Morning Links 4/30/12

APRIL HAS COME TO AN END! And along with the end of the month also comes the end of seasons for many Big West teams, unless they've moved on to the NCAA tourney.  Lets recap:

Total Conference Tourney WP recaps
This links is more useful for all the conference tourneys that went on this weekend, but we're just concerned about one:Irvine four-peated with the win over Davis, 10-5.

Women's Tennis Tourney: LBSU punches bid for NCAA tourney...again
Seriously, at what point does a dynasty become a dictatorship?  The 49ers downed UCI 4-1 collecting their 8th title in 9 years, which is just silly.  Congrats to the 49er women!

Men's Tennis: Cal Poly captures first BWC title
At the complete opposite end of the spectrum, you have the Mustangs, who had never won a title in Men's Tennis before: and they had to battle it out.   Cal Poly won it at the end 4-3 to capture the title and their first NCAA auto-bid.

Pacific takes a strong lead after Day 1 of the Men's Golf Tourney
The Tigers lead the way with a score of 282, with the next closest score being 290.

Baseball series recaps
Cal Poly swept Pacific with a 6-4 win on Sunday, Dirtbags beat CSUN 12-3 to win the series, UCSB won a pitchers duel, 3-2 to take the series against UCD and UCI swept UCR with a 6-5 win in 11 innings.

Softball series recaps
Shelby Wisdom set a UCSB record by winning her 19th game of the season beating UCD 2-1 and avoiding the sweep, Tigers swept Mustangs with an 8-3 win on Sunday, 49ers swept the Highlanders with a 6-0 shutout and the Titans absolutely dominated the Matadors 11-0 to take the series.

Standings after the jump:

Big West NFL Football Draft: Who's in your Big West All-Time Draft?

The NFL Draft begins Thursday and finishes Saturday as upcoming players hope to be drafted.  This got me thinking, as a huge college football fan and NFL fan (you'll see in the fall), what would you pick as the "All-11" Big West team for your football team.  Let's first make some rules, in which there are essentially none.  You want multiple quarterbacks? Go for it.  They can be current or former players, but they had to have at least gone to a current Big West school (No Boise State, UNLV, Hawaii yet, or Utah State players etc...).  Coaches had to have played for the team (which their names are on the list).  So with that in mind, here is the list:

Morning Links 4/25/12

Wednesday hump day, I wanna link day!

Baseball recap from Tuesday: St. Mary's 2, UCSB 1
The Gauchos only managed 4 hits as they lose the pitchers duel to the Gaels.

Today's baseball recaps
Dirtbags beat USC 1-0, UC Davis beat San Francisco 5-2, Matadors defeated the Roadrunners 5-2, Fresno State won a close one against Cal Poly 3-2, UCR's bullpen blows a 4-3 lead against No. 16 USD as the Torreros win 7-6, UCI fell to No.12 UCLA 9-3, Nevada dominated Pacific 15-4 and No. 8 Fullerton was upset by LMU 6-5.

UC Davis clinches third straight Big West Women's Golf Title
Three Aggies finished in the top 5 individual, with Freshman Bev Vatananugulkit leading the way.

Schedule and Seeds of Women's Tennis Championship: April 26-29
If you live in Indian Wells or nearby, GO SUPPORT THESE ATHLETES!

Schedule of Men's Tennis Championship: April 27-29
Also in Indian Wells, some good opportunities to go see collegiate tennis played.

Men's Golf Tourney in La Quinta, April 29-May 1
Once again, if you're in the area, go to the matches.

I have a map of the championship locations, which means you have a map to go there!

Questions? See something I missed? Comment Below!

Big West Women's Water Polo Tournament: Analysis and Breakdown

Good morning all!

Since I know next to nothing about water polo, except that the Big West is fairly good at it, I asked for help in breaking down the conference tournament this weekend and our chances at the NCAA tournament.  Jeremy Mauss from The Skip Shot gave this awesome in-depth analysis for your enjoyable reading.  Once again, if you haven't done so, you should check out The Skip Shot at some point as well as his other blog (which I write for occasionally), Mountain West Connection where he and others provide an excellent source of MWC info and analysis.  So for your entertainment, here's Jeremy:

The 2012 Big West women's conference tournament is set for April 27 - 29 on the campus of UC Davis. The top seed in the tournament is UC Irvine who finished with a perfect 5-0 in league play and they are looking to secure the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Currently Irvine is ranked No. 6 in the latest top 25 poll and they are the highest ranked non-MPSF team.

Based on record Irvine is the favorite to win the Big West tournament, but their path will not be easy. First off, the tournament is played at home of No. 2 seeded UC Davis where Davis has gone 9-0 at home included upset wins over four ranked teams including Maryland and San Jose State who have been ranked in the top-10 this season. Currently Davis is ranked No. 11 but that should change since their win over San Jose State was this past Saturday and they were ranked No. 8.

Irvine and Davis have played only once this year and Irvine easily won 10-4, but that was at Irvine, and If the final matchup is between Davis and Irvine home pool advantage could be the equalizer.

First, Irvine needs to get to the finals. By winning the regular season title they and Davis earn a bye to the semifinals and will play the winner between of Long Beach State or Cal State Northridge. Neither of those games will be easy since Irvine only defeated Cal State Northridge 11-10 and Long Beach State they played twice and won 9-4 and 8-5, so the path to the title game will not be easy. As for Davis, they are in the same scenario as they beat Pacific twice but the two games are a 8-7 and 11-9 victories and a 9-8 win over Santa Barbara.

Really every team has a shot to make it to the NCAA championship since the bracket is set up with tough matchups for the top two seeds. However, look for the final to be between Davis and Irvine, and as for a predicted winner gotta go with Irvine based off of the recent 10-4 over Davis.

As for the NCAA tournament projections, look for Irvine to be the No. 4 or No. 5 seed behind all of the MPSF teams who qualify and possibly Loyola Marymount who Irvine split the two games this year. If Davis is to win they more than likely will be the No. 5 seed with a small chance to be the No. 6 seed, it just depends how well Michigan does at the CWPA Eastern championships.

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I linked to it in last Friday's links, but in case you missed it: here's his story link and information about the upcoming tournament this weekend.

Once again, thanks to Jeremy for all his help.

Morning Links 4/23/12

It's Monday! Got your weekend kinks worked out? Now here are some links:

UCI takes charge of golf at day one of Big West Championships
You can find the full table here.

Baseball recaps
No. 12 Fullerton beat Cal Poly in 10 to win the series 2-1, Trevor Frank threw a 3 hit, complete game shutout as UCR wins their first conference series this season, UCSB swept Pacific with a 6-2 finishing game, and the Dirtbags continue their series win streak to 5 as LBSU beat UCI 5-4.

Softball recaps
UCSB dominated Pacific 11-2 gaining both a series win and a share of the lead, Titans won the game 5-4 against UCR, but lost the series, LBSU beat Northridge 9-4 also giving them a share of the conference lead, and UCD took the series from Cal Poly with a 3-0 win.

After the jump are your season standings:

Morning Links 4/20/12

It's morning somewhere, right (like Hawaii!  I see you Warriors waiting for your turn on this blog).  Here are the recaps and links:

UCR signs basketball recruits
Chris Patton is the most intriguing recruit for me: The Aussie is transferring from Neosho County CC in Kansas to UCR and he was ranked 102 in the 2012JucoJunction Top 150 after averaging 15 pts and 10 rebounds last season.

Seeding is set for the Big West Water Polo Tourney
Jeremy from The Skip Shot  has all the times and standings and seedings for the Tourney.

Anteaters finish up perfect conference play with an 8-5 win over LBSU
Is there any reason to believe that UCI is not going to win the Big West tourney?

Women's Tennis: CSU Fullerton 4, UCR 3
This one came down to the last singles match as Jessica Pepa won her match to win the overall competition against the Highlanders.

Women's Tennis: UCD 5, Pacific 2
The Aggies came out strong and never looked back as they dominated the Tigers winning the doubles point and going 4-2 in the singles.

Wednesday's Recaps:

Baseball recaps from Wednesday
UCR 13, UNLV 5
UCSB 4, USC 4 (12)

Softball recap from Wednesday
UCLA 10, CSU Northridge 3

Men's Tennis recap
No. 12 Stanford 7, Pacific 0

See anything I missed? Comment below, and also if you haven't done so, be sure to like us on Facebook.

Morning Links 4/18/12

Wednesday Slump day? Links day!

Tuesday's Baseball Recaps
Lots of games on Tuesday as No. 12 CSU Fullerton came back to beat Pepperdine 8-6, UCR beat UNLV 3-1, UCI won at home vs future conference mates SDSU 10-5, Fresno State beat Cal Poly 5-3, No. 11 UCLA beat CSU Northridge 12-4, Sac State beat UCD 8-5 and LMU walked off against the Dirtbags 5-4.

Women's Tennis recap
The only game on Tuesday was a successful one for the Big West as CSU Northridge beat LMU 5-2, losing only the doubles point and one of the single's point.

Men's Tennis: UCD dominates Hawaii-Hilo
UCD was on the verge of a sweep until the Vulcans salvaged the last point.  In other news, how awesome is a "Vulcan" as a mascot?

Men's Tennis: UCSB falls to Fresno State 5-2
After winning the doubles point, the Gauchos couldn't hold the lead to win the decision.

NLI's are coming out, UCSB signs recruits for Men and Women's basketball
The first link is the Men's link, but if you're also interested, here is the Women's release.

Morning Links 4/16/12

If you thought/hoped I permanently disappeared...YOU WERE WRONG!  Just a holiday break.  Here are links followed by standings:

Funds cut, sports cut at CSU Fullerton
The sports that were cut were Fencing (Men's and Women's), Wrestling (who were competing in the Pac-12) and women's Gymnastics.

Water Polo recaps
No. 11 UC Davis beat No. 18 Northridge 10-4 and No. 15 UCSB defeated Pacific 8-7.

Softball recaps
Cal Poly swept CSUN in Sunday's double header 4-1 and 3-1, UCSB swept UCR this weekend, Pacific swept CSUF and UCD won the rubber match against LBSU 3-1.

Baseball recaps
CSUN won the rubber match against No. 27 Cal Poly with a 6-3 win, Dirtbags swept UCSB, No. 12 Fullerton won the series against UCI with a 5-3 victory, UCR lost the series to CSUB, and Pacific got their first BW win against UCD yesterday, however dropped the series.

Standings after the jump

Morning Links 4/11/12

Mid week slump? How about some links?

UCSB sweeps CSU Bakersfield in a doubleheader
Gauchos beat the Roadrunners 3-1 in Game 1, and 4-3 in extras in Game 2.

Baseball Recaps of Individual Baseball games:
UCSB 6, Cal Poly 5
CSU Northridge 4, CSU Bakersfield 3
LBSU 9, SDSU 4
No. 17 UCLA 4, No. 12 CSU Fullerton 2
Pepperdine 8, UCR 7 (11)

Men's Tennis: Pacific 4, Sacramento State 2
In a singles only match, Pacific handled Sac State as the 2 matches the Hornets could get were extremely close.

Women's Tennis: Cal Poly 4, UCSB 3
With the single's matches tied at 3, the Mustangs won the doubles matches 2-1 to take the doubles point and the competition.

And as a random note: if you've been following the sports world at all, LSU Freek manages to show his genius yet again (H/T EDSBS.com)

Morning Links 4/10/12

Extremely late links, but they're here and I got some contributions from the grapevine (AKA Jeremy Mauss of the Mountain West Connection and The Skip Shot...if you haven't done so, READ THOSE BLOGS).

ESPN Power Rankings...because they pretend to know something about college baseball
In defense of the WWL, they do have Fullerton ranked at No. 12 and there is admittance of the Mid-Major presence in conference RPI (though it was aimed at the WCC, the Big West is sitting in the top 10).

Cal Poly pulls off HUGE upset against Bulldogs, 4-3 in 10
How does a 9-25 team beat a 27-16 team?  How about with a 2-run shot to tie the game in the seventh to send the game to extra innings.

Big West Baseball preview for this week
ESPNU is showing Sunday's CSU Fullerton-UCI rivalry game, where people will see excellent West Coast baseball.  Read the article to find out other stickyball stories.

Pacific gets big transfer Brendan Lane from UCLA
Long story short, Lane graduated wanted to do his master's and still play basketball because he still has eligibility.  Pacific was the perfect match...will the Tigers be able to contend this year? Stay tuned.

Do you have an interesting article you would like to share? Leave it in the comment section below!

Morning Links 4/9/12

Happy Monday everyone!  No games yesterday due to the holiday so all the recaps will come from Saturday.

Softball recaps
Most of these recaps finished up the weekend series, so here are the scores: Davis swept CSU Northridge, 49ers swept Cal Poly, CSU Fullerton won the series against UCSB 2-1, and Pacific swept UCR.  Your softball standings are below:
 

UC Davis	5	1	.833	15	22		.405	7-9	4-3	4-10
Cal State Fullerton	4	2	.667	16	18		.471	7-6	3-5	6-7
Long Beach State	4	2	.667	16	20		.444	5-2	3-2	8-16
Pacific	4	2	.667	24	13		.649	8-6	6-3	10-4
UC Santa Barbara	3	3	.500	16	25		.390	9-5	3-7	4-13
Cal State Northridge	2	4	.333	7	29		.194	1-10	2-3	4-16
Cal Poly	1	5	.167	8	25		.242	1-9	0-5	7-11
UC Riverside	1	5	.167	18	20		.474	16-9	1-3	1-8

Baseball recaps
Matadors salvaged the last game against the Gauchos to avoid the sweep, Cal Poly showed dominance in a sweep of UCI, Titans swept UCD, Dirtbags won the series against UCR 2-1, and Pacific won the last game against SJSU to avoid the sweep from their out of conference rivals.  Current baseball standings are below:

Cal State Fullerton	5	1	0	.833	21	10	0	.677	16-5	5-5	0-0
Cal Poly	4	2	0	.667	20	10	0	.667	13-5	5-4	2-1
UC Santa Barbara	4	2	0	.667	16	14	0	.533	10-10	5-2	1-2
Long Beach State	4	2	0	.667	12	17	0	.414	5-7	7-10	0-0
UC Irvine	3	3	0	.500	17	12	0	.586	10-5	2-6	5-1
Cal State Northridge	2	4	0	.333	13	18	0	.419	5-6	7-10	1-2
UC Riverside	2	4	0	.333	9	15	0	.375	5-6	4-9	0-0
UC Davis	0	3	0	.000	11	16	0	.407	8-6	3-10	0-0
Pacific	0	3	0	.000	10	21	0	.323	7-6	3-14	0-1

Water Polo recaps
No. 6 UCI clinched the regular season Big West title with a 14-2 win over Pacific, and No. 10 UCD beat LBSU 15-10.

From last Wednesday, Cal Poly football opens spring practice
The two interesting things of note: how the new defensive coordinator will break in, and what the 5 quarterback position battle will look like.  Note: Cal Poly, UCD and Hawaii are Big West teams, therefore, their football teams will be covered despite not being in our conference for football.

That's it for now.  See anything I missed? Comment below.  Also be sure to like us on Facebook if you haven't done so.

Morning Links 4/6/12

Miss the Links? Time to get you caught up!

Women's Water Polo preview highlights UCI vs UCD this weekend
Also, the Big West got an auto-bid to the tournament this year, which is always nice.

Conference recaps from yesterday (and rivals Pacific vs SJSU)
No. 14 CSU Fullerton came from behind to beat the Aggies 5-4, the Mustangs toppled the Anteaters 6-0, UCR won a close battle against the Dirtbags 3-2, UCSB dominated Northridge 11-1 and Pacific was shutout by the Spartans 3-0.

Men's Tennis scoreboard: UCI 4, LMU 3 and UCD 3, Montana 4

Women's Tennis scoreboard: UCI 7, UCR 0 and CSUN 5, Pacific 2


Get ready for the weekend, there should be some good games in all sports!

Morning Links 4/4/12

Midweek slump?  Not here (Okay so maybe here)!

Baseball recaps from Tuesday
No. 14 CSU Fullerton dominated SDSU, CSU Northridge lost to LMU and CSU Bakersfield topped UCSB.

Three Up and Three Down from Dirtbag baseball this weekend
The Gazettes covered the goods and bads from LBSU's series win against Cal Poly (who was 9-1 at home before this weekend).

Nikki Armagost named to "Watch List" for USA Today's Softball POY
And the Augusta Gazette, a paper from near her hometown of Andover, KS couldn't be more ecstatic in this article.

Find any interesting Big West article? Let us know!

Also don't forget to "Like" us on Facebook.

Introducing the Big West Teams: Cal State University, Northridge

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to introduce the current members of the Big West conference.  This introduction will focus on the school, the fans, the athletics and other random trivial facts.  Hopefully, this will be an educational and fun introduction.  Of course, if you the alumni/fan of that team would like to correct me, feel free to do so in the comment section below or shoot me an email.
With that, allow me to introduce (in alphabetical order) the next member of the current Big West Conference: Cal State Northridge Matadors.

Morning Links 4/3/12

Good morning!  If you're in California, it's probably clear and sunny pushing towards beautiful spring weather.  If you're not...well, I hope it's clear and sunny there too.  Here's some links:

Conference realignment: the talk that never ends
The Long Beach Post is worried that the BWC is losing some of it's appeal losing Pacific. I still say no, and as long as college football realignment continues, it will almost always be no.  The Big West is in no threat of dying in the foreseeable future, stop worrying.

Pacific walks off against Nevada 6-5
Down 5-4 in the bottom of the 9th, Pacific's Jason Taasaas hit a line drive 2-run single to win the game.

Softball recaps
CSU Northridge beat Pacific 5-4 to win the series and UCD blasted UCR 9-1 in 5-innings to win the rubber match as well.

Late Tennis recap from Monday, UCSB sweeps Pacific 7-0
This helped them clinch the No. 2 seed for the Big West Tournament.

See anything I missed? Comment below!

Morning Links 4/2/12: Happy April

Ah...if only April Fools' could have come on a Monday, I could have trolled everyone with some astonishing rumor, but alas, 'tis not the case.

Keisser says what everyone has thought, the Pacific move was not a surprise
I feel what is a surprise to what he said was that they've been looking to join for the last 10 years and applied multiple times.  Maybe there's more to this story after all...

Women's Water Polo, where the Big West really dominates
No. 6 UCI took the sweep this weekend, beating No. 15 UCSB 8-4, and CSU Northridge beat LBSU 11-7.

Softball recaps of conference play
UCSB won the series 2-1 over LBSU, Titans split with Cal Poly, Pacific split with Northridge and UCD split with UCR.

Baseball conference recaps
LBSU won the series against Cal Poly on the road, Northridge beat Fullerton yesterday, but lost the series, UCI swept Pacific, UCSB won the rubber match against UCR and in a battle of future conference foes, Hawaii won the series against UCD.

In what may be an awesome April Fool's joke...
The Big West started the "'Bows are BACK" campaign and even reverted back to the rainbow logo.  However go ahead and click on the .pdf for the press release: I dare you.

See something that I missed? Comment Below.