. They've held us to 16.8% in the 2 games this season. Assuming UCSB beats Riverside, we'll play them on 1 day less rest than we're used to. Definitely don't like that matchup.

Also, not real optimistic about us playing games on consecutive days at this point. Not that Gross had an alternative to the long minutes if we were going to stay in contention, which we did until the last game.

UCSD 72 UC Santa Barbara 65. On Wednesday, the Aggies play the winner of Tuesday's Riverside - Santa Barbara matchup. Riverside split with the Gauchos in fairly close games. The Roadrunners beat UCSB on the road by 7, but lost by 4 at home.

The Aggies swept Riverside in the regular season, and were swept by Santa Barbara.

Go figure.

Megan is strong, but she’s no Audi Crooks; instead she’s pretty slender. Megan’s been facing 2, sometimes 3 players trying to box her out, as well as heavier players leaning on her for 29 games, 35 minutes a night. She’s had therapeutic tape on one or both legs since the first game. Megan’s pretty tough, but the constant banging takes a toll.

Amen to that!

That would be convenient. But unless that's done for all sports, then AST pretty much becomes "Aggie Football Talk" in all but name.

I don’t know what the tiebreakers are, but assuming we beat Irvine, that’s only a split of the season series, and Irvine would still have a better overall record. However, we swept the series vs. UCSD, and we would have the better record. But for that to happen, UCSD has to lose a game this week and we have to beat both Long Beach and UCI.

We've struggled all year against physical, aggressive teams. Actually, the Aggie WBB seems to struggle with physicality from opponents almost every year - some years more than others. Gross seems to prefer players who are more finesse style players, which may be more suited to the Princeton offense.

Defensively, it seems from the stands that the staff emphasizes positioning, helping, and not making stupid fouls - all of which is good. And especially when you have a short, inexperienced bench, like this season. Can't afford to have starters sitting extra time because of fouls. But the flip side is that our players aren't practicing against physicality, so they aren't used to it.

Can't argue with her track record, but it might help to have 1 - 2 players who relish contact and play through it. I was hoping that Tegan Young might be that player this year.

I stand corrected; and apologies to SochorField for falsely attributing his comment to you. :worry:

Note: I was being facetious. :smile: