I heard Bob Williams and Scott Marsh taking note of the fact that in football, a player can be in up to four games then still redshirt. If a basketball player plays even one game, he or she is no longer eligible for a redshirt. This makes no sense to me, but I haven't been able to find the rationale for it. Four football games is a fourth of a season. Four basketball games isn't even an eighth.

Does anyone know why the NCAA rules are so strict about basketball red shirts?

There's an odd geographical pattern here. It seems that the UC schools in the north (Berkeley, Davis, SF, Santa Cruz and Merced) are focusing on academics and do not have athletics as a high priority. The southern campuses (LA, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Irvine and Riverside) for whatever reason are no less focused on academics give a lot of support to their sports programs. Could the fan bases have something to do with it?

Can a market be described only by proximal demographics? I don't know, just looked at these college towns:
Pullman 32,901
Laramie 31,407
Corvallis 61,087
Provo 113,343
DeKalb 40,290 (Northern Illinois U.)

Games of Feb. 15

UC Riverside (home, 17-10/10-5) 81, UC Santa Barbara (16-10/8-7) 69
CSU Bakersfield (home, 11-16/5-10) 91, CSU Fullerton (6-21/1-13) 54
CSUN (home, 19-7/11-4) 89, Cal Poly (10-16/4-10) 85
UC Irvine (22-4/12-2) 66, Hawai`i (home, 14-12/6-9) 49

With the loss to UCSD, the Aggies are now alone in fifth place, but in a close grouping of four other schools: CSUN, UCSB and UCR. With CSUN at home next week, UCD has a chance to get within a game of them, although it would have been nice had Cal Poly upset the Mats.

The poor Titans can’t seem to beat anyone and that score was one of the more lopsided within the Big West this season. That was the one game that has little impact on the Ags standing, although it indicates that the Roadrunners can’t be taken lightly next week. Hawai`i’s loss helps the Aggies but it would have been great had Riverside lost as well as CSUN.

As good as San Diego is, the Ags did not play well, giving up more turnovers than assists and hitting less than a fourth of their 3 point tries. An upset was not in the cards, but I suspect Coach Les saw a lot of things the team failed to do. They definitely to get back to where they were in their sweep in SoCal last week if they want to have any chance for a tournament bye.

Yeah, the color guy doesn't even try to be objective. I was hoping the Ags would at least make the end of the game respectable and they didn't give up. The second half was close at 33-29.

Ags playing better D so far, plus UCSD unlikely to hit at the 70% rate they had the first half.

Last year's loss at Davis was 92-59. This one projects to be worse. You sure they aren't an NBA team?

It's pretty easy to see why these guys are 20-4 this season. I don't see this much talent AND depth in the conference.

Neither Sevilla nor Rocak started. Maybe Conner has some kind of injury or virus.

I wonder why the odd start time?

I wonder how much interest will increase when UC Davis starts playing the likes of UNLV, San Jose State, Air Force and New Mexico? Would that become more of a selling point with the general public in and around Davis than Fullerton and Bakersfield?

Agreed. I hope Mani continues to improve. Nils Cooper and Carl Daughtery have begun to make a solid contribution. Need the depth.

Games of Feb. 8

UC Riverside (home, 16-9/9-4) 69, CSU Bakersfield (10-15/4-9) 64
CSUN (17-7/9-4) 81, Long Beach State (home, 7-18/3-10) 80
UC San Diego (20-4/10-2) 85, UC Irvine (home, 20-4/10-2) 67
UC Santa Barbara (home, 16-8/8-5) 76 , Hawai`i (13-11/5-8) 72

Can we call the Tritons thumping of UCI an upset? I’m going to say yes, becaue not only was the game in Irvine, but look at the score. San Diego ran out to an 18 point lead in the second half after a close first half. The thing is, it doesn’t matter much to the rest of the BW, because these two are likely to fight it out for the first seed. Irvine’s shot, if they don’t win the tournament, for an at-large NCAA bid is diminishing The bad news is that the three teams that the Ags needed to lose, both won, albeit in close games. Thus UCD is as game behind both UCR and CSUN and tied with UCSB.

Too many turnovers and too many 3s from UCR overcome by a 17 point edge from the foul line. Crazy. Nice payback for the loss down in Riverside via a late game 3 by an unlikely shooter in both games. These two teams are really evenly matched. I'd hate to have to play them in a first round of the tournament.

Despite the size advantage of the Highlanders. UCD has a rebound advantage 36-29 with 7:43 left. Wish there was more of a crowd for this game, as crucial as it is.

Ags had an odd stretch there when UCR went up by double figures. It was sort of a "yesterday's oatmeal" period: cold and sloppy. If not for getting hotter and crisper (a "toast" period) at the end, this would be looking bad.

Mani scores 5! Maybe what he needs is simply confidence? Same for Niko on offense. He only seems to take layups and 3s. It's kind of frustrating to see him get the ball in the low post and not make a move to score.

I've always believed that a good basketball program is the result of great coaching. Some good examples are Gonzaga most recently and historically going as far back as John Wooden and Coach K. Both UCLA and Duke had not been all that successful prior to those coaches arriving. Ditto, Arizona with Lute Olsen. Those school$ have built on the legacie$ created by those coache$, very much based on fan and alumni support once they started winning. As much as I think highly of Jim Les, both UCI and UCSD have the best coaches in the Big West. I agree with TR67 on the fact that those schools have no football.