58-9 at the half. Oh boy. I thought that with Mallette out and Romar gone, Pepperdine would be the less eager group. They have almost no chance to win the tournament. But Pacific could at least get one win to break their long nightmare.
Man was I wrong.
We’ve Got some pathetic teams in the league
Romar is out, but he’s coaching today…I guess the players want to send him off on as much of an upnote as possible. Plus, I’m guessing a lot of the players are playing for transfer portal attention.
I wouldn’t mind seeing Pepperdine beat USD tomorrow night in a long, brutal, hard-fought battle. Our fresh legs against a team that will have played 2 games in 2 days should be a huge benefit to us.
We’ve got the “B-team” announcing. I much prefer Flemming and Farnham.
For anyone who dared watch (I didn’t)…was Pacific even trying in the 1st half?
The half time score is embarrassing not just for Pacific but for the league.
I missed the game but genuinely feel bad for Pacific. What a time to NOT completely crumble.
Just goes to show it can happen to anyone anytime. Look at what my Celtics did to the Warriors just to lose the next two games to at least one team they should have dominated.
Wcc would be lucky to have Grand Canyon come in. They have incredible student support (2,500 students for every game ) and sell out the 7,000 arena even when students are gone . They attracted 5,000 for opening night of baseball and their men’s volleyball team is #1 in nation. Every wcc school should send their marketing team to Phoenix to learn- have you seen come of the crowds outside of the top 4 schools?? Pathetic . I talked to the commish at scu game and Stu Jackson wants GCU and GCU want out the wac . The men are 26-4 this year and will make noise in the dance this year
It’s not really a fair comparison - GCU has a total undergraduate enrollment of over 60,000 students. With the departure of BYU from the conference, the largest school now is USF with about 10,000 students.
Honestly more people in attendance than I thought there’d be
A few years ago the WCC presidents were looking into adding 3 schools to bring the total to 12 after the departure of BYU. This was obviously before all the major conference realignment.
The 3 schools that were recommended to the presidents were Seattle University, Grand Canyon & SMU. SMU was a long shot due to travel and football. GCU was a non starter because of their for profit nature of their institution. Plus the presidents didn’t feel GCU academics aligned with other WCC schools. Seattle was agreed to align with the WCC and I wouldn’t be surprised if someday they’re in the WCC.
I would think Denver (DU) would have been in that conversation as well?
I have thought Seattle would be a good add for many years and I touted Denver as well. Schools with similar philosophies and size. I believe it was Nasty that said Denver is really a hockey school and not a likely fit. Seattle would bring the league to ten so that would work. To add two more schools to make it twelve I think Denver would be good but I am hard pressed to find another.
I think Denver is focused on what’s best for their hockey program in terms of conference alignment. Maybe the recommendation committee looked into them and they weren’t interested, that’s pure speculation
Hockey team plays in a standalone hockey league, the NCHC. And lacrosse plays in the Big East. So moving the bulk of sports, including basketball, from the Summit to WCC would probably have no effect. They made the NIT in recent memory and it seems like the money and facilities are fine.
They have won 9 hockey championships, 1 in lacrosse and 24 more in skiing. Which puts them pretty high on the all time list.
That success continues into the present. Their hoops team has historically had a bad run, but I believe they used to play NCAA DII for most or all sports, with Hockey as a D1 sport - so they just don’t have that history of most WCC schools.
Without delving into NCAA minutiae too deeply, a similar exemption still exists for DIII teams to elevate one men’s and women’s team to D1 (see, for example, Colorado College and their hockey and women’s soccer program). The previous reverse-uno maneuver was to play all sports at Division 1, but Football at Division 2 - this was how SCU and SMC played football from '60s or so into the early '90s. When the NCAA forced schools to move their football teams up, SCU elected not too due to the extreme cost; SMC tried to and persisted for some time. USD, incidentally, continues with football as a “D1” program without scholarships with a weird cadre of like-minded schools, including Davidson all the way in North Carolina.
Speaking of weird cadres of schools, look up the current composition of the Summit League, where DU plays hoops now. It is very strange and not a good institutional fit. WCC would be much better, and I would love it as I live down the street. Denver is a big market (which fits the WCC profile of a small school in a big city) that we don’t currently have a footprint in, a basketball city, and the state has solidly supported both CU and CSU, who are both bubble teams this year.
Long, long story short, amongst the options, I think DU would be a good fit but the venn diagram of their sports vs. WCC sponsored sports may be incongruent.
A final counterpoint - Pacific seemed to have way more success as the only private school in the Big West. That was probably a big part of their recruiting pitch. Moving them into the WCC, they went from being the only private school to one among nine, with the worst location. And last night showed they’ve got some deep issues in Stockton. So grass isn’t always greener for someone in DU’s position.
Heading in to Saturday’s game, does anyone know Knapper’s status? Any other injury updates we should know about?
Lots of Pac 12 (women’s tournament underway), WCC, and other school attire here in Vegas. Off to the Orleans soon to find out tomorrow night’s opponent.
I’d be surprised to see Knapper in the WCC tourney.
I have no inside info or knowledge, just didn’t look good when he had to be helped off the floor. Especially because it appeared to be an injury to the same knee he injured in the 1st USF game and he’s been wearing a heavy brace on it.
Tomorrow’s opponent? I’d surmise its gonna be Pepperdine. Not that it matters as they both stink, but yeah I think the Waves breeze past the Torreros.
We’ll see, maybe Pepp players are motivated to play hard for Romar on his way out.
Pepp is w/o Mallette one of their top 3 players (along w/ Ajayi and Porter)…after those 3 guys, the talent level and production for Pepp drops off precipitously.
For what it’s worth, the line is: Waves -3.5.
In the other game, it’s Lions -6.5 over the Pilots.
