Justice, Stewart, and Braun really bringing it in the second half!
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Leavey looks rocking! Come on Guys!
Charges are the bane of my existence, play defense TIMME
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Podz goes out for 2 minutes and we lose the lead. In a game like this where weâre trading buckets Iâd really like to see us pull a Todd Golden and take a timeout after we score one. Momentum killer.
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The officiating was so out to lunch compared to a usual WCC game.
Broncos battled.
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just absolute pain. jeez
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We battled and held our ownâŚIâm proud of our boys.
Stewart had a real off-night. If he had been his normal self, we couldâve pulled this one off.
11-5 or 10-6 would be a really fine conference finish. Ideally, Iâd like to see us no lower than 4th, so that we wouldnât have to play more than 3 games in the WCC tourney. That means we canât let USF at 1-3 back into the race.
Edited to add: how in the heck is UoP 3-1 in conference?
Canât fault the effort. Guys showed some toughness reclaiming the lead after being down 5 late. Athletically we can absolutely hang with Gonzaga this year. Need to finish Top 4 in league and for the first time in a long time we would have more than a puncherâs chance of beating both St.Maryâs/Gonzaga in the WCC tournament.
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Could not see on tv. Stats show us with 3 of 4 from the line while Gonzaga enjoyed over 20 attempts. Looks to me like biased officiating and WCC needs to look itself in the mirror and determine what is going on . Looks like Broncos were playing the refs and Gonzaga. The disparity is too great to ignore. Tough loss that should have been a win.
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I agree; this team has talent and can hang with the Zags and SMC. And itâs not like the Broncos played over their headsâ they played a quality game, but thereâs room for improvement.
I do think they got a lift out of the crowd, and this team really deserves the support of the students. Hopefully theyâll show up the rest of the season.
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Welcome and appreciate your posts! Yes, tough loss but the boys played well and Zags deserve some credit too, which was an awesome environment tonight as a SCU grad.
I feel a Top 4 finish is within our reach but a marquee win such as @ St. Maryâs and reaching semi finals at minimum will be necessary to receive consideration for an at large bid.
Lastly, I agree with your observation on our bench. They have contributed well the past few games, but it wasnât to be tonight outside of Holt. We should be getting Carlos Marshall back soon, graduate transfer, who was injured to start the season.
Again, welcome jsullivanfan!
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It was obvious. Broncos had TEN fouls to Zags FIVE at 5:55. Zags did not pick up 6th foul until 51 seconds left!!
EVERY foul called against Santa Clara was a shooting foul. EVERY foul in our favor was on the floor. If these refs keep coddling the St Marys and Gonzaga teams - the WCC is going to continue to get wiped out in Sweet 16 - and our conf will never get recognized as a competitor.
Timme travels 50% of time and camps in the key. Cam and Parker called for charges on TWO FLOPS - and what the hell was up with Watson yanking Cam to floor and Cam get the foul?
Yea Holt has his best game tonight - want to see more of that. Podz and Marshall can light it up - but our guards DO NOT look downhill! Our bigs are wide open under and are not fed the ball. It makes us predictable and a one dimensional offensive team. That needs to stop if we want to get some crucial Wins.
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Iâm gonna disagree with you, maddog1. I watched the entire game, and I thought it was called pretty evenly and fairly. Just because we had more fouls and Gonzaga got more trips to the line doesnât necessarily mean it was because of biased ref calls. We lost this game because we had too many turnovers and we got beat on the glass (they had a lot of offensive boards). Also, Stewart was cold shooting, except for a short 8-minute or so span in the second half where he seemed like his more typical self.
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Buckets,
I have to respect your comments since you could actually watch the game. I canât help but see the stats of 22 free throws attempts to 4 and wonder. Rebounds were even at 39 each so maybe we were out-rebounded in crunch time but overall it looks like we held our own. Turnovers 11 to 9 so slight edge to the Zags. Thankfully Zags missed 8 free throws or it would have been a double digit loss.
Broncos played well as I expected after the scare at USF we would get a strong motivated Zag team and we played them tough and could have (should have) won.
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Sorry, I shouldâve been clearer. Zags had 14 offensive rebounds, and several of them were easy putbacks under the hoop. Also, many of Gonzagaâs were in the second half (they only had 4 o-boards in 1st half), whereas many of ours were early in the first half.
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Officiating seemed spot on to me. SCU bigs were rough in the paint (wish they were even more purposefully fouling last night and rest of season).
Gonzaga was staying clear of contact, very seldomly initiating body to body in the key.
There was a discrepancy in fouls as SCU was intentionally being overly physical in the paint. SCU has capable big bodies and they each get 5 whistled hacks⌠they should use them. If the do so going forward thereâs a chance this team advances to the NCAA tourney.
Is that scent of Noob 15.0 I detect?
Good looking out there, bb.
I was at the game and had a great time. Packed house but too many Zag fans for my liking. Certainly not 50% but maybe 35% of all the bodies in the gym.
The officiating was interesting but I donât think it cost us the game. Lots of really rough play with few calls. Then the refs would feel that it was getting too chippy and call a bunch in succession. Watson pulling down Tongue and Cam still getting the foul was the only call that got me a little upset.
Hereâs the rosey picture: on Thursday, USF almost beat the Zags because the Zags looked positively hungover, couldnât rebound, and the Dons were playing out of their minds. Last night, Santa Clara almost beat Gonzaga on a night where Gonzaga played a pretty standard gameâmaybe not their best shot, but it didnât require Timme going 0-14 or something for SCU to stay in it. And Santa Clara didnât exactly have their best game of the season, either.
In other words, after last night, I wouldnât chalk in as losses the next game (or two) against the Zags prematurely.
SCU can beat this Zags squad. They have less room for error than Gonzaga. But the difference between the two is as narrow as it has been in 17-18 years, I think.
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Random observationsâŚ
Series of small things sprinkled throughout the game can make a difference:
- mid-1st half, Bediako missed two point blank layups on the same possession.
- mid/late 2nd half: Braun stepping on the end line when he double clutched inbounds pass.
- At least 1, maybe two shot clock violations.
Teams and individual players arenât going to be/play perfect but when youâre hoping to upset a better team, you have to play cleaner and avoid the silly mistakes, lost possessions, etc.
The Zags were shooting it terribly most of the 1st half and we missed several good scoring opportunities; could have and should have been up another 5 or 6 points at half time which would have given us a little more buffer for the 2nd half.
StewartâŚlove the energy and athleticism he brings and his 3pt shooting has been better than expected but last night he attempted a lot of contested mid-range jumpers. Those are low % shots so not surprised he had a rough shooting night. And his energy is great but it tips over some times to frantic, out of control play and rushed shots. The next step in his improvement needs to be to learn to play at different speeds, play with more patience, utilize his burst in change of speed type movesâŚright now, it is more or less 100% head down, downhill play and if he canât get to the rim it ends with a highly contested mid-range pull-up.
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