Edited for Jan. 7th announcement of reschedule of Pacific games:
Tip-off: Wednesday, Jan. 12th, 7 PM
TV: WCC Network
Line: 78% win probability on ESPN, 83% on Torvik. Broncos -10 on Torvik, No line yet on ESPN.
Pacific:
5-10 on the season, coming off a 73-51 loss vs. BYU on Thursday (the only league game played to date). A decent win over UCSB but nothing else to speak of. They have losses to common opponents: Hawaii, Fullerton St., San Jose St., and Cal…all wins for the Broncos except for Cal. Currently ranked #244 on NET, #282 on Torvik. They don’t do much well, advance metrics are particularly bad on offense, ranked #324 on Torvik.
6-5 wing Luke Avdalovic, a junior transfer from Northern Arizona, is their best offensive player, averaging 10.3 pts/game. Point guard Pierre Crockrell is small but super quick, a good penetrator and passer but not much of scorer and has no perimeter game (0 made 3’s on the season). Oddly, veteran and former starting forwards Jeremiah Bailey (Kyle Bailey’s bro) and Jordan Bell have not started in recent games but still get solid playing time off the bench, often playing more than the starting frontcourt guys.
Stoudamire is gone, went to the Celtics as an assistant and replaced by Leonard Perry. Seems like a big drop-off; IMO, Stoudamire did a solid job under very challenging circumstances inheriting a program coming off a 6 win season and under NCAA sanctions with a pretty significant cut in scholarships.
Will be interesting to see if the Broncos are rusty coming off 2+ weeks since their last game…the San Jose St. win feels like a long time ago.
We should be at or close to full strength and might even see Bediako back in uniform. Will also be interesting to see who starts between Pipes and Stewart.
Tough. I was looking forward to watching tomorrow. Ah well. At least having it on Wednesday gives one extra day to prepare for the tilt with the Zags. Assuming any of it all happens.
The week of the 24th looks tough now with USD, BYU, and USF in a six-day stretch.
Yeah, I was looking at that stretch of games later this month as well. Very tough. Our squad and our collective opponents will all suffer through some rust. I sincerely hope that HS has our boys well-prepared, both physically and mentally.
If we get to tip-off, I’ll take the Broncos to show some potency with everyone back. 83-65 Santa Clara. Justice leads all scorers with 22 and comes just shy of a double-double with 9 boards.