NEXT GAME…
UC Davis (9-5, 1-0 Big West) at Hawai'i (4-10, 0-1 Big West)
Saturday, Jan. 12, 2019 | 3:00 p.m. PT | Stan Sheriff Center | Honolulu, O'ahu
RADIO: KDVS 90.3 FM (PxP: Greg Wong)
TV: None
OPENING TIP: Easing into the Big West Conference fray with its second straight week with only one game on the docket, the UC Davis women's basketball team carries a six-game winning streak to Honolulu this weekend, taking on Hawai'i at the Stan Sheriff Center on Saturday (Jan. 11) at 3 p.m. PT
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" women's basketball (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 @UCDavisWBB.
IN THE POLLS: UC Davis and Hawai'i are unranked nationally to begin the week... Following a one-week absence, the Aggies are back among those receiving votes in the latest College Insider Mid-Major poll, picking up 10 nods as of the Jan. 8 ranking.
BERTSCH'S MILESTONE NETS WEEKLY HONORS: After becoming only the eighth student-athlete in the history of the Big West Conference to reach 2,000 points for her career, senior biomedical engineering major
Morgan Bertsch has been named the league's player of the week for the third time this season as announced by the conference office on Monday afternoon (Jan. 7). In addition, Bertsch was also honored as the top player in the conference by College Sports Madness, part of the USA Today Media Group, for the fourth time this year. Read the complete release here:
https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2019/1/7/womens-basketball-bertschs-milestone-nets-big-west-weekly-laurels.aspx.
ABOUT THE RAINBOW WAHINE: Hawai'i enters the week with a 4-10 overall and an 0-1 mark in Big West play following a 72-68 loss to Cal State Fullerton in its league opener... The Rainbow Wahine have lost their last three straight dating back to an overtime victory over UNLV on Dec. 19... Hawai'i is 3-5 on its home court this year, winning its last two in Honolulu... Junior forward Makenna Woodfolk leads the team in both scoring (11.8 ppg) and rebounding (6.1 rpg), shooting .407 from the floor... The Rainbow Wahine are averaging 62.9 ppg and shooting .428 from the floor this season while allowing opponents 66.0 ppg and a .405 field goal percentage.
SERIES NOTES: The series between the Aggies and Rainbow Wahine is knotted up at eight wins apiece, with UC Davis winning each of the last four meetings over the last two years -- the longest winning streak by either side in the history of the series according to records that date back to 1975-76... The Aggies are 4-4 on the road against Hawai'i, winning in each of their last two trips to O'ahu, including a 68-56 victory last season... The Rainbow Wahine's last win in the series came in the championship game of the 2016 Big West Tournament by the score of 78-59 at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif... Each of the last six meetings have been decided by double digits, one way or another, since back-to-back two-point games in 2015 and 2016... The 24-point win by UC Davis at home last season was the Aggies' largest margin of victory in the history of the series.
WE'RE GOING STREAKING!!: The Aggies' current six-game winning streak is their longest since they won six straight from Feb. 7-March 1 of last season (and tied for the sixth-longest in the program's Division I history), averaging 81.7 ppg and shooting just under 49 percent (177-for-364) from the floor during their current run, while stepping things up on defense, holding the opposition to just 60.3 ppg and under 35 percent (133-for-385) shooting from the field.
WE'RE GOING STREAKING!! (PART 2): UC Davis' six-game winning streak is tied for the 11th longest such run in the nation this season alongside South Carolina, Stanford, Rutgers, BYU, Boise State, Oregon, and Iowa State. NC State currently holds the nation's longest winning streak at 15 games (as of Jan. 7).
LEADERS, NOT FOLLOWERS: UC Davis has not trailed since the 7:34 mark of the fourth quarter against Saint Mary's before junior biological sciences major
Sophia Song hit a pair of free throws to tie the game at 59 just 13 seconds later. Since then, the Aggies have led for nearly 77 of the 80 game minutes over the next two games against Dominican and UC Riverside, standing tied for just 3:03 combined of that span.
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A POINT MAKES: Give the Aggies 60 points and there's a good chance they are going to win the game. UC Davis is 9-1 this season when scoring 60-or-more points, but just 0-4 when scoring 59-or-fewer. The Aggies' only loss when scoring more than 60 points came in the second game of the year against Pacific when they rallied from down 19 before falling, 83-80.
WELCOME TO WIN-UARY: UC Davis has won its last 10 consecutive games in the month of January dating back to a, 64-62, defeat at Long Beach State on Jan. 21, 2017 -- including an unblemished 7-0 mark in the month last season.
DE-FENSE (CLAP, CLAP): The 59 points allowed in the win over UC Riverside marked the fourth time this season that the UC Davis defense has held the opponent to under 60 points and limiting its last two opponents to an average of 50.5 ppg and just 27 percent shooting from the field.
2K-19: Thanks to a pair of free throws with 4:32 remaining in Saturday's contest at UC Riverside, Bertsch became the first student-athlete since the Highlanders' Brittany Crain in 2016 to reach (and surpass) 2,000 points in a career, finishing with a game-high 31 points in front of an ESPN3 audience. Standing eighth on the league's all-time scoring list, the Santa Rosa, Calif., native needs 62 more points to pass UC Riverside great Kemie Nkele (2004-09), who is seventh on the chart with 2,062 points.
MORGAN ON A ROLL: Hold the mayo. Following her 31 points against UC Riverside, Bertsch has now scored in double figures in her last 49 consecutive contests dating back to last season -- and 99 of 114 games overall in her career. The high-scoring Santa Rosa, Calif., native has not been held to single digits since March 23, 2017, in a WNIT "Sweet 16" match-up against Washington State (six points), and has been held without a point in a game only once in her career – at Colorado State on March 19, 2017, in the second round of the WNIT.
STAYING ACTIVE: With her 2,001 career points, Bertsch ranks eighth among active players in the NCAA in that category (as of Jan. 7) while also standing fourth in career field goals (812).
I'LL TAKE MORGAN FOR 20: With her 31 points against the Highlanders, Bertsch posted her ninth game with at least 20 points this season and the 47th such performance of her career (a school record). Having reached double figures in 99 of her 114 career contests, that means she is pretty much assured to hit the 20-point plateau every other time she takes the court.
MAKING HER POINT: Currently leading the Aggies with the nation's fourth-highest point total (333), Bertsch is on track to pace UC Davis in scoring for a fourth time -- something only one other player has done in the program's history, joining former school scoring champ Carol Rische, who accomplished the feat from 1979-83.
BERTSCH ON THE BOARDS: The senior is rapidly closing in on another top 10 list, needing just 26 more rebounds to become the fifth player to surpass the 600-rebound plateau along with Alyson Doherty (708),
Celia Marfone (682),
Pele Gianotti (616), and Paige Mintun (606), and 42 more to break into the all-time top 10, matching Gianotti's career total. Bertsch is only the fifth UC Davis player in the program's Division I history to score 1,000 points and grab 500 rebounds in a career, joining Alyson Doherty,
Pele Gianotti, Paige Mintun, and Sydnee Fipps.
TAKING MATTERS INTO THEIR OWN HANDS: The program's all-time scoring leader needs someone to get her ball, and who better than the program's all-time assists queen. Of Kourtney's record-setting 475 career assists, 129 of those (or a little over 27 percent) have led to points by Bertsch, including a high of 49 such passes (or nearly one-third) out of 154 assists as juniors last season, and 23 assists together through 13 games together thus far this season.
SHE'S A HELPER: No one player to ever wear a UC Davis basketball uniform has tallied more assists than senior psychology major
Kourtney Eaton, who passed former Aggie great Angelo Rivers (a four-year letter winner for the men's team from 1982-86) with her 468th career assist on
Morgan Bertsch's game-winner against Saint Mary's back on Dec. 17. Eaton, who has led the team in the category in each of the last two seasons, currently ranks 12th in assists among active NCAA players, 10 back of Grambling's Shakyla Hill as of Jan. 7.
NEXT STOP? BIG WEST TOP 10: Kourtney Eaton is on the verge of breaking into the top 10 on the Big West Conference career assists list, needing only 39 more to pass Long Beach State's Penny Toler (1987-89) for 10th place. According to league records, Eaton would become only the third player in conference history to break into the top 10 since the 1999-2000 season, joining the 49ers' Reta Sula (1997-01) -- who ranks ninth with 519 assists -- and CSUN's Ashlee Guay (2011-15) -- who is seventh with 541 assists.
QUITE THE DISH: Kourtney Eaton's seven assists on Saturday at UC Riverside marked her 19th game with at least that many assists in a contest during her career -- her fourth of this season and just one shy of her season high of eight at Washington State back on Nov. 18.
ROOM TO BOARD: Sophomore cell biology major
Cierra Hall has been a beast on the boards as of late, finishing with nine rebounds at UC Riverside on Saturday -- the sixth time this year she has grabbed at least that many boards in a game and narrowly missing out on her second double-double when you add in her nine points. The Cypress, Calif., native enters the week ranked No. 6 in the Big West at 6.9 rpg overall, while also standing among the best on the offensive (6th, 2.4 rpg) and defensive (10th, 4.6 rpg) glass.
BAR-BE-MCKEOWN: Coming off her career-best night against Dominican, junior human development major didn't fall off much in the Big West opener at UC Riverside, coming off the bench with eight points and a pair of rebounds in 16 minutes of action. Over the last two games, McKeown is shooting 80 percent from the floor (8-of-10) and 78 percent (7-of-9) from beyond the arc in that stretch, averaging 12.5 ppg. The Touchet, Wash., native enters the week ranked third in the league in three-point percentage (.421) and fifth in three-pointers per game (1.8).
START ME UP: Of her 114 career appearances in an Aggie uniform, Bertsch has missed only six starts -- all coming during her freshman year -- and enters the week having started the team's last 87 consecutive contests dating back to the "Senior Day" game against CSUN in 2015-16. The Santa Rosa, Calif., native is one of only five players in the program's Division I history to start more than 100 games, joining Kasey Riecks (120), Alyson Doherty (113),
Celia Marfone (109), and Hana Asano (102).
WORKING BEYOND THE ARC: UC Davis has made a three-pointer in 478 consecutive games dating back to Feb. 15, 2003, at Cal State San Bernardino. Since then, UC Davis has hit .346 from beyond the arc (3,238-for-9,350).
40-SOMETHING: Bertsch is one of only nine players in the NCAA (as of Jan. 7) to have scored 40 points in a game this season joining Lamar's Moe Kinard (58), Northern Illinois' Mikayla Voigt (52), Louisiana Tech's Kierra Anthony (50), Pepperdine's Yasmine Robinson-Bacote (47), Iowa's Megan Gustafson (44), Kennesaw State Kamiyah Street (41), Idaho's Mikayla Ferenz (40), and North Texas' Terriell Bradley (40).
ABOUT UC DAVIS
Providing a small-town community feel while providing a world-class academic experience, UC Davis is home to more than 37,000 students and centrally located between San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, and the Napa Valley. The No. 5-ranked public university in the nation according to the Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education, and among the top 10 public universities nationwide according to U.S. News and World Report, UC Davis offers nearly 100 graduate programs and more than 100 academic majors across four colleges and six professional schools, ranking among the world and nation's best in numerous disciplines, including veterinary science, agriculture, and plant and animal programs.
AGGIE EVO
Launched in 2017-18, the Aggie EVO System is UC Davis Athletics' investment in the primary mission of preparing student-athletes for a successful "launch" after graduation. Thanks to a collaboration of alumni, university resources, corporate partners, coaches and Student-Athlete Outcomes staff, all Aggies are guided over four years to acquire the skills, knowledge, opportunities and tools to better know and navigate the "World of Work" after graduating from UC Davis. Follow the Aggie EVO system on Twitter and Instagram at @AggieEVO.
