Author Archives: Zander

#CountdowntoCauseway 4: The Rivalry

While this past Saturday’s Battle for the Golden Horseshoe was a rivalry game, and indeed an exciting one, it quails before the one this week. For whatever reason, be it our proximity, our respective institution’s ages, or our massive gap in academic prestige, beating up on Sac State is somehow just way more fun than taking on Cal Poly or Stanford or Nevada or anyone else in our proximity.
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The Biggest Event in UC Davis Athletics History is Today

If you have a few hours to spare this evening, you might want to head over to the Pavilion.

You’ve probably heard this week (the campus can’t seem to talk about it enough) that our Women’s Basketball team is playing UConn. Let’s take a moment to reflect how important this is.

The University of Connecticut is the best women’s basketball program in the country by a landslide. They won all 40 games and a national championship last year. We played them in Connecticut last year and they won with very few healthy players.

Then, we were a nobody, brought for cheap entertainment so UConn could hone their skills before league play. Now, we’re the hosts with an experienced home team and giant student section assembled for battle.

Let’s be clear, nobody expects us to win tonight. But that doesn’t really matter. The fact that after a decade in Division I we were able to get the best team in the nation in a major spectator sport to play us on our own turf is a watershed moment for UCD athletics. If anything has suggested UC Davis has finally hit the big leagues, this is it.

After all, what game could compete with it? The ESPN2 games, against our normal conference opponents as we grappled over a single playoff birth with practically zero chance of moving on? The two Stanford games, against a football team that was considered “good” largely due to its conference? The national DII basketball championship, an admittedly impressive feat that few outside of Davis heard about?

No, our sports teams have done impressive things before, but nothing on this scale. This is the real deal. This is the biggest game in UC Davis Athletics history.

And remember, we haven’t lost yet. We play the game, not talk about past titles, to determine the winner. And if we do emerge triumphant then the students of UC Davis will bear witness to one of the greatest moments in the 100-plus year saga of our school.

Game Time: 7 PM
Doors Open: 6 PM
Be There: 4:30 PM
How to Watch Online: ESPN3
Hashtags for this Game: #GoAgs #UCDvsUCONN #BeThereNovember14