On the one hand, yes - we’re a good team that wants to be a consistently good program, and that means winning games like this. It’s taken dozens of wins in high stakes and toss-up environments to get GU and SMC where they are right now.
On the other hand, he didn’t have to watch Patty Mills hit that game winner after Kevin Foster put us up late at McKeon in person like I did!
I see us as within a few rankings spots (in either direction) of where we could realistically but optimistically hover as a program for an extended period. I hope we win Wednesday and I hope we Dance - winning and playing in the Tournament being a huge part of the point. At the same time, I’m really happy to be playing meaningful games all year long, and looking forward to more this year and more in the years to come.
It’s easy to forget the 11 seasons it took Dan Fitzgerald to get Gonzaga to the dance for the first time.
The caliber of year we’re having is the type I wish for our university, on average, going forward. I know the folks who said the same in the late 90s were very disappointed… I like the leadership we have in the coach, AD and President’s chair right now.
Indiana goes last 9 minutes without a field goal to lose at home to Northwestern. Refs missed a foul that should have sent them to the line for 3 to tie the game.
Yes, they flashed up their resume and it was pretty impressive. Four or so Q1 wins already. Their Torvik ranking is at 50… the more I learn, the less I know about this whole thing.
I have enjoyed the fact that being in this hunt this late has allowed our SCU fan base to show off a little bit of our Silicon Valley side - glorying in the data, the algorithms and its second-by-second updates.
Santa Clara listed as “Work to Do” - The Santa Clara and Saint Mary’s comparisons will be constant down the stretch as we debate whether the WCC could get three bids – which has happened only once in the past 13 seasons. The Broncos had beaten SMC in mid-January, but Wednesday’s loss in the rematch dropped their consensus at-large chances from 76% to 68% and cast new doubt on whether Santa Clara is tourney-bound. They do own the nation’s No. 40 résumé ranking and that previous head-to-head win over Saint Mary’s, but their fate appears to hang almost entirely upon whether the selection committee will send that extra WCC at-large team to the Dance.
CBS has the Broncos in Dayton playing the Bears.
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In the light of a new morning, as we would have predicted, losing that game doesn’t make us plummet. There may end up being room at the inn. But it probably requires getting the Gaels in Vegas.
If not mistaken, the tiebreaker involved if the Gaels beat the Zags on Saturday comes down to which team has the higher net. If so, the Gaels won’t jump the Zags with a win placing SMC as the #2 seed.
Actually the Net raking is the 3rd tiebreaker. The 2nd tiebreaker is how you fare vs common WCC opponents starting with the best teams and going down from there until there is a difference. Gonzaga will win that tiebreaker because they went 2-0 vs the 3rd place team (SCU) while SMC only went 1-1. Perhaps counterintuitively, the Zags get rewarded for losing to a shitty team instead of a good team.
If the Zags beat SMC, then the Gaels & Broncos will be tied for 2nd. The first tiebreaker (head to head) will be a push, as well as the 2nd tiebreaker (we will each be winless vs Zags and undefeated vs the rest). The Gaels will then claim the 3rd tiebreaker based on their higher Net ranking (the Loyola-Chicago loss comes back to haunt us).
I believe he only changes his rankings on Tuesday and Friday of each week. So check tomorrow. At least we are still in the hunt. I believe we will need two tournament wins to get into the big dance. Or else we are relying on other teams to lose and no upsets in the auto qualifiers.
I think he (or somebody) re-does the larger full field bracketology on those days, but he sends out a little commentary tweet each day considering the prior nights results (you’ll see we’re marked in red as having lost last night) and pointing out important games of the day, along with shifting the high seeds around. That’s what I’ve posted here.
I also posted above the ESPN bubble watch, wherein a different guy, Neil Payne, updates all the bubble teams each morning… We are, as before, listed as ‘work to do’ which is worse than ‘should be in’ but better than ‘long shots’ (who are no longer listed).
The thrust of what I am trying to circulate today is that we remain viable if wounded.
Bigger conferences have another week of regular season play before their tournament, so there are more chances to do something interesting (or lose).
Lunardi mentioned the other day that at this point, more teams exit the stage than enter. Yesterday he mentioned w/r/t to one bubble team that they were in because “we do need to find 68 teams to send,” implying a softer bubble. We need lots of ‘chalk’ in the MAC, MWC and A-10 tournaments. I don’t see some other WCC team rising from the ashes to win this conference tournament and send us careening into the NIT, but that would hurt too…
I’m frustrated by yesterday but forever optimistic.
It’s also not lost on me that this may be the ‘fun part’ of the season if a bid doesn’t come to pass. I’ve never paid nearly this much attention to bracketology, and I love CBB.
