Here’s a consolidated thread for our other league opponents.
The WCC took its first loss last night with USD falling one point short of Ryder U at home. The league has won all its other contests so far which, though most of the games haven’t been against impressive opponents, at least is better than taking a few head scratching losses. Ryder seems like it’s potentially in that category.
A couple of other games where some real cobwebs were being shaken off (in the best case):
USF barely squeaked by Cal Poly which is like St. Louis in that it’s made up of a bunch of transfers who moved with the coach. But unlike St. Louis where the coach and players came from a very good mid-major squad in Indiana State, Cal Poly’s team is from a D2 squad where the coach and players moved up. Now SCU struggled with non-D1 Menlo College even with Podz on the team. And last year’s early match with SE LA State was nearly a buzzer beater. But still, USF barely getting by Cal Poly isn’t great.
The Portland Pilots were struggling last night against D3 Lewis and Clark (down at the half) but eventually pulled it together for a double digit win.
SMC was given almost all it can handle by Towson at home. Now Towson is a good opponent, to be sure. Towson ran it straight at SMC’s bigs and put them into foul trouble which ended up being a successful strategy. With Saxen sidelined, SMC struggled to put Towson away.
A couple big games for conference members in the next couple of days:
Wazzu takes on a good Bradley team (and future SCU opponent) on Friday. Also on Friday is UC Irvine versus LMU for a good SoCal mid-major match. And Oregon State is playing another perennially strong mid-major in Weber State. On Saturday, we have UCSB at Portland and a big one in Boise State at USF.
In sum, we will know a lot more about the middle of the conference after this weekend.
Very good win for the conference. Wazzu also beat future SCU-opponent, Bradley, pretty solidly. The WCC is setting itself up well for a third bid, but it’s a narrow path for all three of these schools. And SCU’s is narrower for the ASU loss.
LMU got beat pretty well by UC Irvine. I think it’s a clear top-5 for now.
USF over Boise St. looks good now but I’m not confident Boise St. is as good as they have been the last several years. They lost a lot of their talent and key contributors from last year; like most they are trying to reload w/ transfers but we’ll see how that pans out. Right now, I’d guess they’ll end up behind at least SDSU, Nevada and New Mexico in the MWC, Colo St., UNLV and Utah St. may be in the mix as well.
WSU is looking good so far could be a sleeper for 3rd place in the WCC and maybe challenge SMC for 2nd. WSU definitely won’t be gimme wins for the Broncos. New coach Riley brought 5 of his players from the decent E. Washington squad he had last season, all were starters or rotation guys including pre-season all WCC wing Cedric Coward. Four of those EWU transfers starting which certainly helps with the familiarity and learning curve of a new coaching regime.
LMU had a ton of turnover as well. Only real contributors that returned are Merkviladze and Will Johnston. Getting Jevon Porter from Pepp was big but they still have a whole lot to figure out and aren’t looking great so far. That said, season is still early, maybe they’ll get it together by WCC play.
ASU tied with Gonzaga in the Kennel at the half. It’s at least possible that ASU is closer, in fact, to their “getting AP top-25 votes” potential than their “barely squeaking past Idaho State and getting rocked by Duke” early results.
Also, preseason scrimmage opponent New Mexico beat #22 UCLA. Trying to use the transitive property from a preseason secret scrimmage is making two bogus inferences on top of each other. But maybe SCU is still pretty good and has just played very tough teams so far.
I think Arizona just had an OFF first game. I think they’re a whole lot better than they’ve been given credit.
I think we are all freaking out too early and our boys are gonna learn real fast that they ran with the big boys and beat themselves. Close out the three. Don’t allow anyone to shoot 42% (I think it was) at the 3 - and you’re on a fast track to the big game.
I want them to never lose the bad taste of letting Arizona get by - and carry that into every next game they play.
Cuz Gonzaga is struggling with them first half - and so it shows me that it’s anyone’s game with these three organizations. SCU def has the depth and the talent.
Yup, certainly a missed opportunity against ASU. But judging by how much trouble they just gave Gonzaga, looks like this loss won’t hurt us if they can consistently play like this in B12 conference games.
Still plenty of tests and potential resume building games ahead.
One decent WCC game today…SMC plays undefeated Nebraska at 10am in a neutral site game at the Sanford Pentagon in South Dakota.
Some interesting games or opponents coming up tomorrow night: Pacific plays at #18 Arkansas and Gonzaga plays at San Diego St.
Saturday WCC games…not a great night for the WCC: USF blew out a bad Chicago St. team and Portland squeaked by subpar Long Beach St. by 2. Otherwise losses: LMU lost by 6 to an Avila-less Saint Louis, USD lost by 12 to Idaho St., and Pepperdine lost by 18 to UC Irvine.
It’s worse than that. Small sample size, but it was mentioned on the mountain west broadcast yesterday that SCU ranked around 350 in opponent 3pt %……there’s 364 teams in D1 basketball……
You cannot defend the 3 like that and expect to be a good team.
Given this team’s size and athleticism, there’s really no excuse to be this poor on the defensive end.
Oregon St. and USF each suffered their first loss of the season in close games to good opponents. Oregon St. by 3 to Oregon and USF by 4 to Memphis.
Watched portions of the USF game…kind of an ugly, low-ish scoring game, 68-64, both teams shot under 37%.
USF 6-6 frosh Tyrone Riley IV had a rough shooting night with only 2 pts but he did have 13rebounds and 2 blocks. Prior to this game he had been leading them in scoring, has now dipped to 2nd, now at 16pts plus 5.4rebs and shooting 45% from 3…outstanding #'s for a true frosh.
Rough Friday night for the WCC going 0-5 (Pacific, Pepp, Portland, USD and LMU).
All mid to lower WCC squads but still not good. Only silver lining is Pacific (vs. Missouri) and Pepperdine (vs. Northwestern) lost to decent teams.
A light weekend slate of games before several teams play in Holiday tourneys next week. Tonight: Cal Poly at SMC; Sunday: Portland vs. Princeton, and Idaho at USD.
Interesting that Kevin Patton Jr. (San Diego to USC) and Aiden Mahaney (SMC to UCONN) have both only logged single digit minutes the last two games at their new schools.
