I recall seeing a handful of votes in the AP poll ~20 years ago-ish. Can’t remember which year though.
@Leavey on the 14th should be entertaining. Taking my kids to their first SCU game. They’re excited.
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I agree Hoops…..SCU’s 7th team foul came with 5:36 left to play. So, UOP went 6+ minutes without getting to the charity stripe. That was huge!
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A couple of additional important points:
- Only turned the ball over 7 times, while UOP committed 15. If I remember correctly, SCU had 4 in the first half.
- That turnover disparity helped the Broncos have a 10 shot edge over the Tigers
'twas ugly. But this Broncos team can win ugly if they need to. It’s why they have so far surpassed all of their recent predecessors. Last year’s team would not have had the defense to survive that shooting performance.
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Winning ugly seems to be our hallmark.
Better than losing pretty I guess….which we did too much of the last 2 years.
Just concerned some of our more common shortcomings will catch up to us….excessive fouls, occasionally weak defensive rebounding, FT shooting.
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Will take any type of win! 3 home games left for the Broncos. The students / fans need to get out to support our team outside of Gonzaga game. 11-1 in conference and 20-5 overall and a 7 game win streak. Levy needs to be packed for the final 3 games!
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This is where the (mostly) Wed/Sat scheduling works so well. That extra day/night is crucial. Plus the ride back to SCU from Stockton isn’t horrible. I’m guessing they got back around 12:30AM?
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@LetsGoBroncos To me, he has been a disappointment for a different reason: his mentality. From my amateur observations, he plays “me” ball, not “we” ball. He (and Sash, to a slightly lesser extent) is so determined to prove that he is an elite player who belongs at the next level that he ends up being a liability on the court. The liability manifests itself in the form of very bad decisions. I think we can all agree that, during normal course of play, BK taking a wide open 3 is a good decision, even if it results in a miss. Darlan dribbling straight into a crashing defense, or taking a very contested 3, are bad decisions, even if they (very occasionally) result in good outcomes.
Yes, Darlan needs to improve his skills, footwork, etc. But I also think he needs to have an attitude adjustment if he wants to be an asset to the team.
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I’m going to defend Sash here, who I think has actually really improved his decisionmaking in a lot of areas. He’s the top Bronco in assist rate. Though second in TO-rate, he’s a mile behind Darlan there and not significantly worse than Knapper or even Ensminger. Isolating to just conference play, he’s fifth in TO-rate.
Last night, I thought that Sash did a good job playing his role on offense. He’s a small, quick player and needs to be creative and opportunistic to generate offense. He probed Pacific’s interior, generally not finding much space, and passed it out to the open guy on the perimeter. In 19 min, he only took two shots (made one) and had zero TOs. He knows he can explode for 30+ when the defense gives it to him. He didn’t last night and was disciplined in not forcing it.
The fouls were his weak spot for sure. But that shows an aggressive (if sometimes foolish) team mindset, not “me-first” play.
I actually think Sash’s improvement more reveals how Thierry is really struggling to mature and adjust even with most of the season behind us.
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The Broncos hit the lottery with Allen Graves. He is a very gifted player, and very cerebral too. Yes, he makes a mistake here and there such as when he air mailed a pass, but the young man more than makes up for it. I don’t know which Broncos assistant coach is primarily responsible for his recruitment, but he deserves a healthy bonus.
He is just a freshman which is scary to the rest of the WCC, and the question becomes…..How long will he remain on the mission campus?
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The WakeMeUp NIL fund needs to start fundraiser now to keep Graves around 
One of you is a billionaire right?
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Amazingly he also leads the team in steals and shows a strong and rapidly developing Basketball IQ…
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I really hope some of the players that pick SCU do so because of the school and the community. You can still make the NBA as already show. I’m hoping Graves follows that path.
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Graves just has great court awareness and anticipation. That’s how he gets all those steals and offensive rebounds. And he doesn’t overdribble or get caught in double teams down low. I don’t think you can coach that. He just has it. We probably got him because he’s fairly ordinary looking getting off the bus despite his HS achievements.
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Graves is a very humble and religious person as is Hammond and others. I believe Graves leads a bible study group. I believe he may be engaged - so he’s a great fit for SCU with these personal traits.
And becoming one hell of a player….
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A couple of highlights from last night that were lost in the shuffle of the win and the Gonzaga loss and Santa Clara’s momentary ascent to 1st place:
- Jake Ensminger was SCU’s leading scorer. Just 13 points, but how often does that happen? Very cool for Jake and love the steal-to-slam plays he has been getting the past couple of games.
- SCU now has 20 wins for the fifth consecutive season. I saw someone post that “single-digit losses is the new 20-wins,” and I think that’s true. But with only 5 losses so far, SCU is in great position to meet that higher bar. Last year, SCU hit its 10th loss on February 11. It’s almost impossible for this squad to get to double-digit losses before any post-season play.
- UOP was a Q2 win–that’s a good WCC team. Santa Clara now is 5-1 in Q2 games. They could pick up another one on Saturday with a little help down the stretch from the Cougars. Wazzu is right on the line, and so SCU will need to root for them after, hopefully, securing a win in Pullman.
- Relatedly, SCU is now top-40 in BT’s Wins Above Bubble (the NET WAB is slightly different). That’s critical as at-large selections have been trending toward consistency with WAB since its inclusion on the committee sheets. It’s lauded as the most “neutral” of the resume metrics and less skewed in favor of high majors. SCU wants to maintain inside the top-40 for WAB. It’s the starting point for many bracketologists and, presumably, some of the committee members.
Momentum is building but the stakes right along with it. The next game is, as ever, the most important game of the year, and Wazzu is plenty good enough to upset the Broncos.
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https://x.com/DraftPow/status/2019417476799558148
I am fairly certain Graves will at least get a combine invite and be able to make a decision after that. His advanced metrics are so intriguing that NBA teams will at least want to get measurements and put him through the athletic/skills testing.
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I know many of you probably think I’m overly critical, especially of these “ugly” games, but understand that I want to see the Broncos beat the Zags. Ugly just isn’t going to accomplish that feat.
Gonzaga came very close to overtaking Portland near the end of the game. The Pilots were just barely able to hold off the Zags. And the Pilots had to play their absolute best (both on offense and on defense) to get the win. Take a look at the box score:
Portland shot 59% FG (44% from 3) and 80% from the FT line, while holding Gonzaga to 40% FG (33% from 3). The Pilots also outrebounded the Zags 32-27. Where did Gonzaga excel to keep it close? Turnovers and offensive rebounds.
In SCU’s game against the Tigers, the Broncos did not play well in the 1st half, and yet stayed competitive. If Santa Clara plays the first half against Gonzaga the way they did against Pacific, the Zags will go into halftime with a 10+ point lead.
The Broncos need to figure out how to play at peak level for 40 minutes to slay Goliath.
I’ll add my amateur viewpoint on Darlan.
Certainly our expectations were high. Whose wouldn’t be? I agree that he seems to be forcing it and making some bad decisions. What I wonder is whether that decision-making was a hallmark in the G-League and if so, was the staff ill-prepared to help him overcome it.
But something that sticks out to me is his physical makeup and how it hasn’t translated or been honed or managed to improve his skills or offset bad decision-making. His length reminds me of JW-–his wingspan is really large. It should give him some advantages. But when he puts the ball on the floor, or holds the ball off his body, it’s out there like an apple on a tree in the Garden of Eden, ready for the picking. I cringe when he drives the lane, even with no traffic. I can see the ball coming out or a defender playing loose on the wing taking only a half step and swiping it away.
Maybe I’m not seeing what I am actually seeing, but I’d like to see him work on a tight dribble and better control.
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