Oregon:
The Ducks come into the matchup as a highly-ranked squad nationally, at 28 in BartTorvik and 32 in KenPom. They have played 3 opponents in the 100-200 range, with solid, double-digit wins against all three. This will be SCU’s toughest opponent so far by a decent margin.
(C) N’Faly Dante (who only played most recent game) – last season: 13.4 pts, 8.4 rebs in 26 min
(G) Jermaine Cousinard – 12 pts, 2.5 asts, 1.8 stls in 31.8 min
(G) Keshawn Barthelemy – 10.5 pts, 3.3 rebs, 2.5 asts in 27.3 min
(G) Jesse Zarzuela – 10.3 pts and 2.3 asts in 30.7 min
Additionally, Kwame Evans, Jr. and Jadrian Tracey started the last game, a road game at Florida A&M as part of the Pac-12/SWAC Challenge.
The Ducks are balanced and deep. They get a lot of production out of their two centers. Dante is 6’11" while Bittle is a full 7’0". But there may be chinks in the armor. They struggled to fully put away a bad Florida A&M team (though playing in Florida) and have not obliterated their other opponents. Santa Clara will likely be the best team that Oregon has faced by a fair margin.
The Broncos fired on all cylinders against a lowly Mississippi Valley State squad, though they showed some vulnerability early on the glass. That won’t cut it against Oregon’s front line and Tilly and Caffaro are going to need to have their best games yet. Oregon basically has two Maxime Reynauds to throw out there.
The good news is that Oregon is a lot smaller than Santa Clara after the two centers. Guys like Tyeree Bryan and Adama Bal will have big size advantages over the Ducks guarding them (but will likely have to make sure they stay in front of speedy opponents).
Good catch! I’ll update the info. After double-checking, the Emerald Coast Classic website insists that the game is at 8:30 pm but CBS Sports lists it at 9:30 pm Eastern.
I’m not sure if that is because the CBS Broadcast schedule requires the hour delay (so not live) or maybe it’s part of the FloSports agreement (i.e. Flo gets it live, CBS trails by an hour). The tournament website isn’t an exemplar of clarity. For example, it says at different places that the games are played in Niceville, FL and in other places says they are going to take place across the bay in Destin, FL.
Anyways, stay tuned for exact game time to perhaps get updated close to the game itself. But it looks like CBS Sports will have the game one way or another.
EDIT: The game is at 8:30 pm Central not Eastern. Thus 6:30 Pacific on CBSSports is correct. Thanks to @buckets for correcting.
But given the circumstances, a win was all that mattered to Oregon, which plays Santa Clara at 6:30 p.m. Friday in the Emerald Coast Classic and either Alabama or Ohio State on Saturday.
It’s not clear if the Ducks will have any of their injured players back for those games. Dante was set to see a specialist in Chicago earlier Monday and Bittle did not travel with the team.
“Our depth isn’t what it was,” Altman said. “Hopefully Jackson, Mookie, we can get them back here shortly and give us something. Try to get a little bit more depth.”
These next two games are a really big deal for our boys. If we want to be recognized as a “team to watch” by bubblewatchers, we need to have good showings against Oregon and whomever is our matchup on Saturday (Alabama or Ohio State). If we get pummeled in both games, we will be relegated to “they’ll be lucky to make the NIT” status.
This is the beginning of the challenging part of SCU’s schedule. Aside from Menlo and, increasingly, Cal, pretty much every other OOC opponent is one that a standard Bronco team might very well lose to.
SCU owns one of the WCC’s two Quad 1 victories so far. They are going to want to get at least one more this weekend with a real shot at two.
The Three Man Weave guys all predicted SCU over Oregon, for what it’s worth, with one of the three saying that SCU might even have a shot at winning the field. May it be so.
Nice 1st half for our boys, leading 39-34. By my eye, Bal and Bryan were the exceptional players on the floor. Ensminger had some really nice plays. Marshall was quiet.
Oregon shot the 3 well in the first half, but that was about all they had going. I thought SCU might pull away in the second half, but Oregon used their speed to attack the basket, and that kept this game a toss-up until the final few minutes. Their FT shooting was an Achilles’ heel; they might have pulled this one out had they shot well from the line.
As for the Broncos, nice job all the way around. Good to see some 3’s go down, and better from the line tonight. It seemed like the Broncos defended the 3 better in the second half, and it was interesting and encouraging to see them mix in a little zone.
I can’t remember the last time a Bronco team made the championship game in one of these early-season tournaments, let alone won one. Anybody out there have an answer for that?
Great win by the Broncos! Tilly and Bal had great games. 2-0 against the PAC12 and now we take on the Buckeyes. This is big time basketball! Go Broncos!
Helluva win!
-Adama Bal really coming into his own with this team.
-Tilly looks to be back to what we expected from him
-Tyree Bryan is giving us incredible production off the bench
Character of this team is coming into focus. The big three of Tilly, Bal and CMJ with a number of very capable other guys who can go for 6 - 12 points on a given night. Looks like more legit D1 talent than we’ve had in quite a while.
