JSerra is nice for a high school gym… it’s pretty small.
The Lahaina Civic Center doesn’t have locker rooms and only seats 2,000 people, but hosts the greatest invitational of the year. The venue doesn’t really matter, but I do want to know what network will be airing this tournament, and how accessible it will be to all of us.
So at this point our pre-wcc schedule looks like this. Is there anything else confirmed that I’m missing?
11/16 - Nevada
11/22-11/24 - SoCal Challenge (presumably playing 2 to 3 of Cal Poly, Nicholls State, Utah Valley, TCU, Idaho, Fresno State, Pepperdine)
12/11 @ Cal
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This is what we are looking at right now. So add Boise State, Mt St Mary’s, Montana, and SJ State to your list. Boise State should be a competitive game!
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Yeah, but who the whole point of the Maui Invitational is going to Hawaii. Think SCU, Pepp, Cal Poly etc are going to be all fired up for the trip to San Juan Capistrano to play in a high school gym?
Just sayin this whole SoCal Challenge seems pretty lame.
Yea I think this might be the second year this event is being held. I’ll be in the area so I honestly might go watch one of the days if we face a good team.
Single game in Farmville, Virginia (aptly named for some little town roughly seventy miles from Richmond) against a school from Idaho? Doesn’t make much sense unless there’s another tag-along game. Big South school, Longwood, is there, but no info on their site yet. Strange… Nevada ,Boise, and possibly Fresno State will all be tough games v MWC. This is the year to win these games.
This source states that it’s a home game for Boise State at the ExtraMile Arena in Boise. Not sure what the Farmville reference comes from but looks like a lovely little town, if an odd location for two Western U.S. college basketball teams to lock horns.
That makes a lot more sense…just used the twitter info from an earlier post. Home game for Boise makes this a very good test, should be at least a quad 2 game, maybe a 1. Boise finished up at 53 last year. IDK much about their players other than they usually have good teams, and tremendous support from all the fans in Idaho.
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I get your point, but I just think the majority of these tournaments are for television more than anything.
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True. Still, I doubt this one makes even a recognizable channel considering the teams that are playing. Not that major networks are the be all end all, but I doubt this thing gets much of a television audience.
Mind you, I’ll probably be among the few hundred in attendance.
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Me too…that’s what fans are for. Someone told me they even used to have tournaments, in of all places. Alaska! Crazy sport…go Broncos. BTW, a little up PCH from Dana Point is Las Brisas…pretty excellent Mex food and some career scenery if you like short skirts and tank tops.
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Not to turn this into a restaurant review but Las Brisas is great. Haven’t been in a few years, but always the same, and just a stones throw away from some great beach half court bball.
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Back of the envelope here. Seems like we usually get about 14-15 OOC games, right?
So Fullerton, Nevada, the Mount, Boise State, Montana, SJSU, Cal, and (hopefully) three games at the SoCal Classic gets us to ten. There should be games against Stanford and USC as well, but given the madness of last year, I have no idea what the status is there. Stanford might have been cancelled since the return game would have been last season. But USC would be playing in Leavey this year, no?
So there are probably 5 or so games left to confirm:
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At least one of those should be a Pac-12 team, I think.
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One will probably be a D2 or NAIA team (sigh)
Presumably the Cable Car has finally died (sad but it was time). Give me at least one more decent mid-major game against a top-150 squad, and I’ll be pretty much satisfied even if Alcorn State simply must come back to Leavey (but please, please, please just schedule a Big West team instead).
That schedule may have its faults, but it won’t be a bottom 50 OOC schedule which feels like a blessing after the last few years.
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Mostly agree. If your wishes for another mid-tier or higher team or two or come true then it might be an OK schedule. I’m reserving judgement until I see that play out. Certainly has a chance of being better than the last 3 (non-COVID) seasons which all saw non-con SOS at low to mid-300’s ranks out of ~350ish teams. 2019/20 was particularly embarrassingly weak with a high 340’s rank…one of the 5 to 10 weakest schedules in the country.
And the matchups we end up getting at the SoCal tourney will significantly impact the quality of the non-con schedule. If the tourney format turns out to be a traditional 8 team, winner/losers bracket, 3 game format then we could possibly play both TCU and Fresno St. after playing (and beating) one of the four weak teams in the 1st round. But if it is a random match-up or round robin format with only 2 games then we could end up playing 2 of the weak teams (Nichols, Cal Poly, Idaho, Utah Valley) and miss out on TCU or Fresno St. which would diminish the schedule.
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The 19-20 schedule was horrific, made worse by getting a gaudy OOC record and then being completely exposed in conference.
Herb’s 18-19 schedule was halfway decent with five power conference teams. But a whole lot of bad teams filled in the gaps. 16-17 similar (which he inherited from KK, I believe) though a couple more decent mid-major matchups, including that triple-OT game against Valparaiso.
I have some hope that this might end up as Sendek’s best schedule assuming that one or both of Stanford and USC are still on board and he can pull in another decent mid-major like Utah State. The highs may not be as high as some seasons past, but really the issue with Sendek’s schedules have been such a low floor (and so many teams vying for the bottom).
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Torvik T-Rank 2022 projections for the teams we know about:
Fullerton 197
Nevada 64
Mt. St. Marys 198
Boise State 70
Montana 132
SJSU 263
Cal 150
Highlight teams from the SJC event: TCU 85, Fresno 114, Pepp 153, Utah Valley 187.
For reference, the difference between 50 and 200 is about 14 points per 100 possessions. SCU’s adjusted tempo last year was 70.6 possessions, 67th in the country. National average was 68.2. So that’s about 9 ppg separating 50th from 200th.
Basically, expect a lot of competitive games is what I’m saying.
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Good work. The fact that there is only one team below 200 on Torvik is basically the basis of my projected satisfaction with the schedule. Now the last 4-5 games could all be 250+ buy games which would be frustrating.
But I much prefer almost every game to be competitive which is where we seem headed for the moment.
The thing is, I would put par at around .500 (you can’t have a par that’s not actually a possible value, but you know what I mean) against this set based on being ranked 105 (which one can debate whether that’s where we should be or not, but then you’d have to do that for all of them and I know I don’t know that much about all the teams, so I’m inclined to go with 105 for now).
UNR and Boise are games we could win, but probably won’t. Especially at Boise.
MSM and Fullerton are games we could lose, but probably won’t.
And TCU/Fresno (I assume we’ll play at least one), Montana, Cal are in the tossup to near toss up area. Maybe a bit more likely to win 2/3 than 1/3.
So that is something like 4-3 or 3-4. Then whatever else happens with that tournament, and the rest of the schedule.
I personally would prefer more like a 5:2 ratio, and maybe that’s more what it’ll end up like. I don’t know.
Santa Clara has often played Irvine, Santa Barbara, and Riverside. Schedule one of them, hope for a hit on either Stanford or USC, and as you suggested a Utah State or even a rematch with Colorado State or similar and a couple of 250+. Even just one of the UC satellites and a rematch with one of the Pac-12 teams would be a good schedule, and give cause to be hopeful about preparation for the WCC season.
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