Tip-off: Wednesday, 7pm, at the Event Center TV: NBC Sports Bay Area (suspect it may be carried on Bally or Root in some locations but not sure). Line: ESPN: Broncos -1.5, 57% win probability ; Torvik: Spartans -2, 59% win prob.
SJSU:
The Spartans are 6-6, coming off a loss to Montana. They have a decent win vs. UCIrvine to open the season but no quality wins since. They are ranked #179 on NET and #146 on Torvik (Broncos are 117 and 128 respectively).
Top players:
6-2 junior guard Myron Amey Jr. (14.3pts, 4rebs, 3assists, 33% from 3)
6-9 junior forward Tibet Gorener (13.2pts, 5,2 rebs, 35% from 3, leads them in made 3’s)
6-7 senior forward Trey Anderson (12.8pts, 5.4rebs, 45% from 3)
The above four all play 30+ minutes and are all 3pt shooters. There is a big drop off in production after them. The 5/C spot is shared by 7-0 sophomore Adrame Diongue (solid rebounder and shot blocker), and 6-10 sophomore William Humer, each play less than 20mins.
The Spartans rely heavily on the 3 (67th on Torvik in 3pt rate) and are reasonably efficient offensively. Defensively they are mediocre across the board and are a subpar rebounding team.
The Spartans are a little better than the historical norm for them but not as good as they were last season; their best player from last season (by a long shot), Omari Moore, left to turn pro and several other rotation players transferred or graduated and they didn’t land any significant incoming transfers.
For the Broncos, the WSU win was a step forward, but there is still significant room and need for improvement. WSU is not an exceptional team IMO, they are probably borderline NIT at best, so take that win with a grain of salt and recognize we’re going to have to be better if we want finish 2nd or 3rd in league and maybe knock off GU along the way. In addition to addressing the TO troubles, there is still a need to improve the overall defense and rebounding. The mediocre rebounding is particularly aggravating for me given the fairly big lineups we typically have on the floor; there’s really no excuse to not dominate the glass and it’s critical that we do so at the defensive end.
Prediction: Broncos cover the spread, and show some incremental improvement: 78-71.
The betting line is moving hard, favoring SCU. as @92bronc noted in the pre-game write-up, the spread opened favoring the Broncos by 1.5 points. I got a bet in last night at Broncos -2.5. Woke up this morning, and the line moved hard to Broncos -4 with a -114 vig, suggesting that the line might move further to -4.5 or -5 or possibly stronger than that.
Edit to add: I’m a little shocked that Torvik favors SJSU.
You have to take Torvik lines with a grain of salt, a couple of observations/opinions on said lines:
Torvik overweights home/away advantage IMO, it’s roughly a 7 to 8 point swing…ie- if the game was at Leavey, the Torvik liine would be Broncos -5 or -6 instead of Spartans -2. You can see this be looking at the respective home/away WCC games.
Making it worse in no recognition of proximity/venue. Much like our game vs. Stanford, there’s not much ‘home’ advantage, there will be plenty of Broncos in attendance, maybe as many or more than Spartans. And the Broncos simply travel the 10 mins down the Alameda to SJSU…no real travel, no flights, no overnight stay, etc. We aren’t traveling across the country to play in Cameron Indoor Arena.
OMG. I came to complain about these commentators too. Putting it on mute!!! And I’m pretty annoyed with that call on Cam. He took hits to the back and elbows to the face and he came up with the foul in that 3 on 1 combo.
SJSU hitting 60% from the field isn’t a recipe for success unless they are going to make like Santa Clara playing Utah State and give the Broncos 20 extra possessions.
Also, McEldon is nice. Really solid for a frosh big.
I like Bal playing off-ball to get open for catch-and-shoot opportunities. I don’t like him dribbling to the basket in half-court sets. He turns the ball over too much.
When you continue to go under screens with no help You have to expect easy open looks. Our ball movement is non existent . 5 guys playing one on one ball . Thanks God for Carlos hot first half . Our defense is ***** .
On another note, if Sendek were to move on, I’d happily look at Tim Miles to come down the road. (Not hoping for that or anything, just really impressed by what Miles does with basically nothing.)
Luke is definitely playing well. I would really like to see some PERIMTER DEFENSE. I would like to see the guards LOOK INSIDE. I would like to see fighting through screens and more effort from some of the guys out there. And obviously, want less TO.