THIS WEEK…
EXHIBITION: Oregon Tech at UC Davis
Saturday, Oct. 29, 2016
2:00 p.m.
The Pavilion (5,931)
Davis, Calif.
TV: None
RADIO: KDVS 90.3 FM
Game Coverage: Live Stats | Audio

TIP-OFF: The UC Davis women's basketball team takes to Bob Hamilton Court at The Pavilion for the first time in 2016-17, hosting Oregon Tech in the first of two exhibitions for the Aggies on Saturday (Oct. 29) at 2:00 p.m. UC Davis hosts Stanislaus State on Nov. 4 in its second exhibition of the preseason, before officially opening the campaign on Nov. 11 against Portland at 7:00 p.m.

IN THE POLLS: UC Davis is unranked to begin the season; However, the Aggies are scheduled to meet a pair of schools that finished among the nation's top 25 at the end of last season: Oregon State, which was a unanimous No. 6 in both the Associated Press and USA Today Coaches Poll, and Stanford, which ended the year No. 13 in the AP poll and No. 16 in the USA Today poll.

BE A FOLLOWER: Fans can keep up with the latest in UC Davis athletics by "liking" us on Facebook (facebook.com/UCDavisAggies) and following us on Twitter (@UCDavisAggies). You can also "like" the women's basketball program (facebook.com/UCDavisWomensBasketball) as well as follow them on Twitter and Instagram (@UCDavisWBB). In-game updates on game day are also available on Twitter by following @UCDavisInGame.

SO... HOW 'BOUT THEM AGGIES?: UC Davis returns seven letter winners overall and three starters off of last season's squad that finished 19-13 overall and advanced all the way to the Big West Conference Tournament championship game as the No. 4 seed, including upsetting top-seeded UC Riverside in the semifinals -- a team that finished the regular season a perfect 16-0 in conference play. Gone are all-conference selections Alyson Doherty (first team) and Celia Marfone (honorable mention), but the Aggies return leading scorer Morgan Bertsch, who averaged 13.9 ppg en route to second-team honors as well as a spot on the all-freshman squad, and honorable mention selection Pele Gianotti, who averaged 11.5 points and 5.2 rebounds per game and ranked among the top 15 in the Big West in six different categories.

ABOUT THE OWLS: Oregon Tech, ranked No. 20 in the NAIA Division II preseason poll, is coming off a season in which the Owls finished 26-9 overall and and reach the championship game of Cascade Collegiate Conference after a 16-4 mark in the regular season... Picked to finish third in the league this season, Oregon Tech advanced to the second round of last year's NAIA Division II Tournament, upsetting No. 2 Jamestown (N.D.) in the first round before falling to Marian University... Senior Ashleigh Vandenbrink, a Davis HS alum, returns home after leading the team in scoring last season at 11.8 ppg while shooting .485 from the field.

SERIES NOTES: UC Davis and Oregon Tech have met only once in a game that counted toward the records, with the Owls posting a 52-48 victory back during the 1986-87 season in Klamath Falls, Ore.

AGGIES RECEIVE HIGH PRAISE IN PRESEASON POLLS: The UC Davis women's basketball team received high praise from the coaches and media, picked to finish second by the Big West Conference head coaches and fourth by the media during the 2016-17 according to the league's preseason polls released on Oct. 25. The runner-up in last year's Big West Tournament, the Aggies received 61 points from the coaches to finish behind only Long Beach State, which received five of the nine first-place votes and 73 points overall. In the media poll, UC Davis received one first-place vote and garnered 113 points overall to place behind the 49ers (nine first-place nods, 157 points), UC Riverside, and Hawai'i -- all of which reached the semifinals of last year's conference tournament.

BERTSCH EARNS PRESEASON HONORS: UC Davis sophomore Morgan Bertsch was one of six student-athletes named to the league's preseason all-conference team -- the fourth consecutive season that the Aggies have had a player so honored. Bertsch becomes the fifth different UC Davis player to earn a spot on the preseason all-conference squad, joining two-time preseason honorees Haylee Donaghe, Paige Mintun, and Sydnee Fipps, as well as 2015 selection, Alyson Doherty.

SUCH AN EXHIBITIONIST: UC Davis enters Saturday's contest against Oregon Tech having won its last 12 exhibition games dating back to a 43-41 loss to Sonoma State on Nov. 6, 2006. Following last year's 77-64 overtime win over Humboldt State thanks, in part, to Rachel Nagel's team-high 15 points and six rebounds, the Aggies have posted exhibition wins over the Melbourne Roos, Concordia (Ore.), Humboldt State (five times), Sonoma State (twice), Australian Showcase, San Francisco State, and Redlands.

TOURNEY-TESTED SCHEDULE: UC Davis is scheduled to play a total of 12 contests against teams that reached the postseason a year ago, including road contests at "Final Four" participant Oregon State (Dec. 14) and NCAA regional finalist Stanford (Dec. 4). Aside from the Beavers and Cardinal, the Aggies will also take on NCAA Tournament participants San Francisco, Jacksonville, and Big West Tournament champion Hawai'i, and face-off against WNIT qualifiers UC Riverside, Long Beach State, Montana State, Saint Mary's, and Hofstra. The Pride advanced the furthest of any of the WNIT qualifiers on UC Davis' schedule, reaching the quarterfinals before falling to eventual tournament runner-up, and Atlantic Sun Conference rival, Florida Gulf Coast.

LET'S PLAY TWO: Harkening back to their old Division II days, the Aggies will join the men's team on the floor at the Pavilion for a quartet of home doubleheaders this season -- all during Big West play -- while preceeding the UC Davis men for a pair on the road at Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara on Feb. 2 and 4, respectively. In a rematch of last year's Big West Tournament championship game, the Aggies host Hawai'i on Jan. 7 (men vs. Cal Poly), UC Davis welcomes Cal State Fullerton on Jan. 28 (men vs. UC Irvine), face-off against UC Irvine on Feb. 11 (men vs. UC Riverside), and close out the home schedule with a "Senior Day" battle against UC Santa Barbara on Feb. 25 (men vs. Long Beach State).

HOME, SWEET HOME: UC Davis women's basketball fans will be able to get their fill of the Aggies to start the 2016-17 season, as they will play eight of their first 10 games on Bob Hamilton Court in The Pavilion before embarking on a six-game road-trip to close out the calendar year. It's an almost unheard-of stretch to start the season for UC Davis, which hasn't opened with this many games at home to open a campaign since the 1990-91 season when the Aggies also opened with eight of their first 10 at home, finishing 8-2 in those games.

STATE OF THE AGGIES: Half of the 2016-17 UC Davis women's basketball roster is made up of players from outside the state of California -- the highest number of out-of-state student-athletes in the program's Division I history. The six out-of-staters have a decided Pacific Northwest tilt as the Aggie coaching staff has successfully mined the state of Oregon for three players (Pele Gianotti, Marly Anderson, and Emma Gibb), while two (Kourtney and Karley Eaton) hail from the state of Washington.

SEEING DOUBLE: Karley (older by one minute) and Kourtney Eaton are believed to be only the second set of sisters to take the floor together in the history of the women's basketball program, joining Dru and Rachelle Hanft during the 1999 campaign. Taking it one step further, both the Eaton's and Hanft's are identical twins.

BY THE NUMBERS: Despite the loss of two of its top four scorers from a season ago, UC Davis returns nearly two-thirds of its offense statistically for the 2016-17 season, bringing back 65% (1,416 of 2,191) of its total points, 60 percent (720 of 1,198) of its rebounds, 73 percent (382 of 526) of its assists, 66 percent (520 of 788) of its field goals, 76 percent (153 of 201) of its three-pointers, and 54 percent (223 of 414) of its made free throws. What does it all mean? We don't know, but numbers are fun.

SHE CAN DISH IT OUT: Junior guard Dani Nafekh set a school single-season Division I Era record with her 130 assists as a sophomore, helping her move up the career chart and stand fifth with 196 in her two seasons as an Aggie. Four more assists would give the Canadian 200 for her career, making her only the fifth UC Davis player to reach that plateau in the program's Division I history: Hana Asano (278), Blair Shinoda (223), Alyson Doherty (214), and Celia Marfone (206).