Black Friday is replete with doorbuster sales, half-price specials, and other types of shopping madness. This Black Friday is also packed with important Cal sports events. Here at CGB, we're giving you a two-for-one gamethread special. This is your official thread for the Cal volleyball match at Stanford (first serve 7:00 pm PST) and the Cal women's basketball game against Hawaii at the Waikiki Beach Marriott Rainbow Wahine Showdown tournament (tip 7:00 pm PST).
Of course, we also have the matter of a football game tonight. Cal plays its regular season finale at Arizona State at 7:15 pm PST. If you're looking for that game thread, this isn't it. Click here for that one.
Meanwhile, if you are watching or tracking the volleyball match and/or the women's basketball game, talk about those events here. More info on each after the jump.
GO BEARS!
Volleyball: No. 10 Cal (25-6, 15-6 Pac-12) at No. 6 Stanford (21-6, 15-6 Pac-12), 7:00 PM PT
The No. 10 California volleyball team concludes conference play in the same manner in which it began - against archrival No. 6 Stanford. On Friday, Nov. 25, Cal heads to the Farm to take on No. 5 Stanford at 7 p.m. at Maples Pavilion in a match that will be televised on a tape-delay basis by Fox Sports Net. Friday's match is the 74th Big Spike and closes out regular season and Pac-12 Conference play for both teams.
Sights and Sounds
The Cal-Stanford match will be broadcast on a tape-delay feed by Fox Sports Net. Paul Sunderland and Holly McPeak will be on hand to provide play-by-play and color commentary for the broadcast. Please check local listings for availability and times. Since it is a television game, Stanford will not be providing a live video stream. Fans can listen to the Stanford radio broadcast at 90.1-FM in the Bay Area or online at http://kzsu.stanford.edu.What's Next: NCAA Tournament Watch
The field of 64 for the 2011 DI women's volleyball tournament will be announced at 3 p.m. PT Nov. 27 on ESPNU.The Big Spike at a Glance
•Friday's match will be the 74th Big Spike in the programs' history
•The Bears swept the Cardinal last season for the first time since 1979
•Both matches last year went four sets - 21-25, 25-16, 25-22, 25-16 at Stanford on Oct. 22 and 26-28, 25-17, 25-17, 25-20 on Nov. 19 at Haas Pavilion
•Overall, Stanford leads the series, 62-11
•After the Cardinal owned a 20-year winning streak against the Bears, Cal is 5-2 against Stanford in the past three seasons
•Cal and Stanford tied for first place in the Pac-10 Conference last year
•In the very first meeting between the two teams, Stanford defeated Cal, 2-1, on Oct. 26, 1976
•Then-No. 1 Cal defeated then-No. 2 Stanford, 3-1, in the first meeting of the year
Women's Basketball: Cal (2-1) at Hawaii (1-3), 7:00 PM PST
The California Golden Bears (2-1) head to the island of Oahu to play in the Waikiki Beach Marriott Rainbow Wahine Showdown, a holiday tournament with three games in three days. The Bears open on Friday, Nov. 25, taking on the host school, Hawaii. The Bears close out the tournament playing a pair of ranked teams, No. 24 Texas on Saturday and No. 22 Virginia on Sunday.
The Bears are coming off back-to-back 24-point margins of victory after downing Sacramento State (85-61) and Illinois (80-56). It was only the fourth time in the last fifteen years that Cal scored 80 or more points in back-to-back games. The last time Cal scored 80 or more points in three consecutive games was during the 1994 season with a 92-82 victory over Texas starting that streak.
With the games against No. 24 Texas and No. 22 Virginia, Cal will be facing three ranked teams in the first five games of the season. The Bears last victory over a ranked team came in the 2009 NCAA Tournament second round game, a 99-73 win over No. 23/25 Virginia.
Cal's last visit to the tropics for Thanksgiving came in 2008 when the Bears swept the Paradise Jam tournament in the U.S. Virgin Islands, defeating South Florida, Texas Tech, and Iowa to win the tournament title.
Cal's fortunes in Hawaiian tournaments have not been as good. Cal went 0-3 the last time they played in the Rainbow Wahine Classic in 2004, falling to TCU (96-89), Idaho (82-72) and Hawaii (70-68). Overall, the Bears have a 3-9 record in four appearances in the Rainbow Wahine Classic. Cal, who is 4-4 overall against Hawaii, has not defeated the Rainbow Wahine in the islands since 1976 when the Bears won back-to-back games, 47-41 and 31-25, that were not part of a tournament.
Hawaii Games Live Friday's game against the Rainbow Wahine will be available to watch on line through Oceanic Time Warner Cable and will air on local TV in Hawaii [OCSports (Channel 22) Saturday at 12:00 p.m.]. The streaming video is available for a small fee. See this website (https://secure.oceanic.com/Streaming/) for more details.
Live stats for all three games will be available through the Hawai'i Wahine website (hawaiiathletics.com). Free live streaming audio for all games is available through Cal All-Access on CalBears.com. The links for both are available on the women's basketball schedule page.
Also continue to check CalBears.com for photo galleries and real-time updates from the trip on Twitter (@CalWBBall; @CalCoachG) and Facebook(CalWBBall).