WCC Preview & Predictions

League Play
1

There’s a handful of non-con games tomorrow and Wednesday but league play is on our doorstep with short slate of games this Thursday including our game @ Pacific and GU @ USD, then a full schedule of games Saturday.

Below are current records, Torvik and NET rankings. GU, BYU, SMC and USF each have a very easy game tomorrow or Wednesday so I’m ‘giving’ them a win in the records shown below.

TEAM Non-Con Record - Torvik Rank - NET Ranking
San Francisco 13-1 - 34 - 32
Gonzaga 11-2 - 2 - 5
BYU 12-3 - 27 - 30
Saint Mary’s 12-3 - 48 - 48
Santa Clara 10-5 - 72 - 89
Portland 9-6 - 245 - 244
LMU 7-5 - 145 - 163
San Diego 7-6 - 177 - 211
Pepperdine 6-9 - 210 - 254
Pacific 5-9 - 278 - 302

My predictions for league play:

  1. GU 15-1
  2. BYU 12-4
  3. USF 11-5
  4. SMC 10-6
  5. SCU 9-7
  6. LMU 8-8
  7. Pepp 6-10
  8. USD 4-12
  9. Portland 3-13
  10. Pacific 2-14

USF has been the surprise WCC team so far, I think many expected them to have a good season and maybe challenge SMC and/or BYU but I doubt anyone predicted they’d get through non-con with just a single loss. If they can stay healthy I see their success continuing and nudging out SMC for 3rd place. LMU seemed to be the offseason media darling but they’ve been up and down so far and have had a lot of rotation guys miss games. I think there’s some holes in LMU’s lineup and approach with a lack of true big man in the post. At SMC, Bennett is doing what he usual does…getting more with less. I expect SMC will challenge for 2nd or 3rd as they usually do but will fall a bit short. I just don’t think the SMC roster is particularly talented; Bennett will get the most out of them but there’s a ceiling given the lack of talent.

What’s everyone else think? Feel free to share your thoughts, add links to any WCC media previews you come across, etc.

If I have time, I’ll try to go a little deeper with summary/previews of each team.

4 Likes
2

Not really sure about predictions in another year of global craziness…I’ll just say that if SCU wants to have ANY chance of getting to the WCC finals, then our Broncos NEED to finish in 4th place or better and get at least a double-bye (5th and 6th get a single bye). I remember in years past when an upstart 5-10 seed would just be exhausted by the time the Monday games start.

If we really want a shot at an NIT bid, then I think 10-6 should be the minimum achievement.

Also, I want to point out that there are two weeks during conference play where teams only play one game. This was the concession made to Gonzaga so that they could play out-of-conference games in Jan/Feb to stay in the national spotlight. I’d hope that SCU could figure out a way to schedule some good out-of-conference opponents during the 1-game weeks, perhaps if a Big-10 or ACC has to shut down due to COVID, SCU could take their place and play. Just a thought.

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3

I would say that order looks similar to what I would project. Besides our own team, the biggest wildcards are USF, LMU, and any Covid depleted rosters for games. LMU did beat USF three times last year (and I forgot USF lost their last 6 conference regular season games) so it will be interesting to see if USF’s additions have solved that problem.

5

Agree with most above - 5th would be a good result, 4th, would be great, anything above that is exceptional and could likely be ncaa tourney bound.

How much of this season do we complete? Who knows. But I would love to see us nearly complete a sweep of the teams “below us”. 8-1 against the bottom 5 (based on 92’s ranks), 2-3 against Usf/smc/byu and 0-2 against Gonzaga would get us to 10-6.

Toughest stretch comes the back half of January - gonz, @smc, byu, @usf - for four straight games. Hope were healthy and rolling by then.

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