National Champs! UCD win electrifies students back home

Opponents all season took one look at the UC Davis basketball team and decided these guys were no big deal. After all, the Aggies' tallest player is but 6-foot-8.

But no one can overlook them now. The Aggies are the NCAA Division II national champions.

"This win is for the little guy," said UC Davis coach Bob Williams. "We were not picked to win here. A lot of people thought we wouldn't win our first game. But the performance these guys put on the floor, the way they came up big in the crunch, it's kind of the Cinderella-slipper-on-the-foot-type of thing."

The best season in UC Davis' history ended Saturday with an 83-77 victory over Kentucky Wesleyan before a partisan crowd in Louisville, Ky.

Students at the university known more for its bovines than basketball players poured into Davis' sports bars and crowded around televisions sets in dorms to watch the championship basketball game before heading into final exams.

And when the Aggies clinched the championship, the town erupted.

"This place just went nuts," game-watcher Jim Rodens said of The Graduate, a university hangout at Russell Boulevard and Anderson Road.

"We had our own little celebration," UCD senior John Gresham said of the impromptu rally he and his dorm mates held in the streets of Davis.

"I'm ecstatic," said Michael Saracino, a second-year student.

Bee staff writer Pamela Martineau contributed to this report.