? Maybe so called experts predict Zags to lose a few league games.
Prefer our W over them not be the reason they are a bubble team, “good” L’s hurt but “bad” L’s kill you. Broncos better than that.
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A win is always better than a loss, regardless of the quality of the opponent. That’s all I meant. We beat the Zags by 1pt, if they truly end up being a “1st 4 out” bubble team as some are predicting, the loss to us could be the difference.
The main thing that I keep seeing about Gonzaga is that some of their best wins haven’t aged well as they thought they would and they’re currently 0-4 in Quad 1 games. When you actually dig deeper and look who they have beat, there’s really not much there. Shoutout to UCLA and USC for having bad years 
They really need a signature win to get themselves off the bubble.
So…Gonzaga only has a few more chances before the WCC tourney to get a “signature win”: vs. SMCx2, vs. Kentucky on Feb 10.
Gonzaga is in… trust me. They are going to stomp SMC tonight, re-join the top 25 next week and steamroll through the rest of the WCC season. They’ve figured it out enough in the last couple weeks to not only make the tournament, but win games in the tournament. Barring a serious injury Zags pretty much have the WCC taken care of.
Winning at Kentucky will be tough, but certainly possible.
I’m not sure if SMC makes the tourney without winning the WCC tourney (they have 2 upcoming beatings to Gonzaga, and I think will find it tough against USF next time). SMC’s shortcomings have been exposed.
SCU and USF are the only other possibilities of winning the WCC tourney. Rest of the WCC is horrendous as we all know.
A couple of points here re: who may be in/out of the NCAA’s…
All of the predictions, ‘Bracketology’ if you prefer are by people who aren’t actually on the selection committee. They writers, bloggers, etc. can choose, and predict and guestimate all they want…doesn’t really matter. Lunardi is interesting to follow as an example but he is never perfect and is often wrong on couple of bubble teams.
And with plenty of games to play, things can and will change. And for the selection committee…NET is just one of the metrics they use to make decisions…there’s no mandate that for instance the higher NET ranked team makes it over the lower ranked team and gets a better seeding.
NET:
Reminder that NET isn’t solely about W/L, quality of opponent, Quads, etc. There is a component of the NET ranking based on advance metrics related to offensive and defensive efficiency. Essentially heavily modified and adjusted Points Per Possession metrics. So the ‘quality’ of how you play matters. For instance, a narrow loss to good team, where your team stats and metrics are above average may result in a slight improvement in NET.
We’ll see what happens to GU. I tend to think they’ll make it to the tourney if they hold steady at their current #26. And I think they’ll at least split vs. SMC, giving them at least one quality win. The committee looks at good wins (Quad 1) AND bad loses (Quad 3 and 4) and as of now, GU is undefeated vs. Quad 3 and 4 with just one Quad 2 loss. As Kevin noted, some of their non-con opponents have plummeted; ideally a couple of those teams will turn things around at least a little bit and trend upward.
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Classless Gonzaga fans, presumably students tossing items on to the court as Gaels pull out a 64-62 road win.
It’s shocking, that despite it happening twice, no technical foul was called. Randy Bennett would have had a valid argument had this game gone into OT and Gaels lost.
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Def don’t condone the tossing. I did see a highlight reel. Two consecutive no calls on that play for winning basket. (1) St Mary’s kicked the ball and (2) St Mary’s stepped out of bounds.
I am guessing a Gonzaga win would’ve been better for Santa Clara fate this year. So now that NIT bid is out of the question - what happens if Santa Clara gets act together to win the WCC? Is that still an auto bid or no?
Femme,
Broncos win the WCC tournament, then yes, they get the auto bid. You are correct though at any at large consideration including the NIT is out.
They need to run the table in Vegas.
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At this point, we want SMC to win out, for the Zags to drop at least one game to USF, and to sweep USF ourselves. All is on Vegas, so you want the easiest path which is the auto-advance to the semis. SCU isn’t getting 1st. 2nd is technically in play still but a tough climb. It will be hard for SCU to drop below 4th (there’s your silver lining). I’m not sure that 3rd/4th matters much if SMC and Zags are 1 and 2. Those are pretty equal in my opinion. I might like SCU against SMC a third time more than against Gonzaga. The old adage that “it’s hard to beat the same team three times” or something like that.
But the only path to get there is to sweep USF. That starts this week. I liked the aggression in the USD game. But the TO problem has to be fixed. SCU is the top three point shooting team in the conference, so I trust that 14% from three was an aberration, especially with most of those being off good looks.
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Prior to last night I was hopeful we still had a legit chance at 2nd place. That 's a huge longshot at this point…would have to sweep remaining USF/GU games, or 2-1 incl a win over GU in Spokane and hope GU or USF or both lose a game to one of the bottom 5.
Assuming a 3rd or 4th finish…I’m torn on who we want to play or not play in Vegas. While I’d like a chance at redemption vs. SMC, I think we match up as well or better against GU. Our best hope may be a 3rd place finish, a matchup in the semis vs. GU and then hope USF upsets SMC in the other semi.
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Reminder that is another 1-game, bye week for the Broncos. Plenty of time to rest up and hopefully get refocused in preparation for USF on Saturday.
And kind of a unique schedule week for the rest of the WCC, instead of the usual Thurs/Sat routine:
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SMC is playing Pacific now on ESPN2
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Wednesday: Portland @ GU (on CBSSportsNet); and LMU @ USD
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Thursday: USF @ Pepperdine
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Saturday: GU is at Kentucky, 1pm on CBS. And the usual slate of four WCC games: SMC @ Portland, Pepp @ LMU, USD @ Pacific and of course the Broncos @ USF.
I think 3 vs. 4 is a HUGE difference.
Loyola Marymount is dangerous in the 4 vs. 5 game. The difference between LMU & the six seed IMO is legit.
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good point…LMU is dangerous
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USD carrying their momentum into this game vs. LMU; plus, Leaupepe is out (they say he suffered an injury in the recent game). Toreros up 20-11 on LMU at the 8 minutes into the game.
They are pressing LMU after every made shot.
I may be wrong about LMU.
Not having Leaupepe makes a big difference for them. Even if he’s off, he’s an aggressive defender and has to be taken seriously at all three levels. The rest of their guys are basically three point specialists or average big men with poor hands.
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LMU is not playing horribly, but USD is just playing with so much energy.
The good news is that SCU would now have to totally collapse to not finish top four and get a bye to the quarterfinals.
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LMU was down by 18 at one point in the game, they made a heck of a comeback and just fell short, losing by two points. If Leaupepe had played, I think they would’ve won the game.