Info on the trip to Madrid, Barcelona and Paris. Team arrived in Madrid early yesterday, 1st game is Tuesday.
In case you haven’t seen the stories on the school website, see links below.
Preview story:
Men’s Basketball Set For European Foreign Tour - Santa Clara (santaclarabroncos.com)
Day One update w/ video of guys exploring Madrid: Broncos On Tour: Day One - Traveling/Madrid - Santa Clara (santaclarabroncos.com)
1st Euro game was this morning (our time), won 77-63 vs. a club named Estudiantes. Haven’t researched them so have no idea of the competition level. Hopefully they post some sort of game recap or boxscore.
See link below to the team’s twitter feed for a couple of brief videos including some clips of the new guys…dunk by Carlos Marshall, fastbreak dunk by Kosy Akametu off feed from Knapper. And no video but mention of a 3 drained by Jacob Ensminger.
Santa Clara Men’s Basketball (@SantaClaraHoops) / Twitter
And see the Men’s hoops website for a couple of stories documenting Day Two and Day Three of the Tour: Men’s Basketball - Santa Clara (santaclarabroncos.com)
Another tidbit…the brief Sendek postgame video interview mentions only playing 10 guys, mentions all 5 newcomers played. Looked closer at some of the game highlight vids and noticed Justice, Giordan and Stewart are all in sweats or street clothes on the sidelines so appears those are the 3 who didn’t suit up.
So good news/bad news…good that a rotation with many newcomers incl RS frosh Knapper and with two likely starters sitting out was still able to secure a win. Bad news that there is apparently some sort of injury concern. None of the 3 were on crutches or walking boots or limping around so maybe just precautionary since these games don’t mean anything. And not a complete surprise considering we know Giordan had off-season knee surgery and Steward was reportedly on crutches a few months. Will be interesting to see if any of those 3 play in the next 2 games.
I noticed the same and you beat me to the punch. I’m not sure what to read into it given, as you point out, the lack of gravity to these games. Giordan didn’t suit up but was featured in one of the earlier videos of them practicing. Stewart as well, I believe. So hopefully merely precautionary.
I looked up Estudiantes. They were the 3rd place team last season in Spain’s secondary division. That doesn’t really answer the question of how good they are, though. Neither of their two American players were world-beaters–the quality of the Americans may be a decent-ish proxy for the team quality. Mark Hughes was a 10 ppg player for Wright State; Paul Jorgensen was the Big East 6th Man of the Year and averaged 11 ppg at Butler. So maybe not a high-flying pro team but hey, might as well go out and win it.
The next one should be a real test. Joventut was 3rd in the premier Spanish league after Real Madrid and Barcelona. Their three Americans played for Virginia, Marquette, and Illinois. Two of the three, Kyle Guy and Henry Ellenson, were journeymen on various NBA rosters before settling in Europe. If the Broncos can keep it close, that will bode pretty well as far as otherwise-meaningless games are concerned.
I think most of these Spanish pro squads have a “Second Team” of developmental/young guys so I assume that is who we will be playing. Can’t imagine our guys would be going up against a team with Kyle Guy and Henry Ellenson.
You want highlights?
— Santa Clara Men's Basketball (@SantaClaraHoops) August 24, 2022
We got highlights 🎥#StampedeAhead pic.twitter.com/fn15jq4tLn
Highlights from the game. Kosy is built like a 24 year old NBA player already. Tongue has excellent rotation on his shot. We know Podz can shoot but he showed off nice athleticism with that block. Tilly looks to have good coordination for a 7 footer.
Now that the school has updated the roster on the website, I noticed something that should’ve occurred to me a few months back when we knew the final roster: we don’t have a Junior on the team. Next year we will be without a Senior (unless we get a transfer). Not sure if it will matter, just an observation.
A HUGE question that I have: who will step up and be the vocal leader of this team? I feel like last year, J-Wil was the leader through his actions and play, not necessarily his voice. It seems to me that the most successful teams, though, have a vocal leader (not always the best player) who can rally the boys. Think Nash, think Niesen.
Thoughts?
Factoring in the ‘free’ COVID season of 2020/21, from an eligibility perspective for the 2022/23 season, Bediako and Giordan are really 4th year Juniors not Seniors and Braun a 5th year RS Junior (he redshirted 1 season at Missouri). So all three have the option of returning for a another season in 2023/24; whether they take advantage of that option or not remains to be seen.
In terms of who’s leader the leader??? …probably have to be Justice as a starting point with 5 years in the program, though he doesn’t seem overly vocal…and maybe with Braun, Bediako, and Carlos Marshall contributing as leaders. And though only a sophomore, Stewart strikes me as a bit of an alpha dog type…plays with a lot of energy/passion, is a little more animated than some of the other guys and had a big enough role and contributed enough last season that he should have some respect and credibility with the rest of the team.
Now 2-0 with a 65-57 win over Joventut. Podziemski with 19pts; appears this kid is born to score.
Put it the win column 😎
— Santa Clara Men's Basketball (@SantaClaraHoops) August 26, 2022
Broncos move to 2⃣-0⃣ on the foreign tour with a 65-57 win.@brandinpodziem2 led the way with 19 pts while @JadenSayNoMore chipped in 12 pts.
SCU had a 56-33 advantage in rebounding, including 22 offensive boards
Next stop: Paris 🇫🇷#StampedeAhead pic.twitter.com/wTVCJqp4qm
Ouch. It appears the Broncos played a legit professional first division team from France(Paris Basketball) today. Nevertheless looks like the guys had a great trip and I am looking forward to the season.
Ouch indeed.
Haven’t seen a full game recap yet but we were down 76-37 at half. From Sendek’s post game video, does sound like we did played better in the second half but guessing we gave up at least 100pts maybe 110+???
A wakeup call and maybe good that they didn’t finish thinking things are going to be easy…more work to be done.
Their was a pic on twitter that appears to show Justice participating in warmups, will be interesting to hear if he actually played or if he just went through warmups as a shake out but didn’t play.
Lost 122-88 to Paris Basketball - one of the best French league teams and they played all their guys - Former NBA and G League.
Good experience either way. Looks like it was the second quarter that really sank the Broncos big. The first was fairly close, and they slightly outscored Paris in the second half (albeit, after the hosts may have let up a bit). Might as well get a taste of Gonzaga basketball here in August, work hard as a team, and hope to get a better result by the time they roll into McCarthy.
There is at least one article I found in French by searching Paris basketball v. Santa Clara.
Some quick hits:
Here’s the Paris Basketball article which you can run through Google Translate if not a francophone.
Of note: Paris clearly treated this as a meaningful game for them and ran all of their guys, as Bucky stated. Kyle Allman, Tyrone Wallace, and Juhann Begarin each got 20 pts or so. All three have at least touched an NBA roster before (Allman only for Summer League, but you get the picture). Begarin currently has a contract with the Celtics, I believe.
So the Broncos probably aren’t going to be winning the G-League championship this year. But good experience for the team to get punched in the mouth when it doesn’t count and have a level that they can aspire to.
I know I’ve been hyping up Podz after we signed him, but what were peoples thoughts on him for the past three games? The kid is clearly a shooter but very skilled and a hard worker. I personally can see him as our go to scorer and even our leading scorer this season.