UC Davis seeking to hand Stanford its first loss

After nearly upsetting Washington on the road in its season opener, UC Davis hopes to complete the feat against another former Pacific-12 Conference team when the Aggies visit Stanford on Sunday afternoon.

Both teams will tip off with winning streaks. Davis (2-1) rebounded from its 79-73 loss at Washington with triumphs over Idaho and Menlo, while Stanford (3-0) has yet to lose this season, having disposed of Denver, Cal State Fullerton and Northern Arizona, all at home.

Ty Johnson led the way with 22 points and Pablo Tamba had 18 when Davis gave itself its first winning record of the campaign with an 80-70 victory over Menlo in its most recent game Tuesday.

The Big West Conference's leading returning scorer, Johnson received Player of the Week honors in large part for his role in the near-miss at Washington, when he had 30 points.

"I have a bigger role that I have to fulfill this year, and I know I'm gonna have to make a lot of shots," he noted. "Teams are gonna force me to my weakness. But I sat down, had a lot of conversations with the coaches. We worked on (a lot of things) this offseason."

One thing the Aggies no doubt worked on in practice this week was dealing with Stanford's 7-foot-1 Maxime Raynaud, the Frenchman who has averaged a double-double (17.3 points, 12.3 rebounds) in Stanford's three wins.

Raynaud has registered a double-double in all three games this season to run his career total at Stanford to 18.

Despite its unbeaten start, Stanford has yet to make an impact on the national polls and analytics-based rankings. All the team can do is keep winning, Raynaud insisted.

"We're not focusing on the outside noise," he said. "Last year, even if we struggled at times, we tried to just stick together and stick with what we were doing. This year I think we're going to do the same."

The Northern California schools haven't met since 2015, when Stanford won 77-64 on its home court.

--Field Level Media