92bronc…This one may be sweeter for you than the rest of us. Relish the moment!
Let’s carry that momentum into the St. Mary’s game.
Go Broncos!!!
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Indeed.
St. Mary’s…our guys should certainly enjoy the GU win but hopefully they woke up this morning ready to turn the page and focus on SMC. The last thing you want to do is lay an egg vs. SMC at home and get blown out by 15-20 or more. At a minimum I want to see us complete and play a solid and close game and of course a win vs. SMC is certainly.
I don’t subscribe to the mentality of: ‘Well, we just beat GU, so it’s OK to lose to SMC because 1-1 for the week against those two isn’t bad’ BS. One will never accomplish big and great things with that mentality. The GU game is now behind us, it’s a great win but has no bearing on the SMC game. You want to capitalize on the momentum both because of the direct benefit in league standings but to also build on the student and alumni excitement.
SMC is very beatable, we’ve done so several times in recent years. And this year’s SMC squad is even less talented than in recent years with the graduation and departure of their leader Logan Johnson (WCC Defensive POY, scoring and assists leader) as well as starting PF Bowen without replacing them with new talent. Johnson and Bowen’s replacements are former back-ups and they don’t have any frosh or transfers making significant contributions.
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By the way, tip of the cap to the OP @92bronc for calling the final score as 79-75. Really close to the final score (especially given that it WAS a goal tend, Ike’s hand hit the front of the rim when the ball was above the cylinder, so we lost two points there).
The end of this game reminded me of the home game a couple of years ago vs BYU. The Broncos were trailing with under two minutes to go, and took advantage of their opponents mistakes, with Jalen Williams going coast to coast and putting up a clutch shot in traffic at the buzzer.
Great wins, both, but this one was especially gratifying.
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postgame recap/column from yours truly
Great column TD! You captured all the energy of the game and even some updates on Jalen and Podz social media posts. If there was ever a time to pull this type of win off it was last night with Nash in attendance, opening set of WCC play, sold out crowd, great new student section, ESPN in the house, amazing retro jerseys…this will pay dividends on the recruiting trail and hopefully this is the type of spark that gets us over the hump.
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Stromer and Hickman added nothing last night for GU.
GU has always had a stable of good guards… Nembhard is fine, but it is not the embarrassment of riches that they are accustomed to. I think Venters injury and Sallis’ transfer hurt them gravely.
Yes, depth severely challenged for the Zags. Venters injury added to an already thin backcourt…that said, Venters isn’t a 1st team all-league level talent, he would have helped their poor 3pt shooting but doesn’t do anything else at a high level.
In addition to Sallis they also loss Dom Harris. Harris situation was supposedly getting bad, was in Few’s doghouse, attitude issues, dad posting on Twitter, etc. A divorce was best for all parties.
But the Sallis loss is all Few’s fault, as he supposedly wouldn’t commit to a bigger role or more PT for Sallis so he left. Huge mistake by Few IMO. Sallis is an NBA prototype, 6-5 and great athleticism, does everything well except shoot 3’s (and that’s getting better), and lockdown defender. He should have played as much or more than Hickman but instead Few preferred the steady guy who can shoot over the elite athlete who maybe isn’t fully polished. Fast forward…Sallis is killing it at Wake Forest (18pts / game) and is getting lottery pick buzz,
Nembhard, Hickman and Watson all played 40mins last night and were gassed by the end of the game. Tough to win that way. And while their backcourt is thin due to the above mentioned transfers and Venters injury they do have other guys available. They are young but should at least be able to spell Hickman and Nembhard for 5mins / game. Instead, they’re all on a short leash, and the tightly wound Few is playing an even shorter rotation than he normally does. All worked to our benefit and favor IMO, so fine with me, but an example of where Few has his blind spots.
I also think an Australian recruit failed to materialize… but I don’t pay that close of attention to GU (and every team has like 2-3x times as much recruiting news per year in the portal era).
It’s too bad they didn’t cut down the nets during their “high water mark” years. I was reeling watching Karnowski’s shots rim out… Lord knows it must have been a tough watch as a Zag. I say that as it looks really tricky for them to reach those heights again.
From the Zag blog:
Zag low on NIL compared to football schools
5 star transfers are gone
What effect has Tommy Lloyd leaving had?
Hunter Sallis transferred to Wake Forest
Someone mentioned Zags could finish third and have to play on Sat in Vegas- would love it!!!
Lots of solid individual performances last night, but one that I don’t think has been mentioned is Ensminger. He only played maybe 5 minutes, but he was great while he was in there. Flying all around to grab boards and bodying up hard on Zags bigs. He was a spark when SCU sorely needed it.
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Good call, Betts. Emmy may have set a Bronco record with 5 offensive rebounds in 6 minutes. And don’t forget that sweeet dime to Tilly for the mother dunk.
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Huge effect. I really liked Lloyd and always thought he would’ve made a fine coach at SCU.
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Those throwback uniforms are legit - let’s see more of that. Great step last night to break the 13 year losing streak. Obviously our goals are much bigger than a regular season win against a conference rival. I want…no, I NEED to be in the dance. This ESPN deal is solid for the conference profile. The WCC should aim to have 2.5 teams going to the Tourney every year. That starts with 1). having a strong non-conference schedule 2). winning non-conference games and 3). parody in the top-half of the conference standings. Hopefully Herb + staff are hammering the phones today with recruits / portal players to keep the talent funnel stacked so we can continue to trend towards making post-season appearances + victories.
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