6th man 6-10 forward Brandon Love (5.7pts, 4 rebs)
The Pack don’t shoot a ton of 3’s, about 18 attempts a game but are shooting lights out at 49%, ranked #1 in the country. That kind of shooting is not sustainable, but the Broncos haven’t defended the 3 well…seems like a bad combo. 3pt shooting is the most random and inconsistent aspect of the game so we’ll see how it turns out…hopefully the Pack’s hot shooting returns to earth.
Davidson and Sanders are the key guys to stop. The Pack also have good size in the frontcourt and on the wings, comparable to the Broncos; not something the Broncos have seen much of yet.
The time is now for the Broncos, they’ve dug themselves a hole with the rough 1-2 start. IMO they can afford no more than one additional loss in non-con if they hope to have any chance of a NCAA bid; if they lose to Nevada it will put tremendous pressure on them to run off a long winning streak.
Prediction: The Broncos show a little fight but succumb to the Pack, 77-69.
ESPN line is Wolf Pack -7.5. Line seems low given Nevada is at a home and respective results to date. That line would translate to -3 or -4 on a neutral court.
That said, this Bronco group (this season and last) is about as unpredictable as I’ve seen from a Bronco team. Given both the talent AND inconsistency, neither a 20 win nor a 20 point loss would surprise me.
The Broncos are shooting 28% from 3, largely because O’Neil (biggest culprit), Stewart, Ensminger, and Knapper have all been ice cold. Those four collectively are 6 for 38 from beyond the arc. Good for under 16%.
Meanwhile Mahi is better than 60% from beyond the arc. That number will come back to earth.
I worry about Nevada being so good at shooting the three but not doing it a ton. That indicates to me that their ball movement and driving to the rim is good enough to not feel any need to over-rely on their best asset.
But SCU is due for some better lift from the arc and Nevada should trend down a bit from their burning hot shooting. May it happen today.
Nevada does not need a lot of 3’s vs the Broncos. The way our opponents have been blowing by our defense getting into the paint for easy buckets or wide open kick-outs for 3’s.
They also have size where they can/will exploit mismatches something that the Broncos don’t do well.
Agreed, I think both Bal & Stewart haven’t been very good on the defensive end so far this season. Stewart likes to roam and gets steals in the passing lanes. But he loses contact with his man allowing open shots. I’ve never thought Bal was a good defender and nothing he’s done this year has changed my mind
I HATE our flat offense!!! We need to get away from perimeter offense and look for off ball screens and back door opportunities.
That third foul against Cam who was straight up and down told me already the refs are not our friends. Turning game off. Especially after picking up his first while in the key and guy tripped. Three fouls with only one legit. I can’t with this. Esp after Jake got clocked from behind on the fast break and NO CALL.
Bad officiating combined with flat offense. We know how this is gonna play out.
That final series was a sign of everything wrong thus far. No offensive direction and then a bad miss from 3. This team lacks real offensive plans and any sort of consistency. One thing for sure is these guys need to spend some extra time in the gym shooting.
You’re right TD…but was hoping for some signs of life of tonight.
At this point everyone not redshirting is playing…not because of a concerted and purposeful plan to use our depth…but out of desperation.
So our only hope at this stage is for Sendek and staff to continue experiment with lineups, schemes, etc. More or less use the non-con as training camp and then hope we can develop in to some semblance of a viable, working squad by WCC play, hope you have a solid WCC season and catch lightning in a bottle in the WCC tourney. That’s a lot of ‘hopes’.
