Our Adj O and Adj D ratings were very good last night; combined similar to GU and WSU (UC Riverside our best so far). Whereas, USF’s adjusted ratings where good but not spectacular in their SMC win.
Another factor though hard to confirm is that there is a numerical value for each team that leads to the ranking. It may have been that prior to last night, the numerical spread between the Broncos and the five teams ahead of them was smaller than the spread between USF and the four or five times ahead of them.
Speaking of rankings, here are Torvik’s for the upper WCC:
17. GU
24. SMC
50. Santa Clara
68. USF
74. OSU
89. WSU
118. LMU
The USF ranking has actually been a thorn in my side. (1. Because we should not have lost that first outing. And 2) They beat us by one point. We romped them when they came into Leavey. 3)We have had a tougher overall schedule - so always felt we should be ahead of them.)
But WCC ranking I get it. They’ve been doing better than we have. But when we take down St Marys - blissful days ahead!!!
I too was surprised by the NET changes based on last night. However, we won a road game and that is more favorable than a home win in NET. I do hope femme is right about our return game in Moraga though based on the first game I am skeptical. I do think we need to win out with the exception of Gonzaga and St Mary’s to get a chance at this in league. A win over either would certainly help any chance we may have at the NCAA Tourney. Our best chance remains winning the tourney or coming in second. We definitely need to win all the games we are supposed to, nor more NDS or LMU’s.
USF’s game plan against the Gaels should be copied and pasted.
In our most recent game against SMC (unfortunately, I was there), I seem to remember we went at Saxen early and he picked up two fouls in the first 10 minutes or so of the first half. And then somehow, we just stopped doing that and started settling for outside shots and bad passes.
Personally, I think it is a tall order for us to take down the Gaels. Especially at their place. And I would not want to face St. Mary’s in the WCC tourney, but unfortunately it seems that USF would not face SMC early enough in the tourney to knock them out before we would be forced to play them.
I’ll say it right now - our most likely finish is 4th place. And that’s assuming we beat LMU, a team that has been on quite a tear recently. And don’t sleep on the Beavers. After tomorrow’s game against SMC, Oregon State will enjoy a 4-game stretch of “gimmee” games.
I mostly agree with this. The thing that USF did best, I think, was push the pace in transition as fast as they could manage. They got a few buckets off of SMC not having quite set up the half court defense. That, in turn, made them a little more cautious going for offensive rebounds which allowed USF to out-rebound the Gaels in the second half.
Basically any successful effort against SMC requires piling up fouls on their starters which USF did, especially against Marauskas.
But even with all of that, USF needed SMC to miss like 20 shots from three to eke out a win.
Among the things that USF did that I’m more mixed on were the iso possessions against Saxen with their quicker guards and use of the mid-range game. I’ve liked that the Broncos have gone away from tons of iso possessions but can’t deny that it worked well for USF. That said, SCU’s preference for bigger, somewhat slower guards means that really only Stewart and maybe Knapper are capable of replicating what Williams did, squeezing a layup through before Saxen got in position to cleanly block it. USF also takes more mid-range shots which the Broncos have also worked to eliminate. But that forces the huge SMC front line to defend more closely away from the hoop. It’s really hard to get a clean shot at the rim with Saxen, Marauskas, and Barrett patrolling, and SMC wants you to try to win with inefficient mid-range pull ups. It just happens that USF is quite good at that game.
I don’t know how much SCU should abandon its offensive philosophy, especially when iso and the mid-range is what SMC wants to give a team. I’ve literally thought that maybe the Broncos should take more threes against SMC. If you’re hot, more points and more random rebounds that can be tipped out for a second shot. If you’re not, well, you probably weren’t gonna win anyways. May as well go all-in on red.
What I do think they should do is have some actual sets for SMC. That’s what beat Gonzaga last year when SCU had a much less vaunted offense. The read-react motion stuff is too vanilla to beat the Gaels. I hope that there’s a bunch of good half court sets that the Broncos are ready to trot out. I know from last year’s Gonzaga game that Garson is capable of preparing such a plan when it’s needed.
Does anyone know how the WCC will do seeding for the tourney in case of ties? I think there’s a pretty good chance OSU, USF & SCU all finish tied for 3rd at 12-6 in league.
2 — Go down standings, team with better record against highest seeded team wins the tiebreaker. Uneven amount of games versus an opponent are thrown are out.
For example, BYU and USF each have the same record versus the top 3 seeds. USF is 1-0 versus 4 seed LMU and BYU is 1-1; however, that is thrown out since the teams did not play LMU the same amount of times. If BYU and USF finish with the same record, we would go to the third criteria of NET ranking since neither team has a better record versus an opponent against whom they played the same amount of times.
Don’t forget that St Marys was 3 of 23 from beyond the arc vs USF. If the Broncos can put that in their game plan, they should be in good shape regardless of other adjustments.
At this point, I think the likely standings at the top (no need to pay attention to the bottom dwellers) will be:
1 St. Marys
2/3 USF/Gonzaga
4/5/6 SCU/OSU/LMU
Of course, I could be wrong and we could end up in the 2/3 conversation, especially if we dispatch everyone (including Gonzaga) the rest of the way (except SMC, who does not seem to be a good match up for us).
I think you might be overrating USF. That front court is still a problem, and their guards can only carry them so many games. Let’s see how their game tonight in LA goes. LMU is the right kind of team to shut the Dons down (like they did the Broncos).
The thing that really works in their favor, though, is that they’ll have the tiebreaker with the SMC win unless the Broncos win in Moraga.
EDIT: Right after I post this, USF goes up 10 on the road.
I’ll respectfully disagree. USF has proven that they can beat any team in the conference (have yet to see them play the Zags, but I think they can hang with them). We can’t say that. We got pummeled by SMC on our home court and looked frustrated and completely out-of-sort. From the last few minutes of the first half through nearly halfway through the second half, the Gaels went on a 30-0 run.
I’ll probably watch the Gaels @ OSU game tonight. That is not an easy place to play, it’ll be interesting to see how the Beavers do. In our own self interests, we probably want the Gaels to win to push OSU down in the standings, but there is definitely a part of me that wants to see SMC get punched in the face.
USF seems to be one of those teams where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
There were times earlier this year where the opposite was true about our Broncos: the parts, on paper, were exceptionally talented; but together they underachieved. Nice to see the boys have gelled. Really nice to see the Bukke-Mahi two-man game.
The last two games we won in the paint. Tonight Mahi looked inside for Bukke. Last game they were finding Cam.
I really hope this aspect of our game continues. It’s what we didn’t have against St Mary’s and when they shut down the outside it demolished us. If we continue to hurt our opponents from the inside - that will open up the outside.
Agree that activity in the paint has improved. The lobs to Bukke are impressive, but the Broncos seem to be looking much more for the short bounce passes after getting in the key. Mahi especially likes to get in the paint, stop under control, and then patiently evaluate his options as defenders collapse.
Yeah, just need Mahi to develop a couple moves for when he’s caught under there with no good second option. He misses a lot of shots in close for which he should probably be even a little more patient and work for a different angle or to draw a foul. Last night looked a lot better on both counts. But with his strength and skill, the ceiling is still much higher, I believe.
When we have a lot of rotation in the front court and crossing through the paint, we seem to have much more success. Oboye has been Exhibit A for this success. Despite his slight build, he seems more willing to bang than Tilly.
It would be fun to see Tilly, Oboye, and Cam all on the floor at the same time with Carlos and Mahi. Probably won’t happen, but hey, let’s try it for a couple of possessions and see how it works! Cam playing the 3 would be a welcome change of pace.
This comment might suffer from recency-bias, but I think Mahi will get to a higher level. We’ve already seen his progress through just 20+ games this season. I really think he’s got a shot at following a JW path to a quality professional career (D-league or better). He had a play where he silkily weaved around two guys in the paint and used his length to stretch to the basket and score. His two-man game with Bukky was fun to watch, too.
I think Graves will be a big contributor next year and I expect Hammond to make a large jump from what we saw freshman year. Hopefully we don’t lose many to the portal.
