ANAHEIM, Calif. — Fighting for their tournament lives might be an understatement. There were bigger issues at play in Friday night’s Big West Conference semifinal game between No. 2 UC Santa Barbara and No. 3 UC Irvine.
The Gauchos were so desperate to send Alan “Big Al” Williams out with an NCAA Tournament appearance. The Anteaters equally were as desperate to make it to the Tournament for the first time in program history.
UC Irvine still has that chance after a 72-63 overtime victory over UC Santa Barbara, Friday night at Honda Center. The ‘Eaters and Zot Nation move on to face No. 5 Hawaii in Saturday’s conference championship game.
“These kids did everything they could,” said UCSB head coach Bob Williams. “We had an opportunity and by the time we got to overtime, we were walking wounded and they jumped all over us.”
Williams uncharacteristically missed a shot right before the buzzer. The Gauchos uncharacteristically missed their free throws. There were some substitutions that Williams would like to have back, but it’s all coulda', woulda', shoulda' at this point.
“I 100 percent took a gamble at the eight-minute mark putting John (Green) and Gabe (Vincent) back in and it didn’t work out very well,” Bob Williams said. “This one sits on me, they did everything they could. They battled, they fought, they scrapped.”
Vincent and Green both fouled out. The Anteaters came out hot in overtime, scoring seven straight.
But even when those two exited, the game remained a battle of the premier big men in the conference. Mamadou Ndiaye and Will Davis II each scored 18 points for UC Irvine and Davis grabbed 15 boards. Williams scored 24 with 15 rebounds for the Gauchos.
“I knew (Ndiaye) would play today and compete,” said UC Irvine head coach Russell Turner. “Today’s performance for him was a reflection of his talent and his character.”
Ndiaye remains, but it was Big Al’s last conference tournament hurrah. He would have given anything to go out on the game’s biggest stage, but if he can’t then he just hopes people remember how hard he tried for Santa Barbara.
“I hope people remember that no matter what position you’re in, if you put in a lot of hard work and effort, you can make something great out of it,” he said. “I wasn’t highly recruited coming out of high school. But the coaches, the administration here, everybody gave me an opportunity. I was able to get an amazing education in a great basketball environment.
“I hope everybody remembers how much I truly love the University of California-Santa Barbara.”
Hawai‘i Topples Top-Seeded UC Davis
ANAHEIM, Calif. — The Rainbow Warriors have a question for everyone: Why not them?
No one expected much of them after a tough start to their season, but No. 5 seed Hawaii upended top-seeded UC Davis Friday night at Honda Center, landing a spot in Saturday’s Big West Conference championship game against UC Irvine.
“All that we’ve been through from the beginning of the season, people didn’t expect us to do everything we do,” said guard Roderick Bobbitt. “We know it’s a shock to the world.”
UC Davis is a team that lives by the outside shot and dies by it, and Hawaii (22-12, 8-8) effectively took that away in a 65-58 semifinal win. They didn’t take much away from Corey Hawkins, as he scored 22 points even in foul trouble, but no other Aggie scored more than eight and the nation's best three-point shooting team shot just 41 percent from the perimeter. The ‘Bows defense forced bad shots and turnovers, and then capitalized. They crashed the offensive glass hard.
As the team that wasn’t supposed to even be here, they didn’t back down to the team that was supposed to win it all.
“We started out trying to make this a season that everyone would remember,” said interim head coach Benjy Taylor. “And so far, it’s been exactly that.”
As for UC Davis (25-6, 14-2), as the regular season champs, they’ll go on to play in the NIT. It’s a consolation prize, yes, but it will mark the first time the Aggies have ever played in a postseason tournament at the Division I level.
“We’ll talk about the X’s and O’s another day,” Aggie head coach Jim Les said. “They earned the right by what they’ve done to play another day. We don’t feel good about our performance tonight, but because of what they’ve done all year, we’re going to get a chance to play again and we’re looking forward to that opportunity.”
It’s a remarkable accomplishment for a program that finished last in the conference last season. And it’s also a chance for one of the best guards in the country in Hawkins to continue playing a little longer.
“His legacy will be when it’s over, but we still have basketball to play,” Les said. “This is the first time that UC Davis has seen the postseason as a Division I program, and that’s a pretty good first paragraph.”
Matadors Squelch Aggie Three-Point Attack To Reach Women's Final
ANAHEIM, Calif. — CSUN head coach Jason Flowers didn’t want to give up too much of his game plan, but his face said it all when the question was asked: Take away UC Davis’ three-point shot, and his team will have a much better chance of making a return trip to the Big West Conference Tournament title game.
Friday afternoon at Honda Center, the second-seeded Matadors held the fourth-best three-point shooting team to just a single trey en route to a 61-47 win over No. 5 seed UC Davis in the semifinals.
“I think we discussed that a couple times between the time that we found out we were playing Davis. And today,” Flowers said. “At this point in the season there’s no surprises for anybody. It’s just a matter of who can execute the best for 40 minutes and that was us.”
He hesitated, but he relented, just a little: “Yes that was part of the message.”
It wasn’t a great shooting night for anyone on either team, unless your name was Ashlee Guay. The Matadors’ guard scored 21 points and grabbed seven boards.
But this was a battle of two gritty defenses. Camille Mahlknecht led the charge for CSUN (22-9, 11-5) with 12 boards and a steal while the Aggies’ Celia Marfone had a double-double that included 10 rebounds, a block and a steal.
“Camille was huge for us,” Flowers said. “She has been getting better late in the season, which is usually hard to do - especially for a senior. She has continued to improve and help our team and obviously, she was big in the middle.”
Marfone played just a little bit harder, as she has throughout the entire tournament, to replace Sydnee Fipps. The Aggies (15-16, 8-8) made their entire run without their best player, and while her presence was certainly missed, it showed the team what they can accomplish if each plays their role.
“Sometimes I think Sydnee is such a tremendous scorer that we stop and watch and let her go to work. With someone so skilled off the floor you look around and say, “Ok, it’s my time to step up,’” said Davis head coach Jennifer Gross. “What we build our program around is the idea of a team. We try to really get our players to buy into roles and if everybody does what they can do, the sum is greater than its parts.”
Hawai‘i Ends Cal State Fullerton's Cinderella Dream
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Cal State Fullerton’s run through the Big West Tournament came to an end Friday afternoon at Honda Center.
Throughout most of the game though, it looked as if the Titans might see their Cinderella dreams come true. Against No. 1 seed Hawai‘i, the seventh-seeded Titans played the whole game close, led for a brief stretch and kept it tied for even longer.
But in a tournament format that rewards the top seeds with a double-bye, playing as the No. 7 seed is quite a challenge. Despite the day off, the two extra games played factored in and the Titans ran out of gas in the end, falling 73-64.
“It was an amazing week of basketball for this group,” said head coach Daron Park. “We talked about playing our best basketball in March. That’s something we talked about all year long and I think, without a doubt, we played our best basketball this week.”
Hawaii’s Big West championship game appearance will be its first since 1996, the last year they played in the Big West before moving to the Western Athletic Conference. It’s the first championship game appearance in any conference since 2001.
“When we ended the game, I said to Daron Park, I said, “I hate playing you guys and I mean that with all the compliment in the world,’” said Hawai‘i coach Laura Beeman. “That is a very well-balanced team and I knew that was going to be a good match for us.”
It was, in fact, a balanced effort on the part of Fullerton. The Titans took care of the basketball and rebounded well. But the Rainbow Wahine was able to penetrate Fullerton’s zone and hurt them in the paint.
“Most teams play us zone so we figured we would get a little pressure to try and turn us over a little bit and get us out of our rhythm,” said Beeman. “They did a great job but our young ladies were really able to go inside when they needed to in the first half.”
An 11-4 run propelled the Titans past UH in the early minutes of the second half. They out-paced the ‘Bows and executed well in transition. But matching the physical presence was a whole other challenge. Fullerton went up and down the court as best they could until their energy level began to wane.
The Titans won’t play the Cinderella role this season, but it’s clear that with this run the program has turned a corner.
“We had some rough spots and we had some weeks where I didn’t know if the sun was going to come up. But sure enough, it did at the time,” Park said. “Since it came up, we kept going to work and we kept battling. We tried to become better basketball players individually and we tried to become a better team. By the end of the season, we did that.”