Pepperdine:
The Waves are 6-7 (5-7 vs. D1 teams) and are coming off a win over UC Davis. All wins are Quad IV, their best win is vs. #195 New Mexico St. Some of their losses are vs. decent, Quad I or II teams: UC Irvine, UNLV and Northwestern: Starters:
6-8 forward Stefan Todorovic (19.3 pts, 5.7 rebs, 39% from 3)
6-1 point guard Moe Odum (11.9 pts, 7.4 pts, 42% from 3)
6-10 center Boubacar Coulibaly (9.9 pts, 7 rebs, 1.8 blocks)
The lead story is the regime change with Romar out and replaced by Ed Schilling. As is often the case in coaching changes, the Waves experienced near complete roster turnover with the exception of Coulibaly.
The Waves are lead by two WCC transfers, Todorovic from USF and Odum from Pacific. Todorovic is a solid offensive threat and gets his points from all levels, 3pters, at the rim, midrange and gets to the FT line a fair amount. Odum is a fairly quick point guard who attacks the basket well and has improved his 3pt shooting significantly from his Pacific days and has the highest assist rate in the WCC.
This is a key game for the Broncos. If they want to make some noise and challenge for 2nd place in the WCC then they’ll need to take care of business vs. the lower tier of the WCC. And logging a win two days before heading to the Hilltop to play the Dons is critical.
I’m not sure what Mahi’s status is for the game but the Broncos have good depth to help overcome his absence for a bit. Things may be quiet at Leavey with a later afternoon game during winter break; the Broncos will have to bring their own energy to the game.
Prediction: Broncos start off league play on the right note, 83-71.
The Broncos and half of the WCC will play three games in 6 days, the Broncos 3rd game is Thurs., Jan. 2nd @ USD. There are 5 teams who play 4 games in 8 days; while the Broncos do have a bye on Sat., Jan. 4th. With 11 teams in the league, the WCC is getting an early start with a heavy slate of games; by Jan. 5th we’ll have a decent initial read on the state of the league.
I don’t love the juju of a quiet, late afternoon game against a Waves team that is starting to get a little confident. I don’t think the Broncos lose this one, but I worry it’ll be closer than it ought to be.
74-69 Santa Clara. O’Neil continues to get right and hits 3 threes and pulls in 8 boards. Bal leads all scorers with 22.
I’m with you. With the USF game looming I worry about the guys being less focused on Pepp. And Pepp is not without talent, Todorovic is a very capable scorer who has surpassed 30pts twice this season and if Mahi is out we’re missing one of better defenders who would have likely matched up with Todorovic. And Odum can be dynamic and did well against us at times when he was at Pacific; Stewart/Knapper/Bryant will have their hands full with him.
And some rotation notes on Pepp…typical starter Zion Bethea did not play in their most recent game and started but played only 18mins in the prior game; information is sparse but it’s possible he was/is out with injury. Jaxson Olvera did start in his absence. Also, it appears senior transfer guard Mike Saunders Jr. recently became eligible and played off the bench in their last game. He’s an experienced 5th year guard who has bounced around playing for Cincinnati, Utah and McNeese last season.
Obviously I don’t know the specifics on Mahi’s injury but turftoe is kind of concerning for a basketball player depending on severity. An injury that can be slow to heal and not 100% w/o lengthy rest and prone to recurrence or making it worse.
This game has been sloppy. Our defense needs to tighten up (giving up 43 points to the Waves?!?) and we need to stop settling for 3-pointers. This game can be won in the paint.
Agree, good offensive and shooting 1st half but defense was subpar.
Also agree on risk of settling for 3pointers…22 attempts is plenty for an entire game but a ton for one half, meanwhile we have only 4 FT attempts. Attack the basket, especially when Coulibaly isn’t in position to protect the rim.
Cam had a couple of nice pick-and-rolls, one of which ended up in a power dunk. I’d like to see more of that. As well as some motion and backdoor cuts.
For the old timers here…Pepp is running mostly Flex offense, popularized by Carroll Williams. Many programs ran it in the 80’s and 90’s but less common these days.
I learned it in junior high hoops and ran it half the time in HS.
Defense is horrendous. Offensive sets look like this team has never practiced together. Lots of Bronco talent, but Herb definitely makes these kids go backwards.
Nice to see so much offense again but man, there wasn’t a lot of defense there. The shooting numbers for Pepperdine aren’t stellar, exactly. But for 3/4 of the game they had some real heat. Butka heaving it from like 35 feet comes to mind. They didn’t miss a single free throw. Odum even made a meaningless bucket after a whistle that he sort of absently heaved over his shoulder from 10 feet out on a run. Heat even when it didn’t count.
But…Pepperdine was +6 in second chance points off of 3 more offensive rebounds. Pepperdine was +8 on points in the paint. Butka and Coulibaly clearly challenged the Broncos down low. Todorovich got almost anything he wanted inside the arc and most of what he wanted beyond it.
USF is potentially weaker on the front court than Pepperdine but much stronger in the backcourt. That defensive showing won’t cut it.
I saw it exactly the same way. If our boys don’t tighten up the defense, we are going to have another less-than-desirable conference record and likely 1 or 2 bad losses.
Also…the number of 3-point attempts is ridiculous. I’m not seeing a consistent low game and I’m not seeing much motion on offense.
The one bright spot: Carlos is playing well, much better than I had expected.
Fortunately, that’s the only game against the Waves this season. So barring a Vegas tilt, Santa Clara doesn’t have to worry about Todorovich getting hot yet again. But I think that team might steal a game or two from the other squads competing in the 2-6 spots.
Carlos is so much more consistent than any point in his career. One quibble from last night were the two ill-advised three point attempts very late in the game–the first one getting called a 2, the second a miss. Both were taken early in the shot clock when the Broncos needed to run clock out. The second shot and miss led straight to a Wave fast break and dunk, if I remember.
Now that’s a big lapse but sort of the exception that proves the rule for Carlos. Two years ago that would have seemed par for the course. Now he’s more disciplined, so dumb play like that seems more like a frustrating aberration.
Agree with all of the above. Just to quantify what we all saw…our defensive rating on Torvik for this game was the 2nd worst of the year behind the Nevada game.
Re: 3pointers…we are in the 60’s in the country in 3pt attempt rate but 285th in free throw rate. One is related to the other…when you’re settling for 3’s you aren’t attacking the basket and getting to the free throw line or putting the opponent in any foul jeopardy. Our shots have been falling during this win streak and Bal and O’Neil in particular seemed to have emerged from their lengthy shooting slumps. But the hot shooting masks weaknesses in other areas. Over the past 7 games starting with Washingon, all but the Fresno St. game resulted in mediocre to subpar defensive ratings on Torvik and just average, never exceptional rebounding. And over that same time frame we’ve averaged nearly 30 3pt attempts per game.
It’s nice when those shots are falling but 3pt shooting is also the least consistent or reliable aspect of the game; even typically good shooting teams are going to throw up a 5/30 type shooting night which can kill you. And my fear is we’re going to continue to play uninspired D and rebounding and settle for 3pters and on a night when those shots aren’t falling lose to a bottom half WCC team or fail to beat what appear to be very beatable top half teams such as USF or WSU. GU is the only squad with clearly superior talent than the Broncos; all of the others are very beatable if the Broncos defend and rebound reasonably well while being efficient on offense.
One other note of concern is our interior D vs. bigs…Pepp’s Coulibaly and Butka got whatever they wanted in the paint, and both pulled in 4 offensive rebounds. And in the prior game South Dakota’s big man Fens had his way in the post. These guys are not elite post players at all which is worrisome considering the bigs we’re going to face especially against the upper half of the league. Ike could kill us and put Tilly and Tongue in foul trouble for instance. While OSU, WSU and SMC all have good size and skilled bigs.
I’m confused. I thought our bigs measured quite similarly vs Butka. He played 35 mins and had 8 rebounds. Cam played almost half at 18 mins with 5 rebounds. (3 were offensive boards at almost half minutes) Ensminger played ten mins less and he pulled 5 boards (which also averages higher than Butka)
Butka hit 2 3-pointers which contributed to 6 of his points.
I guess I’m biased towards our bigs and feel our guards need to put more pressure at the top so as to stop our bigs from absorbing the fouls as guys head downhill.
I feel confident with Cam and Tilly going up against the bigs from USF and St Marys since their both quite familiar with these guys.