NCAA Regionals: Cal State Fullerton fails to advance out of Eugene

Cal State Fullerton came into the NCAA Regionals hoping to make it to the Super Regionals.  They came into the Regionals on a small slump having to take 2 of 3 from LBSU to win the conference and even up their last 6 games to .500 ball.

The first match the Titans played was against the Sycamores of Indiana State.  Cal State opened up to a 5-1 lead before the Sycamores led a charge to tie the game in the top of the 6th to 5-5.  With a run in the bottom of the 6th and 3 more in the bottom of the 8th, the Titans finished off Indiana State by a score of 9-5. Ivory Thomas led the Titans with 3 RBI's in that game.

The second game pitted Fullerton against the hosting Ducks.  An uncharacteristic bad start by Dylan Floro led to Oregon taking a 6-0 lead before the Titans fought back.  Fullerton couldn't finish the comeback however, dropping the game 7-5 against the Ducks and finding themselves having to face the surprise Austin Peay in the elimination game.  Michael Lorenzen led the way for the Titans with a 3-run Home Run.

In the elimination match, Fullerton fell to the Governors of Austin Peay.  J.D. Davis pitched 6 fantastic innings before Willie Kuhl gave up a run in the 8th, and Austin Peay never looked back.  Offensively, the Titans couldn't get anything going, earning only 3 hits and no runs as Austin Peay beat Fullerton by a score of 3-0.

Even though, they failed to make it to the Super-Regionals, you have to respect what dominance Fullerton has had in baseball, not breaking their tournament streak, even under first-year head coach Rick Vanderhook.  There's no reason not to have continuous high expectations for Titan baseball in the future.

Morning Links 6/7/12

It's Thursday! For many UC schools (I don't know about CSU schools), it's right before finals which means that, most of y'all are freaking out about grades and such.  As I'm prepping for finals as well, I'll still be bringing links, however the stories will slow down until after finals.  Here are today's links:

Three athletes compete on the first day of NCAA Championships: three become All-Americans
UCD's Ashley Hearn qualified her way into the US Olympic Track and Field Trials as she finished third overall.  UCI's Jock and UCSB's Martin finished 1st and 2nd in their heat, finishing 4th and 6th overall on the day and qualifying for the next round.

12 more Big West players selected in the MLB Draft to bring the total to 18
here's the final 12 players: Matt Duffy, Long Beach State - 18th (568th) San Francisco Giants
Eddie Orozco, UC Riverside - 22nd (674th) Chicago Cubs
Brennan Metzger, Long Beach State - 22nd (688th) San Francisco Giants
Matt Vedo, UC Santa Barbara - 24th (731st) Seattle Mariners
Lance Roenicke, UC Santa Barbara - 25th (785th) Milwaukee Brewers
Dayne Quist, UC Davis - 28th (872nd) Tampa Bay Rays
Shawn Stuart, Long Beach State - 31st (948th) Colorado Rockies
Zak Edgington, UC Santa Barbara - 34th (1048th) San Francisco Giants
Mark Trentacosta, UC Irvine - 34th (1050th) St. Louis Cardinals
Jared Wilson, UC Santa Barbara - 35th (1060th) Minnesota Twins
Scott Kalush, UC Davis - 39th (1182nd) Baltimore Orioles

Best of luck to these  players in the next round!

Encyclopedia Brown takes a new name...
Thank you Progressive Boink, for constantly reminding us that the younger generation probably doesn't know what an encyclopedia is...

See anything interesting?  Comment below!

Morning Links 6/6/12

Happy Slump Day everyone! Here are your links:

Follow the Track and Field athetes here!
Scroll down to Div I M (& W) Track and Field and stay updated on your teams and conference.

UCSB's Dolan honored as West Region Coach of the Year
This is his first honor as the Gauchos Head Coach, and we hope to see the seasoned coach continue his success as he enters his 25th season next year.

Five selected in Day 2 of MLB draft
Selections are as follows: No. 286 Pittsburgh Pirates - DJ Crumlich, UCI
No. 301 Boston Red Sox - Matt Miller, Cal Poly
No. 319 Oakland Athletics - Brett Vertigan, UCSB
No. 370 Minnesota Twins - Alex Muren, Northridge
No. 422 Tampa Bay Devil Rays - Dylan Floro, Fullerton

For those of you who play NCAA Football on XBOX like an addict
The list is now out for all the teams ratings.  Luke Zimmerman makes some good points.  Some of their rankings don't make any sense whatsoever.

Awesome baseball .gif anyone?

Via Baseball Nation from SBNation

Have a good rest of the day!

Morning links 6/5/12

Off we go, rapidly into the offseason (with the exception of the Track and Field results) and so there will be less Big West links and more general college/miscellaneous sports links.   When we get updates for the Big West, we'll let you know, specifically for conference expansion.  Off we go:

Mitch Haniger selected in the first compensation round of the MLB draft
The Brewers picked him up as a compensation pick for the Fielder trade.  The 2012 BWC Player of the Year was the second highest Mustang ever to be drafted after John Orton.  Congratulations to him.


NCAA Track and Field National Championships start tomorrow
This was the preview given by the Big West website.  Here's to bringing home Championship medals!

The Chronicle of Higher Education is getting into conference realignment
Actually this is a really good article, stating that teams vying to get into better conferences have pushed to bring their academics up to par as well.  TAKE THAT BUZZ BISSINGER!
 H/T to EDSBS


Progressive Boink explains why Microsoft Office is so expensive...
If you have never read Progressive Boink, you need to leave this website right now and go read it.  It's amazing for so many reasons, the least of them being that they take the art of blogging to a whole new level.

That's it for now! Have something you would like to share?  Leave it in the comments!

Morning Links 6/4/12

With the first weekend in June already gone, summer and the complete college offseason rapidly approaching, we continue our pursuit of Big West news.  Here are your links:

Fullerton eliminated in Eugene Regional by Austin Peay
More on that later, but lets congratulate the Governors on being the token surprise Texas team of the NCAA baseball regionals.  It's too bad they couldn't finish the Ducks, otherwise between them and Kent State, we'd have two potential dark horses.

Boise State's Olympic sports are in the hands of the Big West
There's a reason why I'm conflicted about this, but at the same time, very happy.  As a BSU alum/fan I'm scared to hell that the BWC will turn down any price we throw at them.  At the same time, as a UCR/Big West fan, I'm loving the amount of power we have here.  H/T to Jeremy Mauss for this gem.

Just a friendly reminder that the NCAA Track and Field Championships are in two days
The Big West is sending 13 athletes.  Best of luck to them this week, and here's to hoping we have a National Champion amongst them!

Have anymore links to share?  Comment below!

Morning Links 6/1/12

Welcome to the first day of June.   There's a big game for Fullerton as they play Indiana State in their opening match of the Eugene regional as we rapidly approach the end of the school and college athletic season.  Here are the links:

National Awards coming in for Big West Players
The three All-Americans have been announced, and the three semifinalists for their respective awards are waiting to hear their name called.  We'll keep you updated as the information comes in.

Chian shoots 9 over the final round of the NCAA tournament
He finishes the tournament 18-over, but Chian has one more year of eligibility left, so we hope to see him next year.  On a side note, San Diego State advanced to the three-day match play to compete for the National Championship (we'll keep an eye on our future Big West member).

Hawaii looking to start charging for softball games
I didn't realize that Hawaii had free admittance to their softball games (which is awesome), however with the financial situation the way it is, that's soon to be over.  I think $5 is fair, with free admittance to students/grad students/faculty/Military.  Anyone disagree?

Oregon Coach Horton looking forward to reunion with Fullerton
Excellent article on the Titans previous coach.  Horton led Fullerton to 6 CWS appearances and a National Championship in 2004.  He's trying to build Oregon into the same kind of powerhouse.

Remember all, the Fullerton-Indiana State game is a 2 PM PST, and you can follow on Gametracker.

Morning Links 5/30/12

Happy Slump Day everyone!  We're getting close to the end of college seasons, which means that we'll need links to fill up the day.  So if you have something you think is funny/clever/related to college sports, hit me up in the comment section or in the email: cjhondros at the gmail dot com.  Off we go:

Big West Conference Awards announced for Baseball
I won't go into all the details (that's what links are for!) but I will say that I agree with the POY and the Pitcher of the Year award.  Even though Vanderhook is a first year coach at Fullerton, he took over an already dominant program.  I personally would have given it to Cal Poly's Larry Lee.

Chian finishes 3-over after one round of the NCAA Championships
This puts him in a tie for 62nd out of 156 players.  He tees off at 2:20 pm PST, here's to having a better round 2!

That's all for this morning, see anything I missed? Comment below!

Morning Links 5/29/12

Another Memorial Day has gone and passed, and now it's back to our regular routine of work or school or sitting on the couch and watching college sports... Here are some link:

NCAA Tourney seeding recap
Anyone curious to know how close LBSU was to making the field of 64?  They were ranked 68 in RPI.  That would have essentially equated to one more win against either a strong non-conference opponent, or winning the series against Fullerton (which would have given them the auto-bid anyway, so that doesn't really count).

Dome/Fawcett lose to Jha/Quigley in two sets
The No. 68 ranked upset-minded duo couldn't come back after the first set, and fell to the Kentucky pair 7-6, 6-3.  Fawcett will leave Cal Poly with a successful showing at the NCAA tournament while Dome will have one more year of eligibility left.

13 Big West Athletes make it to the NCAA Championships
UCR and UCSB led the way with 3 athletes: Travis Smith, Caleb Stuart and Ryan Swafford for UCR and Ryan Martin, Barbara Nwaba and Derek Masterson for UCSB; Cal Poly, LBSU and UCD are all sending 2 athletes: John Prader and Whitney Sister from Cal Poly, Ben Woodruff and Katrina Graves-Johnson from LBSU, Ashley Hearn and Sarah Sumpter represent UCD.  The final athlete to represent the Big West are UCI's Charles Jock.

Philip Chian to represent LBSU and the Big West at the NCAA Golf Championships
He tees off here in a few minutes but Chian made his way to the Nationals by finishing in a tie 4th overall at the Athens Regional.  Best of luck to him.

See anything I missed? Comment below!

Dirtbags 5, Titans 1 --- LBSU's win sets up tomorrow's finale perfectly

Welp.

I thought that Friday's win would've sealed the regional host site.   With yesterday's loss though (it's past midnight as I'm writing this), the Titans probably will have to find themselves having to win to get that auto bid and host site.

One night after Floro took down the Dirtbags, Ryan Strufing returned the favor with an outstanding outing himself.  The sophomore pitched 8.2 innings, gave up an earned run on 5 hits, walking 2 and striking out 6.  Offensively, Metzger led the way with a three run shot, while Juan Avila continued his dominance of Titan pitching with 3 hits and two RBI's on his own.  Johnny Bekakis contributed to the Dirtbag hit parade with 2 hits on his own.

Offensively for the Titans, Matt Orloff and Carlos Lopez provided 4 of the 5 singles that Fullerton got.  Outside of that, Lorenzen's fielder's choice helped avoid the shutout.  Titan reliever Jose Cardonan played damage control however, as he pitched 3 shutout innings to force LBSU to rely on their pitching to get the job done.  With 2 on and 2 away in the 9th and players on the corners for the Titans, Kyle Friedrichs took over for the Strufing and struck out JD Davis for the final out.

This leads us to our final game of the season, later today, at 1:00 pm at Blair Field.  It's Senior Day and to celebrate, the Dirtbags will be sending Shawn Stuart (7-0, 2.21 ERA) against Kenny Matthews (5-2, 4.09 ERA).  My prediction for this game? 2-1 LBSU in 10 innings.




Note: this post will serve as the open thread for the remainder of this weekend.  Comment if you dare!

Cal State Fullerton 4, Long Beach State 0 -- Titans take Round 1

The Titans Dylan Floro was unstoppable tonight pitching a complete game shutout, giving up only six hits, while issuing 1 walk and 5 strikeouts.  Offensively, Carlos Lopez provided a quarter of Fullerton's hits, going 2-4 with 1 walk and 1 RBI.  The Dirtbags provided charity by gifting the Titans with 2 errors that eventually led to runs in the 6th.  LBSU had a couple of bright spots on offense however, as Juan Avila and Matt Duffy provided 2/3rds of the Dirtbags' hits.

This win should assure Fullerton a host site for the NCAA regionals, as they entered this week ranked No. 12.  LBSU can still win this series and the conference by winning the next two days, but they have to score runs.  The final two games of the series are tomorrow at 5:30 pm and Sunday at 1:00 pm.

Tomorrow's probables will feature red shirt freshman Grahamm Wiest pitching for the Titans vs. and Ryan Strufing for the Dirtbags.

Can the Dirtbags pull themselves together or will the Titans reign over the Big West in glory again?

Morning Links 5/25/12

Happy Friday before Memorial Day!  Here are some links to get you started:


Dome and Fawcett defeat Ole Miss opponents: move on to 2nd round today
The intriguing matchup is not just the fact that they're playing another SEC opponent (Kentucky) but Dome and Kentucky's Quigley will be squaring off against each other for the second time this week.  In the single's match, Quigley downed Dome in heated close sets 7-5, 6-4.  Can Dome get revenge with his partner-in-crime?

UCR leads 4 athletes into Day 2 of competition of NCAA West Regionals
The total number of Big West players advancing was 14.  The top 12 finishers in each event advance to the National Championships in 2 weeks.

We have now arrived at the final weekend of Big West Baseball, here are the list of games and times.  As always, if you live in the area: ATTEND!  Home teams are listed last and in bold.

UCI at UCD, 2:30 pm
Cal Poly at UCR, 6 pm
Northridge at Pacific, 6 pm
Fullerton at LBSU, 6 pm
UCSB at CSU Bakersfield, 7 pm

Makeup game: UCSB at Utah (from Bakersfield), 2 pm

See anything I missed? Comment Below!

Morning Links 5/24/12

Morning links have turned into afternoon links today as I've been busy with some things.  Here they are presented without anymore delays (hopefully):

Wednesday baseball recap: UCR 14, USC 9
USC had the lead up until the 5th, where the Highlanders piled on 3-run innings 3 more times and added a final run in the 9th for good measure.  USC also helped UCR with ERRONEOUS CHARITY!

Tennis individual recaps
Cal Poly's Andre Dome fell to No. 3 ranked UK's Eric Quigley 7-5, 6-4 and LBSU's Anais Dallara forced a third set before eventually losing to No. 24 Mary Anne MacFarlane 6-1,4-6, 6-3.

 Live Stats of Dome/Fawcett double's match (started at 1 PST)
As of right now, the Cal Poly duo hold a 2-1 lead in the first set against their Mississippi opponents.  Let's hope they pull out a victory.

See anything I missed? Comment below!

Morning Links 5/23/12

Wednesday is slump day because it's in the middle of the week, but that's not stopping us from bringing you proper reading material before you force yourself to start the morning, here are the links:

Baseball recaps
On one of the last non-conference days of the season, UCSB defeated USC 6-3, sending the seniors out of Santa Barbara on a high note, UCD beat Saint Mary's 7-2, UCI fell to UCLA 6-2, Northridge lost to Bakersfield 10-1 and following a great series win against Fullerton, UCR got shut out by LMU 3-0.

All 8 Big West teams represented at NCAA West Regionals
I should mention now, while there are currently 9 teams in the Big West, Pacific does not have a track and field team, therefore there are only 8 teams who compete in the sport.  81 athletes total from all 8 schools will represent their school and the Big West Conference May 24-26 in Austin, Texas.  Those that finish high enough will qualify for the Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Des Moines, Iowa.

Three Big West players set to compete in the Tennis Championships
LBSU's Anais Dallara and Cal Poly's Andre Dome and Matt Fawcett will compete in Athens, Georgia in hopes of bringing home a National Title.  Dallara's match starts at 10 AM PST today, while Dome's singles match is already underway.  Dome and Fawcett will compete in their doubles match tomorrow.  Good luck to all three!

See anything I've missed? Comment below!

Morning Links 5/22/12

With one sport playing for the rest of the season, it's a little harder to do links.  However, there's a huge piece of news coming out of Stockton and we'll have more on that later:

Bob Thomason to retire after the 2012-2013 season
While you may wonder why he's not retiring now, it makes perfect sense as to why he will wait another year.  Let's hope that his last will not be like Schnellenberger's last year at FAU.

Not much else going on today, so if you have free time on your hands and you live near the ballparks, here are some games for you to go out, attend and support our conference:

UCR at LMU, George C. Page Stadium, Los Angeles,  3 PM
UCD at SMC, Louis Guisto Field, Moraga, 3 PM
USC at UCSB, Caesar Uyesaka Stadium, Santa Barbara, 3 PM
CSUN at CSUB, Hardt Field, 6 PM
UCLA at UCI, Cicerone Field at Anteater Ballpark, 6:30 PM

Would you like to share a link? Comment below!

Fullerton-LBSU Series Preview: What's At Stake?

The No. 12 Cal State Fullerton Titans are playing the Long Beach State 49ers (nickname: the Dirtbags) in what should be a thrilling conference series finale.  The Titans currently hold a one game lead over the Dirtbags heading into this weekend’s action, but there are many who believe that the scrappy Dirtbags will pull the upset and steal the auto-bid.  Which brings us to the question: Will Fullerton get an at-large bid if they lose the series?

As of May 15^th, the Titans are ranked No. 15 according to NCAA Baseball RPI Standings.  The Dirtbags are sitting at No. 59 for those of you who are comparing head-to-head rankings.  The next closest Big West team is Cal Poly at No. 85.  Being that the Titans are in a mini-slump right now, it is very possible for the Dirtbags to take the conference by surprise and end up on top.  If this happens, I firmly believe that Fullerton will get an at-large bid into the Regionals.  Whether or not they can get a host site, depends on how they play this week against the Dirtbags (win or lose).  If the Titans get swept this weekend, at worst, I can envision them in a No. 3 seed.  However, if the Titans go 1-2, they might be still ranked high enough to get a Regional host site.  Remember, all of this is assuming that Fullerton will lose the conference title this week.

On the other hand, if Fullerton wins the conference title, the Titans will most assuredly be given a host site.  However, this scenario brings up a very interesting situation for the Dirtbags.  As I’ve stated earlier, the NCAA RPI ranks them at 59 (this was before last week’s series win over Pacific).  If the Dirtbags don’t get blown out, and salvage a win, I feel that they could end up as a No. 4 seed in some regional.  If the Titans sweep the Dirtbags though, it’s sayonara for LBSU and they’ll be watching the College World Series instead of participating.  Can LBSU get any higher than a No. 4 seed?  Only if they win the conference title, and even then, it’s a stretch…unless of course, the secret council of the highly supreme NCAA RPI mathematicians value the Big West so highly in baseball that LBSU gets a generous seeding.   Whatever the case, 49er fans will have a lot to root for this week, while Titan fans will be rooting for their pride.

Morning Links 5/21/12

One weekend left of Big West Baseball and three teams are vying for the conference title.  Fullerton has a one game lead over LBSU and a two game lead over Cal Poly.  Theoretically if Fullerton loses the series 1-2 to the Dirtbags and Cal Poly sweeps UCR, there will be a three-way tie for first.  More on that later, first, the links.

LBSU's series win sets up for conference finale against Fullerton
Mark your calendars, and the location:  this Friday through Sunday at Blair Field (LBSU's stadium).

LBSU softball eliminated against No. 25 Syracuse
After falling to the Orange the first time, the 49ers beat LIU-Brooklyn 5-4 to eliminate the Blackbirds.  In the finale, the 49ers took Syracuse to 8 innings before Erin Jones-Wesley gave up a solo shot.  The Orange shut down the 49ers in the bottom of the 8th to win 2-1.

Baseball recaps
UCR won the rubber match with a 1-0 win over the Titans, Cal Poly came back from down 7-1 to sweep UCSB 9-8, Matadors took Senior Day 6-3 to avoid the sweep, Dirtbags won the series 2-1 with a 5-1 win over Pacific and UCI took the series against CSU-Bakersfield with a 15-6 pounding on Sunday.

Golf NCAA results
LBSU's Philip Chian finished in a tie for 4th place in the Athens Regional to advance to the NCAA Championship while LBSU finished 8th as a team, UCD finished 12th in the Stanford Regional, Pacific's Alex Edfort finished the Stanford Regional in a tie for 27th and UCI's Allen Jun finished 44th, finally Cal State Northridge's Chris Russo finished in a tie for 44th in the Greensboro Regional.

No news on conference expansion, so all is quiet on the Big West front.  See anything I missed? Comment below!

Morning Links 5/16/12

After a small day off due to school/work things, we're back with the links.

Big West reconsidering Boise State
If many of you could see my face right now, it would be something like this:

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SEND OUT AN INVITE COMMISH!
/no further comments...or is there

"SDSU sends very subtle message to Big West"...a Hollywood screenplay from AKH
There are serious articles that report facts...and then there are rolling on the floor laughing blog posts that portray what's going on from an exaggerated view point.  This is why we're bloggers.  Let ESPN/USAToday/CNN or whoever do the reporting and let us tell the story and analyze the situation.  In the meantime, the Cedric Ceballos line was my favorite...

Baseball recap from Monday: UCD 6, Hawaii 3
UCD finished of their four straight days of playing by beating Hawaii 6-3.  This is win number 4 in the last 6 as they start to make their final push for .500 ball to finish the season.

Baseball recaps from yesterday
Cal Poly beat CSU Bakersfield 6-2, UCD beat SJSU 12-9, Pacific lost to their future conference mates Santa Clara 8-5, No. 21 USD edged out UCI 4-3 and the Dirtbags fell to Pepperdine 5-3.

See something I missed? What's your feelings on conference expansion? Leave comments below!

Morning Links 5/14/12

Championship weekend is over and we have a lot to cover, so sit back and enjoy:

LBSU Softball clinches Big West title, will face Syracuse in Arizona Regional
While the 49ers softball will be entering as a heavy underdog (28-23 vs No. 25 Syracuse's 40-14 record) every time these two teams have met, LBSU has won the matchup.

Anteaters finish 4th in the Tourney, falling to Stanford and UCLA
UCI kept the third place match close, but it was the Bruins who were able to edge out the win.

Track and Field: UCD women and UCSB men capture first Big West Titles in history
While UCSB dominated their competition the whole way, UCD beat the second place UCSB women by half a point. 

Aggie Women finish 12th in West Regional
After a great second round, the Aggies couldn't finish strong.  Amy Simanton missed out on the individual finals after losing in the playoff round.

Men and women tennis championship recap
No. 63 Cal Poly men fell in the first round to No. 22 Texas Tech 4-1, while No. 46 LBSU women dominated Arkansas 4-0, before falling the next day to No. 1 UCLA.

Baseball series recaps
The Matadors won their first series over UCI since 2004 with a 5-4 win on Sunday, Dirtbags beat UCD 4-1 but lost the series after dropping the first two games, UCR dominated the rubber game with a 12-1 trouncing of the Tigers, Fullerton beat UCSB 9-3 to take the series and Cal Poly won the series but dropped the final game to CSU Bakersfield 6-4.

See anything I missed? Comment Below!

Morning Links 5/9/12

Good Morning! If anyone was paying attention yesterday, the Big West might have some potential big news coming up...but we won't know until next week, at least.  Here are some links:

Big West Baseball goes 0-fer in Tuesday's mid-week action
UC Davis fell to Nevada 9-8 after coming back from an 8-2 deficit, USF beat Pacific 5-2 and Anteaters lost to USD 4-1, ending their 7-game win streak.

Big West sends two teams to the NCAA Regionals
Conference champs UCD enters the Stanford Regional as a No. 13 seed and LBSU enters the Athens Regional as a No. 7 seed (Athens, Georgia).

ESPN3 to broadcast the LBSU-Pacific Doubleheader
Do I really need to tell you to go watch?

No. 23 Aggies enter NCAA Regionals as a No. 8 seed in West Regional
The West Regional is in Erie, Colorado.  Top 8 teams of each regional qualify for the national finals at the Vanderbilt Legends Club.

Hawaii might be fine with BSU's inclusion because of travel subsides issue (Subscription Access)
Apparently, their travel subsidy doesn't figure for any new Big West teams joining.  This won't have any effect on a final decision, but it is interesting nonetheless.

As a final note, this is my own opinion: if any of you caught the "Ban College Football" debate, both sides were obscenely off.  It resolves nothing, and it solves nothing.  Bissinger and Gladwell went more on an anti-football propaganda, while Green (who did fairly well) and Whitlock provided poor arguments for keeping football.  I would like those 2 hours of my life back after hearing such stupidity, thank you.

Morning Links 5/8/12

With the seasons winding down, there aren't many recap links left, so we'll be bringing you links on constant conference expansion that could have to do with the Big West.

Dirtbags finish the sweep against LMU
With a 4-run bottom of the 8th, LBSU held on for a 7-5 win over the Lions.

Cal State holds one game lead entering this weekend's action
Cal State Fullerton to be specific.  The No. 8 Titans, while dominating the competition only have a slim lead over the Dirtbags.  UCI is also in the hunt, but there will have to be some losing at the top for them to win the conference.

Because I still can't help but laugh at this very real possible situation
Click for entertainment! Don't worry, it's safe for work, just not safe for the WAC

Big West meetings to discuss conference-y things
We'll know a lot more probably by the end of this week, but I suspect conference expansion is in there (scratch that: I wasn't patient, so I had to ask!).  All I got as an answer was to follow the Big West Conference's twitter feed, so that's what I'm doing!  Regardless of what happens in this week's meeting, you have to feel pretty confident that our AD's and Conference Officials are doing the right thing, so far they've made nothing but moves that have benefited the Big West, unlike a certain conference commissioner on the east coast who's not in his position anymore...

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