Tip-off: Wednesday, 1PM @ Salt Lake Comm College TV: FloSports or FloSports App, Stream Wyoming vs Santa Clara - FloHoops.
And appears it may be accessible on several streaming platforms (AppleTV, Roku, FireTV). Line: Torvik- Pick’em. ESPN- 53% for Wyoming.
Wyoming
The Cowboys are 3-3 on the season (2-3 vs. DI), with no wins of note and a bad loss at home to SE Louisiana. Their last game was a 59-48 loss to Boston College.
They played in the NCAA tourney last season and had a little hype coming in to this season but they have been without one of their top players, Graham Ike (19.5, 10rebs last season), who is expected to miss most of their non-con games. Their top available players:
6-7 wing Hunter Maldonado (15pts, 4.7 rebs, 3.3 assists, not much of a 3pt shooter).
6-7 wing Brendan Wenzel (8.6pts, 4rebs, 11/24 from 3, 46%)
6-10 forward Hunter Thompson (7pts, 5rebs, 2nd on team in made 3’s)
Advance metrics for the Cowboys are mostly middle of the pack. They are a decent defensive rebounding team and they do get to the FT line a lot, particularly Maldonado at over 6attempts a game and shoots 84%. Will be interesting who gets the assignment on Maldonado…Braun, Justice or Podz???
For the Broncos…still need to clean up the TO’s, it’s going to cost us a game at some point. Still hoping for improvement to the half court O. And we could use a consistent 3rd scoring threat behind Podz and Justice…is that Braun or Stewart? Carlos Marshall could be that man but I suspect he may be out for awhile. Stewart has been struggling, a bounce back from him would be very beneficial.
Did not realize Graham Ike was the pre-season pick for Mountain West Player of the Year. We are lucky to miss him. You are right to point out the Free Throw Rate. Will be a huge difference from the Iona game (362nd in FT Rate) versus Wyoming (37th.) It looks like both teams turn the ball over a ton (more than 1/5th of the possessions!). Yikes.
Wyoming is listing without Ike and much more easily beatable than it would have appeared at the beginning of the season when they were the consensus 2nd place team after SDSU in the Mountain West. Wyoming’s confidence is waning and (hopefully) SCU’s is fairly high after the win against Iona.
Give me the Broncos in a high scoring affair: 89-82 Santa Clara. Podz lights it up again with 26. Braun with a double-double at 13 and 10.
@TheWeave might be able to correct me, but these early afternoon games have been historically bad for us. I haven’t done an actual analysis, but just in my experience, I think our winning percentage is much lower when we play before 6pm.
Maybe it’s just my anecdotal recollection, but, yes, it seems like we are awke before 5pm. Saturday afternoon games seemed to be particularly problematic.
Maybe they can get a W, and hit Crownburger for a pastrami hamburger or Granato’s for an italian sammy and be home in time for bed.
I appreciate the stronger schedule the past couple of years, but I gotta say that I really hate these one-off neutral court games with bunk streaming services (I know Flo is much more established than the last one, but still…)
I saw a couple nights ago that UC Davis and Boston University squared off in a neutral site game in Milwaukee with probably 45 people in the stands. It’s one thing to do a tournament event in the Bahamas with relatively small crowds but legit tv/streaming. It’s really annoying as a fan to basically be locked out of watching some of the better OOC games because they are distant, on bad streaming services, and have no return game at Leavey in a future year as part of the deal.
I agree Patty. We had the home-home series with Nevada for ~4years???
Not sure why we wouldn’t do the same with Wyoming…a difficult place for us to play but so what, prepares you for the more challenging WCC road games (GU, SMC, USF).
Re: Maldonado…that’s big news, they haven’t had a consistent high level scorer beyond him. If we win this is one that will look more impressive on paper (and KenPom, Torvik) than it really is given the absence of Ike and Maldonado. Oh well, only benefits us.
I sprung for the stream in the end. Hopefully I can cancel immediately and just get charged on the $29.99. There’s replay too, which is nice since I’ll have to leave this for a work meeting and pick it up after the game is probably over.
The stream is fine so far. Basically par with our normal WCC stream when at SCU. So not what I’d pay $30 per game for, but it is what it is.
Share your observations when you can… I hope our injured Carlos is back… he is the third create your own shot guy we need … would take the pressure off Podz and Keshawn.
Watching the game…Offense is fine and Bediako has been awesome…but the perimeter defense has been abysmal. Eerily similar to last game where the Broncos let the guy from Iona go 6-6 from 3. Not sure what the scouting report was but the closeouts on 3 pt shots by the Broncos are lacking any urgency.
Anything else 'Bob? Podz or Justice shooting OK? The Live Stats and ESPN Gamecast aren’t working…maybe they forgot to hire a stats guy to the early 1pm at a community college gym.
ESPN does show the score but no details…44-36 at half ain’t good, particularly when the Cowboys two best players are playing.
I chose not to pay for streaming. It’s rather ridiculous that SCU sets up a scenario where the few diehard fans we have, have to pay more than the General Admission ticket cost at Leavey to watch a streaming video. It’s no way to encourage fans, just risks driving some away and reducing overall fan/alumni engagement. If they truly want to grow the athletic programs they are going to have to improve the fan experience…and I use that term broadly, not just for fans at a game but make it easy for all Bronco fans to follow, support and engage including many of us who live far away and can’t attend games in person on a regular basis.
Just noticed Wyoming was 12th in the nation in terms of number of 3s they take as a % of their offense. 11-17 from 3 in the first half against the Broncos! Of those 17shots, I would say maybe 1/3 were well guarded. Hopefully there are some major defensive adjustments in the second half because it was not like these were lucky contested 3 pointers being made.
Podz has been been relatively quiet. Playing fine on offense but not being very assertive. Would like to see us get him more involved in the second half. Justice has made some 3 pointers. . Bediako definitely had the top performance in the first half. Blocking shots, making hooks. Stewart had a great stretch with a steal, slam, and made 3 pointer. The team is not turning it over which is good…but allowing 11 three pointers negates anything positive you do on the court. I don’t know what the defensive game plan was so hard to tell what the heck is going wrong on that end. But I will say we are playing defense on our heels (where I think of St.Mary’s being a team that always plays defense on their toes.)
Bediako picked up his 3rd foul and went to the bench. Fortunately Parker Braun is having a career game on offense. Justice needs to get some looks in the second half if we want to win.