Baseball is just around the corner. Seriously.

BERKELEY -- If you're curious, and you might be, the playing surface at AT&T currently is covered by mounds of dirt and construction equipment. So seriously, it can't be baseball season yet, can it? Well, this morning, sports editor extraordinaire Matt O'Donnell and I rolled into China Basin for the annual Northern California College Baseball Media Day. UC Davis was invited for the first time, which makes for decent exposure for the baseball program.

The event included coaches and players from Stanford, Cal, San Jose State, Santa Clara, Saint Mary's, San Francisco, Sac State, Pacific and UCD. All spoke about the growth of college baseball over the last decade, coinciding with an article in Baseball America making a similar point.

Starting on Sunday, you can look forward to a three-day baseball preview extravaganza, touching on the changes and challenges facing the sport, recurring themes in Northern California and an in depth peek at the new-look Aggie team. UCD opens its season on Tuesday at Santa Clara. The home opener is Feb. 13 against Saint Mary's. Also, coming soon in The Enterprise's gold-top section: A look at the ongoing dispute between UCD students and the administration over just what sort of cheering is acceptable at Aggie games, full coverage of this weekend's home hoops action and a report on Zalesky-fest, Friday's wrestling match between the Aggies (coached by Lennie Zalesky) and Oregon State (coached by his little brother, Jim).

Breaking; It's hard to build a stadium anywhere

Cal's proposed $125 million renovation of its football stadium had been blocked by a judge in Berkeley. The city's objections to the plan centered on safety, specifically that's it's a bad idea to build along a fault line even if you've done seismic surveys. The injunction means Cal can't start work until after a trial this summer. That effectively moves everything back a year. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the year delay will cost the school an extra $8 to 10 million in construction costs. UCD's $30M stadium was delayed two years, once by the regents and once by Mother Nature. The price tag never changed on the stadium, so the increased costs will show up in what isn't there, such as more seats and stadium lights.

Coachspeak

LOS ANGELES -- It is easy to be gracious in victory, and when it was over on Thursday, Cal State Fullerton coach Bob Burton walked down the hallway and congratulated UC Davis' Gary Stewart. Among other things, Burton told Stewart he was impressed with the way the Aggies played, especially considering they were without guard Rommel Marentez. "That's like us going in without L.B.," Burton said, referring to Titan point guard Bobby Brown. High praise, indeed.

UCD isn't happy with the loss. But if you go back a month and look at what the equally athletic Long Beach State did to it, Thursday's 84-77 loss would still have to count as another positive step. The Aggies did a good job executing a very specific gameplan against Fullerton, slowing the Titans' transition game. There were only a couple of sequences when the pace sped up.

Here are a couple more notes from Thursday:

--I touched on this in the paper, but Bussey Ellis' maturation into a legitimate Division I point guard is progressing rapidly. He scored 11 points, dished seven assists and committed no turnovers in 31 minutes. In all, giving up 10 turnovers against a team like Fullerton is pretty impressive. That started with Ellis.

--You wonder how much a healthy Dominic Calegari (thumb) would have helped inside against Scott Cutley (whose 35 points were a career-high). Calegari has long arms, which might have able to provide a different look against the rock-solid Cutley. The Fullerton forward made 14-of-16 shots and seemed comfortable banging against Thomas Juillerat in the post. Juillerat is a big and tough guy in his own right, so to see someone dictate the game in the post was pretty impressive. Calegari played 12 minutes, but wasn't himself.

--I've only been on the beat for 18 games, but I don't think I've ever seen Stewart as fired up on the court as I did Thursday. My sense was that it all had a purpose. The officials allowed a high degree of physicality on both ends, which worked against the Aggies. Fullerton is a poor free throw shooting team and UCD is good. Also, it's easier to set your defense after made free throws, which has to be a constant focus against a team like Fullerton. UCD continued its fine shooting from the foul line, making 11-of-13 free throws. It would have liked some more chances.

Looking ahead to Saturday, the Aggies may actually be the favorite. UC Riverside (3-17) has lost 15 straight games and beaten only one Division I team. It's been a long year from the start, as the Highlanders lost coach David Spencer before the season when he needed surgery to repair a broken leg. Interim coach Vonn Webb has had to deal with injuries (71 missed player games) and the flagging confidence of a beaten-down team. But if there were ever a time to make a stand, this is it. Riverside won't have played since the previous Saturday and with two games in 14 days, can use this time to get its house in order.

"The most dangerous animal in the world is a wounded one," Stewart said. "They have our full concentration. We're going to have to play well to beat them."

The schedule is out

The 2007 UC Davis football schedule is out:

Sept. 1: Western Washington
Sept. 8: at Portland State
Sept. 15: at Eastern Washington
Sept. 22: Northeastern
Sept. 29: at San Jose State
Oct. 6: at North Dakota State
Oct. 13: Cal Poly
Oct. 20: at Southern Utah
Oct. 27: South Dakota State
Nov. 3: at Sacramento State
Nov. 17: San Diego
Nov. 24: Football Championship Series, first round

The RPI

According to the NCAA, the UC Davis has the 295th best Division I men's basketball team this year, out of a possible 336. The NCAA released its official RPI rankings this week, meaning we no longer have to rely on the simulations. UCD's three victories have come against Jackson State (131st), Brown (246th) and UC Santa Barbara (149th). The Aggies best loss came to Stanford (54th) and its worst came against Sacramento State (282nd). The Best West team is Long Beach State, which clocks in at 94th. Overall, UCLA is No. 1, followed by Arizona, which suggests that this might be a pretty good March for the Pac-10.

Happy fun time

SANTA BARBARA -- There were no basketball adjustments made at halftime of UC Davis' 72-68 loss to Cal Poly on Thursday. Instead UC Davis coach Gary Stewart walked into his locker room and preached fun, saying that was the department in which the Aggies were lacking. Maybe he was right. The Aggies won the second half by 10 points and played perhaps their best half of the season. It wasn't enough, of course. But at this point, with so much youth and so many losses already in the bank, even a coach that abhors "moral victories" like Gary Stewart will take small pleasures in the little things. The hope, obviously, is that those little things will eventually add up into actual wins.

There were a couple of things of note from Thursday:

--I wrote at length about in my Friday game story about the emergence of the freshmen, and that bears repeating. UCD has started to see marked improvement from its younger players. Thursday, Dominic Calegari led all scorers with 15 points. Bussey Ellis, who may have made the biggest strides of anyone, hit a three 3-pointers in first half to keep the Aggies in the game. And Shane Hanson hit some big 3s in the second half during the rally. Stewart was so high on this group of first-year players in the preseason, and that's starting to show up.

"They're evolving," UCD coach Gary Stewart said. "The first place you see that is in practice. Their fundamentals are improving, their overall basketball is improving. They’re getting used to the speed of the game. All of them. We expect them to be pretty good players."

--Also, the Aggies may have finally started to figure out how to accomplish things against the 2-3 zone defense, which they have been facing pretty much non-stop for last two weeks. Mostly a UCD team with a lot of shooters has seemed content to launch shots from the outside, which is actually what teams that play zone want you to do. UCD scored 22 of its 68 points in the paint Thursday. That's not an overwhelming number, but it does demonstrate a consistent to work the ball inside. Santa Barbara has more big bodies, which could make the zone an effective tactic Saturday. But maybe it won't be as crippling.

--UC Davis coach Gary Stewart smiled on Thursday night. With 11:41 remaining in the second half, and his team in the midst of a comeback, he watched Thomas Juillerat dive to the floor after a loose ball. It looked like it was going to be a held ball (possession Cal Poly), but Juillerat somehow wrestled the ball free and induced the Mustang player to foul him instead. Those are the kind of the plays that really excite Stewart, and a grin crept across the coach's face. Stewart has been frustrated recently and at 2-12, it's hard to blame him. That bubbled over last Saturday. Maybe that was rock bottom, for both the team and for the coach. If that's true, things might be starting to look up. I'm a wait-and-see sort of guy, so that's where I'm filing this for now.

Some football notes

SAN LUIS OBISPO -- We take a break from your regularly scheduled basketball studies for some football updates, which are available after the jump.

First, the Gateway Football Conference has invited the presidents of North and South Dakota State to its next meeting, Feb. 19. The expectation in the Upper Midwest is that an invitation will be forthcoming. That may or may not be true. The Great West will meet shortly after that by teleconference to make its next move. Commissioner Ed Grom has been talking expansion, With the smart money on invitations for North Dakota and South Dakota coming sooner rather than later. Both programs are on the way to Division I-AA from D-II. We'll be keeping an eye on that.

Second, the 2007 schedule is almost finished and is expected to be offically released at some point this month. UCD athletic director Greg Warzecka said there were one or two signatures still remaining to be collected before there would be an official release. It sounds as though there will be five home games.

That's all I have for now.

No penalties for Stewart

UC Davis athletic Director Greg Warzecka said late Wednesday afternoon that Aggie basketball coach Gary Stewart would face no sanctions for his outburst following Saturday's loss to Utah Valley State. On his way out of the media room following a 57-38 loss and a four-minute press conference, Stewart threw a chair, kicked another one and then overturned a garbage can. You can hear the audio from the final 30 seconds of the interview and the outburst below. Warzecka said his decision not to punish the fourth-year coach further was based on a fairly clean past track record while at UCD. For more on this and the Aggies' weekend jaunt to Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara, pick up Thursday's Enterprise.

About two nights ago

Our good friends at the California Aggie have posted a link to the audio of UC Davis coach Gary Stewart's postgame rampage following Saturday's 57-38 loss to Utah Valley State. And in the absence of any fresh news to report -- Stewart closed his team's practice today -- I'll direct you to the audio. Stewart certainly seemed to be seething throughout the press conference, but what was most jarring from my point of view was that his fit of redecoration did not seem to be in response to anything in particular. The questions posed seem fairly harmless. What do you think?

UCD athletic director Greg Warzecka was on his way back to campus from the NCAA Convention in Orlando, Fla. today. Reached by phone, he said he had only recently received the report of the chair tossing incident. He said he still had a few conversations to have before deciding whether there would be repercussions. I'm not going to weigh in on either side of that. What I'll say is this: chairs are sitting on, not for throwing. And probably, it's best that everyone remember that in the future.

What does one game mean?

Way back before the painful struggles of the last month, there was a weeklong stretch in which UC Davis lost three straight games by a combined 13 points. Those games, all of which came down to final minute, are the great "what-ifs" of this season. Would things have been different if a young team had experienced success early in the year? We'll never really know, because circumstances have changed. But in the wake of Vince Oliver's buzzer beater against Brown last night, we can at least start talking about momentum again.

The result was big for the Aggies, if only because wins totally can recharge a team's collective battery. Despite playing fairly poorly on the offensive end, UCD won with the sort sustained defensive effort it had lacked all season. The spontaneous outpouring of emotion after Oliver's shot tells me this team has not been disheartened by a lousy start. Emotion matters, and UCD has not lost its edge.

The reality of the situation, however, is that ugly wins can only carry you so far. The Aggies did not dominate Tuesday and they were the beneficiaries of a foul-line exhibition that would have made Shaq blush. There should be no apologies for winning, especially for a 2-10 team. But if UCD is to turn its year around, something done by winning streaks, this has to be a jumping-off point, not a destination.