Thursday, December 28, 2006

Long Beach State at UC Davis -- LIVE BLOG

Preamble: Injuries, youth, a midseason course correction and a brutal schedule built for what is essentially a throwaway year have brought the Aggies to this point. They are 1-8 and headed into Big West play with all the momentum of a box of graham crackers. UCD coach Gary Stewart has always tailored his approach toward competing in conference play, so, even though the Aggies can't go to the Big West tournament, winning during the 16-game slate that's about to start matters quite a lot.

It's a sensible mindset. The Big West is a one-bid baskeball league. That means everything a team does should be designed to build toward the conference tournament in March. Results in November and December are mostly meaningless. The preseason is a time to experiment and challenge your team. Over the next two months, we'll see just how well the preseason travails have helped the Aggies. I'm skeptical by nature, but you should feel free to chime in with messages of optimism.

Statistically, Long Beach is

unexceptional. But it is riding a five-game winning streak, during which three victories have come by five or fewer points. Fortitude in the final seconds is an acquired skill. But like just about everyone else, it has some head-scratchers. The 49ers opened the season with a 69-68 loss to Air Force, now ranked 17th in some poll. Three days later it turned around and barely beat Cal State Bakersfield. What the 49ers have is experience, with eight seniors on the roster. UC Davis is dressing 10 freshman and sophomores.

PregameTeam sheets have just been distributed. UCD is going with the same starting lineup as it used against Portland State. The Aggies lost that game, but after the struggles of the preseason, continuity is probably worth some thing. The Aggie starters: Thomas Juillerat-Kyle Brucculeri-Jesse Lopez Low-Vince Oliver-Bussey Ellis. For Long Beach: Aaron Nixon-Dominique Ricks-Sterling Byrd-Kejuan Johnson-Kevin Houston.

16:11 first half:: Two early turnovers, but it's 8-6 early thanks to Thomas Juillerat's offensive efforts. Long Beach has started looking content to shoot outside shots. It's early forays inside have been well contested.

14:45 first half: And just like that, the form that led to the poor Aggie start rears its head. Back-to-back-to-back turnovers lead to easy turnovers. It's 12-10 Long Beach, and 10 of the 49ers points have come from the Aggies' six turnovers.

11:53 first half : Michael Boone cuts an imposing figure in the middle of the Aggie zone. He's blocked three shots already. Long Beach is doing its best work inside by forcing him to commit one way or the other and then hitting a quick pass for a lay-up.

7:35 first half: A run of made shots have given the Aggies the opportunity to extend the defense, which has given the 49ers some trouble. UCD briefly took the lead on Vince Oliver's cutting layup. Long Beach has answered with an 8-0 run, extending the lead to 25-19. This is probably a key early sequence for the Aggies.

3:40 first half: The Aggies trail 34-28, but have weathered an early storm with 3-pointers. That may or may not be a sustainable strategy. But Long Beach clearly has the talent to pull away and UCD has prevented that. So that's worth something.


Halftime--Long Beach 42, UCD 29: The most impressive stat of the night so far has to be Long Beach's 26 points of turnovers. UCD has given the ball away 14 times, which means there are only 42 possible points off turnovers

and Long Beach has dropped very few of them. It's an efficient showing. Can UCD find a way back into this one? Unclear.

15:51 second half: Four minutes in and the Niners have extended by point. Every UCD mistake seems to end up in the basket. It's an issue as those problems make it impossible to sustain a run. And the Aggies desperately need a run soon to get back in this thing.

11:46 second half: Just when it appeared the momentum was beginning to turn and the pace was starting to favor the Aggies, Long Beach hits a spurt and makes it a 66-48 game. The Aggies are quickly falling out of range. Long Beach has had a good night. The sentiment in the 49ers' huddle, just to my right, "Let's bury them."

5:49 second half: Long Beach extends to 20, and Davis answers with five straight. But Long Beach, after a time out, gets to the foul line. It's 75-59 Rommel Marentez hasn't played in a while. He was sitting down by the trainers and there has been no update. He's just made his way to the scorers' table. Attendance 1,005 not bad for a game without the students in town. Maybe $2 tickets work.

Final Long Beach 89, UCD 75:

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

UCD at the Emerald Bowl

The Emerald Bowl kicks off in about six hours from AT&T Park on ESPN, pitting UCLA against Florida State. It's one of the few exciting non-BCS match-ups just because of the caliber of programs playing each other, even if both struggled mightily this year. A quick scan of the Bruins roster shows that there are three former Aggies on the team. Only one, DT Stephen Urrutia, is on the trip with the Bruins. Two others, DE Thomas Blake and LB Joshua Edwards, are sitting out because of NCAA transfer rules.

Urrutia was an offensive lineman at UCD and appears to have switched sides. He has recorded no official stats this year. Blake and Edwards are two players that made immediate contributions as redshirt freshmen before deciding to try their skills at the Bowl Subdivision level. UCLA coach Karl Dorrell said that both Edwards and Blake made impressions as practice players this year. He said he's interested to see just how much they contribute next year.

"We watched them when they were at Davis, they were good players there," Dorrell told me at the Emerald Bowl press conference on Saturday. "There's a lot of talented players at all levels in football. That natural thought is that when you're playing a smaller school that your level football isn't as good as most. But Davis proved (that isn't true) that a year ago by beating Stanford. They have some really good players. We were really fortunate to have those two join us."

There are two more connections. UCLA longsnapper Riley Jondle is the older brother of Jake Jondle, the freshman that handled deep snaps for the Aggies this year. Also radio color man Doug Kelly is the Emerald Bowl's media services manager.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Game off

Just an update: the UC Davis men's basketball team will not be going to Colorado on Saturday because of the blizzard that has buried Denver and the surrounding area. That's the last bit of work from me before Christmas. I'll be back next week with a look at how the Big West stands heading into the conference schedule. Also keep an eye out for the Davis Enterprise's Top 10 stories of the year, which will run in the next few days. I hope everyone has a good holiday.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

The final ballot

We're about five hours from kickoff of the Division I national championship game between Massachusetts and Appalachian State. You can watch the game on ESPN2. From what I've seen, Appy State is the best team in the tournament and should roll to its second straight championship. The I-AA season-ending awards are also out, and UC Davis fans should be pretty familiar with the winners. Cal Poly's Kyle Shotwell won the Buck Buchanan award for best defensive player. New Hampshire QB Ricky Santos (who led a last-minute scoring drive to beat the Aggies in 2005's season opener) took the Walter Payton Award as best offensive player. San Diego won The Sports Network Cup, which goes to the top I-AA "mid-major" program.

Here's my final Top 25: 1. Championship game winner; 2. NC loser; 3. NDSU 4. Montana; 5. Youngstown; 6. James Madison; 7. Illinois State; 8. Southern Illinois; 9. New Hampshire; 10. Eastern Illinois; 11. Montana State; 12. Furman; 13. Portland State; 14. Tennessee-Martin; 15. Hampton; 16. Northern Iowa; 17. South Dakota State; 18. Cal Poly; 19. Coastal; 20. Wofford; 21. Central Ark.; 22. McNeese; 23. UC Davis; 24. San Diego; 25. Towson.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Basketball by the numbers

Here's a bright spot in an otherwise dreary UC Davis basketball season. The Aggies are tied for 46th in the nation in steals with nine per game. It's a four-team knot with UCD, Troy, LSU and TCU. So that's something, no matter how small. The rest of the numbers are fairly ugly. The Aggies are 317th in the two RPI simulations I check (I also check the NCAA's weekly RPI rankings, but those haven't been released yet). In previous years an RPI on Dec. 12 wouldn't mean much, but with the uniform start date in place many teams have already played the majority of their non-conference schedules.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Trouble in Gateway country

If one needed an illustration of just how fluid Division I conference situations can be, consider the the case of the Great West Football Conference. Most had resigned themselves to the death of the league back in October, when we learned the Gateway Football Conference requested institutional information from both North and South Dakota State. Conference commissioners, being what they are, generally don't name potential members unless they are pretty sure they have a consensus to bring those schools into the fold. But now the Bloomington (Ill.) Pantagraph., is suggesting that some of the Gateway's football coaches and athletic directors are not totally excited about the prospect of adding the Dakota schools. If you're not in the mood to click through, the two main reasons given are cost and the increased competition level.

It's impossible to tell from this story just how widespread those sentiments are. But it probably won't take much dissent to scuttle any expansion bids. Should the Gateway not take the Dakotas in this round, the future of the Great West would look quite bright. The probable additions of North Dakota and South Dakota after next season would make for a seven-team league. Odd numbers are good for football scheduling because it would allow for an even number of home and road dates within the league. A six-game conference slate would allow all league teams to pick up a Bowl Series game, and then continue the tough intersectional scheduling that made the Great West the highest ranked confernece in what is now called the Football Championship Series. There would still be the matter of automatic qualification to postseason. But the more teams there are in the league, the better the chance its champion meets all the selection criteria (especially those seven Division I wins). We'll probably have a sense of where things are going by spring.

Friday, December 8, 2006

Injury report, sort of

I'm not making the trip north to Idaho State this weekend. But in a rare fit of empathy for the basketball team, I'm sitting on my couch watching the Football Championship semifinal on TV live from Montana, imagining just how cold it is up in Big Sky Country. ESPN's broadcasting crew seems to be having trouble thinking of anything else. I'm not only one who is going miss this weekend's game. UC Davis coach Gary Stewart said his team was, once again, beset by injuries.

He declined to specify who would be out. In fact, he's what he said: “We’re a mess, an absolute mess,” Stewart said. “We’ll count bodies (Friday) at 11. that’s the truth. I couldn’t tell you who’s going and who’s not going right now. It’s a day to day thing. I’d imagine we’ll be down at the minimum of two players that played against Jackson State.” I'm not in the business of guessing either. Stewart said center Michael Boone still hasn't been cleared academically to play. Forward Kyle Brucculeri is back in practice, although perhaps not ready for D-I basketball. But he's closer than he's been.

“He got some good news from the doctor,” Stewart said. “He just needs to have some good news from the head coach.”

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

By the way, UCD beat them

I know that some UC Davis fans generally are underwhelmed with the Big West as a conference. And it's hard to really blame them. The words "Cal State Northridge" and "really attractive opponent" don't often show up next to each other. But the Big West actually had a national championship last weekend, when UC Santa Barbara beat UCLA 2-1 in the NCAA men's soccer final. This is exciting for the Big West, but also for the Aggies. UC Davis beat the Gauchos 1-0 on Sept. 23.

It's a feather in the cap for the Big West, making it one of the few non-BCS leagues that can actually boast a national championship. If you look at the schools that won Divsion I championships this fall, (excluding football and the still-in-progress volleyball tournament) UCSB is the only one to come from a non-BCS school. And after you dispute my sample size, I'll hit you with another stat. Of 32 current D-I title holders, only six come from outside the Big Six conferences. Those sports are: Women's bowling (Farleigh-Dickinson), fencing (Harvard), rifle (Alaska-Fairbanks), women's rowing (Brown, which shared the title with Cal), men's tennis (Pepperdine) and, yes, men's soccer. It's not a bad list for the conference to be on.

And as promised, here is video Santa Barbara students celebrating the title by throwing a random soccer goal into the ocean.



Youtube also has a video of them carrying it down the street toward the ocean. Victory makes students do some strange things.

Monday, December 4, 2006

Biggs to Stanford

Walt Harris' fate at Stanford probably was sealed on Sept. 17, 2005 when Bob Biggs' UC Davis Aggies went into the old Stanford Stadium and stunned the Cardinal 20-17. So when Harris was fired today after compiling a 6-17 record over two years, it's probably not surprising that Aggie fans and others thought of Biggs as Harris' potential replacement on The Farm. My sense is this is probably just talk.

Biggs said in an interview last Wednesday that he planned to see the Division I transition through at UCD, which meant leading the program into its first playoff-eligible season. He was, therefore, planning to return. And as I scribbled down his comments, he repeated the statement. When he said that, of course, the Stanford job was not open. So we'll if that changes. Biggs is happy at Davis, but has always said he would listen to other job offers if they came along. He added that after a 6-5 season, he didn't really expect his phone to ring. One name that has appeared in multiple web reports is Jim Harbaugh, the brash young coach at San Diego. We'll see where it all goes.