Interesting that Bradley projects as an NIT #3 seed, with a Net of 84. They have played zero Quad 1 games and are just 2-4 vs Quad 2.
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I know we’re all looking for a magical run in Vegas to get to the dance. Barring that, I have checked 5 different sources that are including NIT projections and we are in all 5 as of today. As of 02/16, Omni Rankings views the Broncos most favorably with a #2 seed and 1st rd home game vs N. Iowa out of the MVC.
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Hard to get excited for the Not In the Tournament (tournament)… at least it’s not pay to play.
60 Teams Go to the Big Dance. Our current rankings"
NET Ranking: 55
Bart Torvik: 51
Kenpom Pomeroy: 57
If we are able to close out the season without a loss and come in 1-2 in WCC tourney - would that not qualify us for the BIG Dance? Or does our fate lie on how other teams all perform?
Sorry. Typo!!! 68 teams. I’m getting old and eyes not so good. Lol
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SCU is squarely on the outside of an at-large. Only path is WCC tourney title. Depending on how conference tourneys go at large teams need to be ranked i30-40 from a non mega conference to stand a chance.
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Femme…68 teams make the field. To start, Cam and all the guys coming off the bench were tremendous last night…BK, Mahi and Jake.
We will finish anywhere from the #2 seed down to the #5 seed. We would need to sweep the final three games AND have some results go our way to finish second. I agree with Betterer as we need to win the WCC tournament to get in. Finishing 3rd or 4th allows for having to play one less game in the tournament, so a top 4 finish is really important IMO.
Final note: There is no more Sunday off with BYU no longer in the conference. So, finishing 3rd or 4th will require 3 wins on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.
5th/6th place means 4 straight wins starting on Saturday…incredibly difficult as even 3 straight will be a tall order.
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Agreed. There may be the slightest crack in the heavens if Stanford starts winning again (not Q3 loss) and the Broncos win out to the championship round and get one of their wins against SMC to avenge the 30-0 run (tough to do with the likely bracket setup) and there are no bid stealers in other conferences and likely bubble teams like UNC or SMU just collapse.
But it’s a lot easier to just win the Tournament than line up the dozen variables that might just maybe get the Broncos a look even without the Tournament crown. At this point the mentality should just be, as ever, win 'em all and treat every game like your last.
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I understand that nobody wants to discuss the NIT, at least not yet. This team is capable of winning the conference tournament, but it’s a monumental task to win 3 games in 3 nights, now that Sunday is no longer an off day since BYU’s exit. IMO, if the NIT becomes that consolation prize and Broncos are selected, it is meaningful basketball and a nice reward. I don’t feel the same about the CBI and CIT (play to pay), plus been there, done that, and won both!
So, I do think that the game on Sat at UOP is very important even though, win or lose, we’re locked into the #4 seed. A win places us in solid position for the NIT, where a loss places us in a more precarious position entering the WCC tournament.
Source: Barking Crow (Feb 28)
USF…#1 Seed
SCU…#6 Seed @ UC Irvine
TCU…#3 Seed
Bradley…#4 Seed
Stanford…#4 Seed
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Couple of things…
Short of winning the WCC tourney, NIT is the best we can do. That’s been the case for the past ~6weeks since the blowout loss to SMC and losses to LMU and USF. Would have needed to run the table from then on including sweeping GU and beating SMC once along with all or most of our non-con opponents trending up significantly to help boost NET and other analytics and even then we would have been in Bubble Team consideration only, not an NCAA lock.
Hard for me to get excited about the NIT but so be it, I’ll watch, root and hope for the best.
But if we do go, we need to make some noise this time around and win at least a couple of games. The 2022 and 2023 NIT ‘runs’ (appearances more accurately) were a let-down…eliminated in the 1st round two to three days after getting the invite. As such there was no time for any excitement, momentum or good will to build off of. Aside from those on this board and a handful of other diehards, I doubt many remember we went to the NIT just two years ago. You change that by winning several games, and hopefully get a home game along the way. Two wins gets you to the quarterfinal, 3 wins gets us to the Final 4 in Hinkle Fieldhouse…that would be fun.
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We haven’t won an NIT game since our first trip in 1984… I’d love to see us break that streak.
Herb can be intensely frustrating at times, but the talent level and program floor have risen significantly since he got here, and lest we forget, we are talking not-totally-unrealistically about variables that, if only slightly tweaked, could have gotten us an at-large bid. Obviously, we still haven’t broken through.
I’d certainly rather see us fighting to win games in the NIT in March rather than sitting on the couch - if thing shake out as is likely, we would have 20 win seasons in five of the last six seasons, and the non-20 win season was the COVID year, with three NIT Trips in that stretch.
No one needs to tell me that it’s easier to win 20 games now than when the Ogden Brothers were here. Nonetheless, it isn’t meaningless. Getting that NCAA trip will rely more on having single digit total losses than 20+ wins - Herb hasn’t done that yet.
All said, I am hopeful for a lucky run in the WCC’s, but the big takeaway to me is that the program is super stable right now, and holding steady in a really nice spot - 20 wins and an NIT trip feels a little disappointing. Saying that with a straight face hasn’t been possible for many years - pre-Keating? I don’t remember in either of his two “good” years ever thinking we seriously had the juice or talent or schedule to get an at-large - maybe the latter one, but we didn’t even win a game in the WCC tourney.
If I get too greedy, I just look at USD’s results this year, with a proven winning coach with WCC roots and a program that looked ready to turn a corner. They’re going to win 4 games this year.
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It’s disappointing because we have soooo much talent and no defense. We seem to be trying to be the LMU teams of early 1990’s who played no defense.but often scored 100+. I was in Stockton today and the offense was great but players don’t even raise their hands to defend. I also noticed that we look to rebound the miss instead of defending the ball.
20 wins is not the great measure anymore because teams played less games in the 1960-70s
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Top 20 talent, and top 150 coach… that’s the problem.
I wish we played D like LMU’s old run and gun… they had objectives, and individual directives. They forced their opponent to play with pace with their full game, full court run and jump press (it did yield a lot of easy layups and dunks, but it also created tons of turnovers, and most importantly forced their opponent to play at break neck speed, which gave a huge advantage to LMU, espically in the final 10 minutes of games).
Herb plays NBA style on both ends of the floor. They run no sets on offense, and operate solely on concepts and mainly beating a guy 1 on 1. Same with defense, they keep their opponent in front of them and endlessly back peddle so as never to make contact. Heck, we don’t even run anything on a baseline out of bounds play.
It’s fine to play that way if you have 5 NBA-quality, interchangeable guys. We don’t. Nobody in college does. In college you need tightly defined roles and rules for each individual player (to take advantage of their best attributes, and mask their weak points). All you have to do is look to Moraga for a fine example.
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Top 20 talent is a stretch….maybe Top 50. But I agree with the overall premise.
SMC doesn’t even have Top 50 talent IMO, the difference is Bennett gets the absolute most of the talent he has and schemes to fit his team’s strengths.
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Bettererer, after what our new AD said about how great Sendek is, I wouldn’t expect any changes coming. Heather said “we just need to get Herb what he needs” to help us get to NCAA bids.
Facts are we’re still 4th in league after 9 seasons. Sure 20 Win seasons are nice, but I am very surprised, since during her tenure at Stanford they jettisoned several coaches for mediocrity, the last being Haase. It is highly unlikely we’re going to get top 10 talent, so coaching matters. Bennett does do much more with so much less.
This season proves it again.
After 18 years of combined Keating and Sendek living in 4th and no NCAA’s it apparent our leadership isn’t prepared to shake things up……,
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There you have it. If we have top 50 talent, and we are ranked roughly #50 in NET ranking (and that’s being generous), then it suggests HS isn’t doing enough to get more out of his players.
Look at what Rick Pitino has done over his career. He goes into programs that had previously struggled and by his second/third year he has his teams in contention for tourney berths. He did it with Boston University, he did it with Providence, he did it with Kentucky (a team that was ineligible for his first two years due to violations by the previous coaching team), he did it at Louisville, he did at Iona, and he’s doing it at St. John’s. This year will (likely) be the sixth school he’s guided to the NCAA tournament. (And he’s Catholic to boot.)
Yes, he’s had his share of controversy. I’m not saying necessarily that we should’ve hired him (which would’ve required firing HS) when he was available (he ended up going to Iona, a team that plays in a league that I would rank below the WCC), I’m just pointing out that there are coaches out there (who occasionally become available) who can get the most of their players, especially the ones they inherit from prior coaches. HS has done a good job bringing in talent a level above KK, but he doesn’t seem to make those players better. Or perhaps, he doesn’t tailor his coaching to accentuate his players’ strengths and doesn’t run schemes to cloak their weaknesses.
Hopefully, we win the conference tourney, or at least make a decent run in NIT.
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I do think its imperative to keep in mind that moving on from Herb does absolutely run the risk of the bottom falling out in the sense that 20 win seasons don’t stay regular. I still demand the very best out of everyone in terms of wanting March Madness but its easy to ask for more then get completely burned in doing so.
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I think Herb’s style of play offensively in allowing guys to play in a less structured, more free flowing style is being noticed by players in the transfer portal that may have NBA or play aboad aspirations. Consequently, it may benefit the player and program, but it hasn’t resulted in a NCAA bid…yet. I will give this team credit in that it is an unselfish team that moves the ball looking for the open man. We’re a better team when we don’t rely exclusively on the three, and attack the rim and get to the line. That will need to be the case in Vegas too if we’re to be successful.
This program needs to be much better on the defensive end if it truly wants to go places. Teams with solid PG play will be problematic for us…but it’s up to the coaching staff to be less transparent on D, and give teams multiple looks, especially implementing a zone against teams that aren’t strong from the perimeter. We go man to man exclusively vs SMC (assuming we get there)…we will lose.
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Broncomusings, I’ve given in to the certainty that Sendek is here till the end. The end is insight (whether SCU goes the D2 route or ceases sports all together at that point is really the question that comes to my mind… although nobody wants to admit that).
The fact that SCU is desperate to find a league that will have them and last the purge speaks volume.
Then again as a basketball only school it’s a rather bleak picture. The fact that the Zags are leaving for a newly formed, watered down Pac-10 that may or may not ultimately survive shows just what a difficulty it will be for SCU to find a place.
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That begs an important question: can SCU find a home in another conference? Could the PAC-(whatever number) accommodate an SCU and USF? Or is SCU(and possibly USF) going to be left out in the cold in a WCC that will probably be forced to merge with the likes of a Big West?
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Depends on what the future of the ncaa tournament looks like. In its current state, as long as there is automatic bid awarded to each conference, there’s really no reason to leave or merge with another conference.
The only thing that would put our existence in trouble would be if the power conferences decided that they don’t care about expanding the ncaa tournament, but instead wanted to break away from the rest of D1 basketball. Which is the main reason I don’t care about expansion talk. Of course I want the tourney to stay at 68 teams. But as long as they’re talking about expansion, then that means at least they’re willing to share the pie instead of taking the entire thing.
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