Xavier ALMOST beat Georgia tonight. A transitive property win over an SEC team would’ve helped the computer rankings.
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Xavier moved +7 spots even with the 1 point loss. We’ll take it.
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Pretty bad night overall for the WCC with 3 teams taking bad losses at home (Oregon State to Evansville, Pepperdine to SFA, and San Diego to UC Riverside). The bright spot is Seattle taking down the Stanford Cardinal in Maples, 77 to 69. Any WCC win over an ACC squad is worth celebrating. Seattle is on the fringe of the top-100 and along with LMU, could put as many as 6 WCC teams in that echelon.
Long-term sustainability for the WCC means having half the conference in that top-100 most years. The 2027 WCC members are generally doing a decent job willing that into reality–and of course, Gonzaga remains Gonzaga.
Glowing writeup of our Broncos and the LMU Lions:
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Two interesting WCC games tonight:
- At 2:30 pm, Oregon State tries to redeem themselves against Iona in the consolation game for their MTE. Iona is a decent team, and former Bronco, Kosy Akametu, is one of their leaders. It’s of course good better for SCU that the WCC collect every win possible. But it will be hard not to root for Kosy in this.
- Also at 2:30 pm, the USF Dons will take on the Minnesota Gophers in a neutral match-up at the Pentagon in Sioux Falls. The Dons are about to enter the crunchy part of their schedule with Minnesota, Colorado, Mississippi State, and at Saint Louis all ahead of them in the next 3 or so weeks. Santa Clara may get Minnesota in the second round of the Acrisure, so it’s worth tuning in to see the match…if you have Peacock.
There’s also Portland versus Northern Colorado for a lesser match-up but one that might be close at least. Neither squad is particularly good, but Portland is a 3.5 point underdog. It would be nice to see Portland climb to at least the low 200s, and that requires winning games like this one.
Monday will start the real Feast Week action with compelling games like LMU vs. Florida Atlantic, Gonzaga vs. Alabama, and Wazzu versus Chaminade in the Maui Invitational (may be closer than you think).
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Nice win for USF.
Oregon State coughed up a 19 point lead, Iona hit a 3 to tie the game at end of regulation. Game headed to OT 70-70. Beavers went 15-26 (57%) from FT line during regulation.
UPDATE: heading to double OT 79-79. OSU went 5-8 from the free throw line in first OT.
UPDATE2: Beavers lose in 2OT 91-84.
LESSON: Hit your free throws. OSU should’ve won this game in regulation.
I think Portland is playing Northern Colorado, not State.
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Good catch. Bad typo on CO State.
Oregon State…oh man. I want all of the WCC teams to be good. But if any teams are going to fall totally flat, may as well be the future "Pac 12’ squads.
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Agree. Those departing teams are dead to me.
I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the new additions, particularly Denver, but they went into Colorado Springs last night and knocked off the rams, which is very impressive.
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SMC is slaughtering UC Merced right now.
UC Irvine is tied up with undefeated Northern Iowa 44-44 with 10ish minutes left in the game. N. Iowa has committed 10 fouls already. UCI gets double bonus for 10 minutes.
UPDATE: Very entertaining game. This kid Derin Saran is a baller. Transferred from Stanford to Irvine.
N. Iowa wins in OT 70-69.
Now that the WCC has “broken the seal” with UCSD (ignoring the temporary couch crashers OSU and WSU) UCI would be a great add to the conference.
To be fair, there were state schools in the conference before the 1980’s, so not unprecedented to have “permanent” public school members.
The Big East is mostly private and Catholic, with one public school in UConn.
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Need McNeese St. to beat a very good George Washington team today. Was glad to see Nevada beat Santa Barbara after falling to UC-Davis.
In a similar vein, Xavier has a big opportunity hosting WVU. I think X will drift up toward the top 75 just by virtue of their schedule strength, but they will actually have to win a couple. Top-75 is key for SCU’s purposes because it makes that a Q1 win rather than a Q2.
SLU is trending toward a Q1 match but not there yet (needs to be top-50). UNM at the Pit is the other big opportunity, but the Lobos are trending down and much less likely to be saved by their schedule.
The wheels have fallen off of Loyola-Chicago, so what looked like a great opportunity in October has become a “can’t lose” match in Santa Cruz.
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SCU 56 in KenPom now. Only 4 behind SLU. Big win by Xavier and McNeese currently leading GW in the second half….
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There’s a universe where Xavier makes it to a Q1 game and McNeese gets to Q2. McNeese has three games on consecutive days, so we will know a lot more about them come Wednesday. My eyes told me that McNeese is the best opponent that SCU has played so far, but it’ll take another couple of weeks to bear that out if true.
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Torvik Top 25 based just on performance year to date (ignoring assumptions made about teams coming into the season.)
https://twitter.com/T3Bracketology/status/1992972192003305574
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The Broncos will need to show that they are more than hype come Thursday. But here’s a bit more: Andy Katz puts Santa Clara as the last team in his Power-37 list.
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Here’s a writeup of a bunch of the holiday tournaments, including Santa Clara’s Acrisure Invitational, by the Three Man Weave extended universe. SCU’s bracket is considered one of the best because of how evenly matched the teams are:
We also received 3 votes in the AP poll. I demand they release the names of those voters, so I may send them a Christmas card.
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Ironically, does anyone remember the circumstances of the last time SCU got AP Poll votes? I actually know this one well. It’s appropriate for this week…
We haven’t been ranked since 1996… I have a vague recollection of receiving votes in the Keating era either pre-season or week 1 of the ostensible “redeem team” post Kevin Foster arrest debacle. But I think that may have been the coaches or a different poll?
Which, to the gist of your question, would be right before or after we beat SLU in Saint Louis?
EDIT: Found it! Week 1 of 2012-13, the first poll after games were played on 11/12/12.
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Exactly. It was a bit of an overreaction to beating a ranked SLU team in Week One when Foster, Tras, and Co. tried to redeem the prior season.
Fingers crossed that beating Saint Louis is just out in the universe whenever SCU and the AP Poll cross paths.