Sara' la nostra stagione di basket e' bello come il viaggio in Italia?
Will our Men's Basketball season be as beautiful as their trip to Italy?
It's hard to beat the beauty of Lake Como, but for the remaining Men's Basketball season ticket holders, a winning record and maybe an upset along the way would be "molto bene."
Winning solves most problems and that's what it will take for MBB to ease the sizable indigestion of many season ticket holders in this transition to national prominence.
After years of loyalty, they feel their pockets have been picked in the name of excellence. Excellence was projected nine years ago and never came. Loyalty remained, but somehow in this transition
went unrewarded.
This will be a season to see if SCU is "on schedule" to make us believers in becoming national.
As I've mentioned before, a major part of going national is recruiting, but, just as important, is scheduling. Both are HARD! Better opponents attract better players, which leads to more wins, fans filling the stands, which leads to becoming national.
If you want the details on why scheduling in MBB is so hard, see my post "We Play Who" from October 20, 2015.
IMHO, the schedule does set us up for success. It's almost like someone really thought about it and even got the WCC to play nice to a team not named Gonzaga.
Of course, improvement from last year (11-20) isn't that hard. However, with the roster "hand" the coaches have been dealt, they'll need a draw to an inside straight to be a factor in league.
SCU MBB ranked pretty much 9th in all the WCC key stats last season. One of our biggest challenges this year will be stopping or slowing driving the middle like it was an "autostrada."
Our preseason RPI is 249.
That said, a 5-0 start is doable, but not probable. There's just too much to learn and not enough "cramming" time; even with the extra Italy practices. The players are coming from a "run your route" system to the equivalent of a "read option" scheme. Read option requires instinctive decision making, precision spacing, non-stop communication and trust. They're being taught vs told what to do. Heady new skills to absorb.
Of the first 5 games, including the Cable Car teams of Northern Arizona, Davis, Northern Colorado, and Sacred Heart, only Tennessee State has a pre-season RPI under 250.
After the Cable Car, the Las Vegas Invitational features some tough NCAA tourney teams in Arizona (9)*, Butler (53), Vandy (71) but also a chance for a "statement" upset.
Home from Las Vegas, the next six are a combo of four winnable games plus two hard roadies @ Washington State (215) and Valpo (31). A 3-3 stretch here would be very good.
The WCC schedule is better for us than last year in that it's not front loaded with Gonzaga and St. Mary's. BUT, four of the first six games are on the road starting at BYU (67).
Five of the first six league games are chances for SCU to be relevant early in the WCC standings. Good chances for "W"'s are USF, Portland, LMU, USD, and Pepperdine. A 4-2 WCC start might give us some "MO" heading into "big three" games vs Gonzaga (16), BYU (67), and St. Mary's (29) in late January.
Here's where the WCC sort of played nice, for once. The January games vs the "big three" are all at Leavey! If we are going to do some damage - this is the spot...
We close the WCC with five of the last eight games away. The home games being Pepperdine, San Diego, and Pacific. The WCC season ends @ St. Mary's where the ghost of the Jared Brownridge "dagger" 3pt shot still haunts Randy Bennett.
All in all, the schedule is a good first step for our new coaching regime. It takes years of negotiation and planning. The Las Vegas, PAC 12, and U.C. games give us enough "legit" games vs patsies. Adding a name game like Valpo was a deft move for a strong roadie before BYU.
Our success? Hard to predict. The team took a big hit recently when floor leader K.J. Feagin (WCC All Frosh Team) went down with a foot fracture. Return time is unknown.
Given the current roster injury setback, I feel that a better than .500 season would show some positive vital signs. A heartbeat, a pulse of better things to come. More interesting to me are the results given the same "clay" of a roster. Can they be molded into winners? That's coaching and developing the existing talent.
In my book, 16-15 would put us "on schedule". Not excellence, but a signature win in the mix, more encouraging. Fewer losses in the last five minutes when ahead would prove coaching impact.
A "Lake Como" type season would be 18-13. That would take another "name" win and one of the new recruits to step in with major impact.
For the remaining loyal season ticket holders, after only two winning seasons in the past nine years - bellissimo!
*Pre-season RPI ranking
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