SCU Men's Basketball - The "Fifth" Perspective

                                                                       


With two games remaining we are in a position to place fifth in the WCC.  I guess when the media predictors pick you to be ninth, fifth looks much better.  The cliff-hanger home win vs # 50 ranked USF made us think, we have something going on here.  Helps to erase some of the sting of the big scoring margin losses to the top three, after which you may have felt like you should drink a "fifth" of something.

We could fall to sixth if we lose @ LMU who would then own the tiebreaker with us.  Nothing is set and there's a lot to shake out, but worst case we finish sixth.

So, is it better for us to be fifth or be sixth going into the tournament?  My recommendation is, gimmie five...

Here's why.  IF SMC, USF, and BYU all finish at 11-5, then USF should end up in second place as they own the tiebreaker with BYU, as they beat them twice and St. Mary's split with them.  St. Mary's should fall to third as they split with USF and BYU lost to USF twice.  Got that?? 

Fifth means we will probably play USD or Pacific.  It also means if we win that one, we would most likely play BYU in quarterfinals. 
Sixth means we play either Pepperdine or Portland.  If we win that round we would play St. Mary's in the quarters.  

IMHO, I like our chances vs BYU on a neutral court vs St. Mary's who dissected us twice this season. We were in the game with BYU in Provo; where arguably we were a couple of phantom calls away from overtime.  We weren't really close with either St. Mary's efforts eventually losing by 11 at home, but were down 23 points midway through the second half.  Our records vs both is not good, but St. Mary's just seems to pick us apart where BYU has a more run and gun approach; subject to some really poor shooting spells and turnovers.  

So, I'll take Fifth on this one.  At the end of the day if we win the first two tourney games we run into the Zags.  The Fifth Estate wouldn't give us very good odds on that one...

So, I'm going with Fifth, even if I have to "take the fifth" to not self incriminate, but I guess I've already done that.  This equates to a 17 win season.  Not that anyone cares about history, but that would be only the third time in the past 19 years with more than 17 wins.   Three....Ugh.  

Ironically, the quarterfinals is the fifth Men's game of the tournament and if we get there it would be our fifth consecutive win - Karma.   


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