Herb has one way to play and that’s it. He’s not creative, not dynamic, not original. Forget the fact that his one way doesn’t even showcase the strengths of this particular SCU squad. When his singular way gets thwarted, SCU is dead in the water.
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overheard postgame from coaches, “we were never even close”
At least they’re being honest with themselves.
Now…do they know what to do about it? Do they have any solutions or adjustments?
This is where Sendek earns his $1M+ salary. It’s not enough to bring in some quality transfers. You have to do something with that talent, use schemes that maximize their strengths and hide their weaknesses and get them to coalesce in to a good TEAM…something more than a collection of somewhat talented individual players.
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It is conceivable we will be underdogs or at best pickem for the next 10 games (definitely so if Marshall is out). Might as well use it as an opportunity to experiment with different things against good teams in hopes of finding the best recipe for conference play.
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If they beat UNM, much can be forgiven. But SCU needs to win like 5 straight to really reset expectations to what they were in the blissful period between the Oregon and Ohio State games. That’s a really tall order with what’s coming.
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Speaking of the SCU/UNM game on Saturday, that game appears NOT to be televised.
Is that correct?
Yes.
If we want serious consideration for a Tourney bid then we need to go about ~5-1 the rest of non-con…doesn’t matter whether we win 5 in row or if a loss comes in the middle of the 6 game stretch.
A 23 or even a 24 win season won’t get us in the tourney. Probably need 25wins minimum and likely 26 to get in. So do the math on how we get there. We aren’t going to win 13+ games in WCC play.
Yes, Oregon was a plus win, Stanford less so but still a decent. If you want to rise up and make some noise as a mid-major then you have to beat some power conference teams and win some games as the underdog. Beating the St. Francis’s and MissVallStates is meaningless…tells you nothing about how good your team is or isn’t, in fact those games tend to obscure your weaknesses and lull you in to a false sense of security.
And while the Stanford and Oregon wins were nice, the Ohio State and Cal losses were red flags given how horrible we looked and played. Losing is one thing but you’d like to see us put up fight, play them relatively close and look like we ‘belong’…that was not the case in either of the losses. If members of the NCAA tourney selection committee watched those games, they would not think SCU belongs, instead they’d conclude we were completely outclassed.
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Agree with what 92 said above. Santa Clara needs 5ish wins against the equivalent of Oregon/Ohio State this season to have a shot at an at-large. The loss to Ohio State isn’t directly harmful, per se (though the manner in which it occurred is concerning). But it’s a missed opportunity. Cal is a harmful loss at the moment but not exactly a killer.
Still, with limited sample size, SCU has one good win, one decent win, an expected loss by an unexpected margin, and a harmful loss that we can only hope gets minimized by Cal being much more successful down the road.
The rest of the OOC are potential for decent to good wins. UNM is closer to Oregon than Cal. The rest are more in the Stanford camp where they will have the potential to look better or worse depending on the rest of the results. But I’m with 92–it’s gonna take 5-1 to not be totally reliant on beating the Zags and/or winning it all in Vegas.
I am not saying, exactly, that the season is lost if SCU doesn’t get to the Tournament. But if that’s the goal, and it still should be, the above is what I think it will take. This roster was constructed with a win-now philosophy so, while I would still recognize a 3rd NIT as an accomplishment and stabilizing the program at a higher level, it would fall short of what this roster and this schedule were created to achieve.
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Im getting some Noob vibes … 
Couldn’t resist, sorry. 
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Smells like Noob to me.
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I’m starting to miss BYU a little right now.
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Bite your tongue. 
My stance was always: they never should have joined the WCC in the first place, square peg - round hole, and was always a temp situation though they stayed longer than expected. Plus their fanbase is annoying and arrogant…they expected to run roughshod over the WCC and never happened.
That said, the way things are playing out, the timing of BYU’s departure isn’t great. With a roster of mostly holdovers from last year, BYU is playing well and in the Top25 and would have boosted the WCC this year. Meanwhile the league is performing a below expectations, without many wins of significance (aside from GU of course).
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I don’t like their fans either, but having them this year would have been an opportunity for 2 more quality wins for our Broncos (although I know scheduling didn’t always provide a home and away in recent years).
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Or two quality shellackings.
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@pistolpete89 it looks like it will be live streamed, albeit for a $19.99 access pass.
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Thanks Patty, I appreciate it.
Correct. Conversely, if we don’t play them, we can’t beat them.
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Although BYU leads the all-time series by a lot, there is some satisfaction in knowing we beat them the last three times we played them.
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