I’ve been one of the loudest here saying that the best version of our team is with minimal input from vrankic. The streaks this season show I was obviously wrong.
I do still believe that there are some possessions and flow that gets killed when we try to deliberately feed him (especially far from the basket). The 3 straight lost possessions late in the 2nd half against Usf were cringy.
Respect to vrankic for coming back strong from illness and turning this team around. Though I still think after studying him for 5 years, I could guard his go-to moves
I felt the same about an SCU end-of-bencher from almost a decade ago (who I won’t name). Actually played him once in Malley in a pick-up-game. I found out the hard way that the difference between even a bad D1 player and an average gym rat is, well, a chasm.
You know I’d be rooting for you, Midwest. But I think you’d find Vrankic blowing past you like a jet above a fly-over state.
Could someone please please please explain how UCLA can lose to both Arizona AND ASU and be at #14 in the NET ranking? That seems awfully high for a team that lost to the lowly Sun Devils (and it pains me to say that, because I went to ASU for grad school!)
Vrankic is actually having his best offensive year by far from an analytics perspective. However, Gonzaga and St.Mary’s have cracked the code on him in the paint. I will be curious to see how we use him against those two teams this time around. Vrankic’s shot looks smoother than ever this year (FT% and 3pt% confirm that) so I think we could probably face him up a bit more against the elite post defending teams.
I think it’s mostly because the away losses don’t hurt you that much and the margin of loss to ASU was small. I believe OT losses are capped at one point. The Arizona loss likely did little to affect the NET and the ASU loss seems like a bigger deal than it was because ASU’s terrible record is way worse than their middling NET.
Just have to keep winning.
Last night looked like a battle between 2 NCAA Tourney teams. Refs let them play rough. Fun to watch and great to see SCU grab a significant win
I think the USF loss is unfortunate. With our SMC win we didn’t necessarily need additional USF losses as we could have still finished in front of them outright. Instead it brings down USF rankings and hurts the narrative re: the quality of the league. USF’s earlier losses to BYU and SMC when they were up double digits to both in the 2nd half are really coming back to haunt them.
I still think USF is the 2nd most talented team/roster in the league with the Broncos just a hair behind (primarily because of USF’s superior quality size and depth in the post).
The other takeaway…our Portland games will not be gimme wins. Legans is doing a very good job in a very challenging situation given their recent abysmal seasons, limited program history, smaller school, etc. Entirely new roster for Portland, not a single returning scholarship player. I don’t think their current roster is notably more talented then their recent rosters, Legans is just a much better coach. Porter is a respected and well liked guy, had a great NBA career but just hasn’t been successful at all as a HC.
I watched the first half of the Portland-USF game. Portland impressed me. They have some size, and they defend fairly well. They were stifling USF. Given the turnover of the players, I think it is fair to say that they’ve needed a lot of playing time together to actually learn how to play with each other and for the coach to figure out how to utilize each player for maximum benefit. You are right, we had better focus on that game and not look past the Pilots.
One game at a time, but if SCU can win 5 of the remaining 6 (loss to Zags), it should put them in most bubble considerations. Perhaps making it to the WCC tournament championship would be enough. If somehow they could beat Gonzaga just once…
Although PORT did win at USF last night I’m glad that 4 of SCU’s final 6 regular season games are LMU, Pepperdine and Portland X2 as it makes 2nd place in the WCC a possibility… SMC has to play Zags X2, USD X2 BYU and USF in their final 6. SCU has a clearer path to 2nd.
I agree with you, 92, on the USF talent level. I’d say it goes Zags, a giant drop and then virtually a tie between USF, SCU, and BYU (in that order if I had to separate them), with a drop off to St. Mary’s. What Legans has done in Portland is incredible. It was a shocker for many when he took that job, but he has been masterful to get to .500. To take a winless conference team to this point so quickly is impressive. I’m worried about the Portland games too, but hopefully we keep playing the way we have. We can overwhelm less athletic teams with a quick pace, which is most of them. Not sure that holds on USF, so hopefully we’ve caught them in a funk.
I’m generally impressed with the coaches in the WCC. It’s a big part of why we’re seeing the improvement. It’s fun to watch. Maybe not popular opinion here, but I was bummed to see Stoudamire and Kyle Smith go. I definitely subscribe to the rising tide lifts all boats approach. If nothing else, it’s just better basketball. Golden has been impressive so far, so no drop there and Legans has been a gift for Portland. BYU is wilting, but Pope is better than Rose imo. And Bennett does more with less better than pretty much anyone.
Was perusing this morning’s update of the NET rankings. While looking through it, I also noticed how well the Mountain West is doing this year: SIX teams with ranking of 57 or better. Very impressive.
Yes, MW very good. Athletic. I think with a 100% healthy squad we would have taken down Fresno, Irvine, Louisiana Tech, Cal, and potentially Boise. Would be in a different NET situation right now for sure. Home games were super close…all w/in a few points!
We didn’t, actually. We were down Josip for both TCU and Fresno. TCU is the outlier of the season because it was probably the Broncos’ best offensive performance to date even without Josip. But then they ran into a brick wall the next game against Fresno and struggled for the next 5 games until he returned (arguably the next 7ish because it took at least a couple games for him to get back into any kind of form). On Torvik’s game score chart, you can see the turnaround really start around the Montana and SJSU games, two games into Josip’s return.
I’d argue that Josip really didn’t start performing to his pre-mono level until a few games after conference play started. I’m saying that just based on the eye test, not any data analysis. FL A&M and SJSU are lousy teams, so not sure that they can be used as good indicators for his recovery to form.
