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Using Bob Williams' words, "It's a 'Hoosiers'-type story."

Williams, who as coach of the Aggies orchestrated the UC Davis men's basketball march to the 1998 Division II national championship, remembers that 31-2 season as though it were yesterday.

And for a few moments come Saturday in the first half of the Aggies' Big West showdown with Cal Poly, yesterday will be revisited. The only non-scholarship team in the history of D-II hoops to win it all, those UC Davis players and Williams will come together to take one more bow.

"That's the special part of it ... I get to see some of the young men that played for me for four years and achieved record heights," Williams says about the reunion. "It's something that's been unmatched in my career."

It was a career that featured 158 wins (.675 win percentage) in eight years in Davis. Williams' senior class in 1998 won 95 games in the coach's last four years as an Aggie.

"A lot of those kids were not only part of a team that went 31-2 and won a national championship ... they won four straight league championships — lost a grand total of four league games in those years — and were just absolutely phenomenal to coach," remembers the 66-year-old mentor.

Woodland-born Williams would go on to win 313 games at UC Santa Barbara and become known as the dean of Big West coaches. Including two seasons at Menlo College, the former San Jose State player would win 499 times before handing in his clipboard in 2017.

After three consecutive 20-win campaigns, what was his 1997-98 team's goal?

"That's funny, because I was never very goal-oriented," Williams says. "If you asked the team, they'd tell you 'national championship,' but the reality of it is I was a week-to-week guy: I wanted to get better in the next week than the week we just finished. I approached coaching like that for my entire 42-year career.

"If I was to say, 'OK, we've got to win 25 games ...' those things just got in the way. Goals added pressure, they took away from me staying in the moment, trying to make a group the best they could be."

That championship season started ominously enough: an overtime loss to Cal State Los Angeles. Then a few weeks later, a mini-blowout by Seattle Pacific in Washington marked setback No. 2.

"Everybody had the flu and I acted like a 12-year-old," Williams admits. "I remember I was so mad at them in the second half because I thought we were giving in to not feeling well... I went and stood by the wall during the second half, trying to get them to fight through it.

"And they did, but Seattle Pacific was a very good team."

When the sniffles subsided, the Aggies became unstoppable. Cruising through the old Northern California Athletic Conference, it became apparent that UC Davis would advance to the postseason. Then-Athletic Director Greg Warzecka and a handful of campus benefactors put together a package to entice the NCAA to play the Western Regionals at Rec Hall (as The Pavilion was called back then).

Williams tipped his cap to Warzecka and his staff for winning the nod to host — and, ironically, the Aggies got to play the two schools to which they had lost — Cal State L.A. and Seattle-Pacific.

Avenging those earlier games, UC Davis traveled to Louisville, Ky., for the Elite Eight.

"We were blown away with the talent level," Williams recalls. "And we weren't overly impressive to look at, which played to our advantage. But the team's chemistry was phenomenal. They could run, pass, catch and shoot better than anybody in the country."

The roster — not yet etched in Blue-and-Gold in Aggie annals — included the likes of 6-5 sophomore center Jason Cox and seniors J.P. Bergez, Chris Vlasic, Travon Dugar, Justis Durkee, Rick Gonzales and Jon Surface. And there was a shooting guard who had gravitated from across the street, Davis High's Kevin Nosek.

Nosek, all these years later still in the Aggie program as associate head coach to boss Jim Les, brought loads of confidence to that 1998 squad.

"It was Saturday, Dec. 2 of 1997," Nosek once told The Davis Enterprise. "We beat Cal State Bakersfield. They were No. 1 at the time. There was something deep inside, this team was committed. There was a feeling throughout that we were destined."

A week later, Nosek's grandmother died. Kevin's parents (dad Stan was a UC Davis administrator) were putting grandma's business in order.

"Dad called and wanted help at the house later in the year," the younger Nosek recalled in a 2014 newspaper article. "I told him I couldn't make it the day he suggested. I told him: 'We'll be played in the national championship game that day.' Dad thought I was crazy."

Nosek and his teammates were omniscient.

The Aggies won the NCAC, earned that bid for the regionals and showed up in Kentucky to oust a 27-6 St. Rose (New York) crew, 88-76.

The second round took a little doing, as West Texas A&M looked like world-beaters.

"They were athletic as all get-out and they were going to scramble the game and run us," Williams says, thinking back on the semifinal. "Our starters went out there, and as you can imagine, we're a little tight: we're down 16-4 and I throw the subs in there.

"All I said to the reserves when they went in was, 'For God's sake, will you guys just play?' It was just a matter of being who we were and we'd beat these guys off the floor. And they did."

Bergez hit a couple of treys, Scott Darmstadt canned another 3-pointer and the Aggies were off and running, literally. Leading 49-26 at halftime, UC Davis went on to win, 63-55, and set up the title tilt.

Kentucky Wesleyan was tough, but Williams' Hoosiers, er, Aggies carried the day, 83-77.

Twenty-two years later, Nosek — who talks regularly with Williams — is looking forward to Saturday's reunion on Alumni Day during the school's doubleheader with the women's team at The Pavilion.

"There are a lot of great memories. A lot of wonderful people who have blessed my life and been a part of some monumental moments," Nosek told me this week. "I'm just excited to be around everybody and see how everybody is doing and enjoy a little time together."

An aside... Nosek's Aggie roots go back to before he played for Williams, back before his 1995 Davis High basketball team won that school's only Sac-Joaquin hard-court championship.

Nosek was a ballboy for longtime coach Bob Hamilton (namesake of The Pavilion playing surface):

"I remember Bob and his wife Marietta at my high school games, too. Unfortunately, I never got to play at UC Davis with Coach Ham in attendance, but having Marietta there meant the world to me. She's always been a tremendous supporter of the Aggies and myself."

Kevin and I know that Marietta and her influence on UC Davis basketball is a story for another day, as I changed the subject back to the accomplishments of 1998: "Those who were around at that time can grasp how truly monumental that was, being a non-scholarship school — the first and only non-scholarship school to win a Division II basketball national championship," Nosek continues.

"I don't think that registers with today's new fan. Having been in Division I now for a number of years, offering scholarships and the resources that have been put into the program … so I don't think it registers in the same way it once did.

"But I do think there's a lot of pride within the Aggie program in all of our past accomplishments across the board. I think this community, in general, has really embraced that (early Division II) history in all sports, softball, gymnastics, baseball … and why we've seen success across the board as we've made (the move to D-I) and why we are where we are today."

Oh, one more questions for Williams...

So, coach, eight seasons at UCD, 19 in Santa Barbara. Are you an Aggie or a Gaucho?

"I'm an Aggie," he promised. "You can never, ever leave a national championship behind."


One of the most well-known and respected sports writers in the industry, former Davis Enterprise sports and managing editor Bruce Gallaudet joined the UC Davis Athletics staff as its feature writer in the summer of 2018. Since then, visitors to UCDavisAggies.com have enjoyed his unique perspective on campus student-athletes, coaches, teams, individuals, programs, events and projects that represent the fifth-ranked public school in the nation.