What a start! You would have to go back to the 1977-78 Kurt Rambis, Londale Theus, Eddie Joe Chavez and Mark McNamera team coached by Carroll Williams to match the 12-2 start by the Broncos.
Season ticket holders and fans are encouraged about this young roster and the athleticism they see on the floor. There are even SCU Men's Basketball billboards up on Coleman Avenue. Surprised? You shouldn't be. This hopefully is the beginning of a longer term competitive move to National. The reason Coach Sendek was hired.
Many thought, great coach, flip a switch, and we would be assaulting the Zags atop the WCC. Whoa Nelly! He's a builder that inherited his biggest fixer upper ever compared to N.C. State and A.S.U. A program that for 50 years ran with Champagne expectations (fans) on a beer budget.
Maybe, once every 25 years, you find lightening in a bottle (Nash). Our Coach and A. D. are puzzled at the poor student attendance. Consider, that our current students weren't even born the last time we had a real contending team. They came for the "Claradise" experience, where sports was not a decision factor unless it was the caliber of beer pong competitions on Fridays and Saturdays.
With Coach Sendek's and his staffs' first fully recruited roster this year, we have more talent and more importantly, depth to compete.
Maybe, once every 25 years, you find lightening in a bottle (Nash). Our Coach and A. D. are puzzled at the poor student attendance. Consider, that our current students weren't even born the last time we had a real contending team. They came for the "Claradise" experience, where sports was not a decision factor unless it was the caliber of beer pong competitions on Fridays and Saturdays.
With Coach Sendek's and his staffs' first fully recruited roster this year, we have more talent and more importantly, depth to compete.
Can we finish what we've started?
The non-conference season will seem like a cakewalk compared to what we'll face in league. After Alcorn St. and our first WCC game against USD, we face a brutal three game road trip at USF, at St. Mary's, and at Gonzaga. We play the Zags again two weeks later at Leavey. We play BYU only once and, of course in Provo. There are no "layups" in league this year.
As good as we have started, there is a lot to improve upon and that will determine our WCC fate. Stats are stats and with the new NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool) they are seeking to use better numeric comparisons to evaluate team performances than what RPI (Rating Percentage Index) yielded.
Of the many categories, let's compare three key areas that have a great deal to do with potential wins versus your opponents. Offensive efficiency, Defense efficiency, and number of possessions per game. I'll just compare the Broncos to the top four: Zags, St. Mary's, BYU, and USF.
We rank 5th in offensive efficiency which is points scored per 100 possessions. We are at 100 (1 pt per possession). Zags are at 115, St. Mary's 114, BYU 110, and USF 108.
In defensive efficiency, points allowed per 100 possessions, we rank 4th at 99 ahead of USF with 101. Zags are at 92, BYU 95, St. Mary's 96.
NET - the other teams score more and defend better. Not the best combo for us and a harbinger of things to come and overcome in league. Here's the kicker. We rank first in number of possessions per game at 74. St. Mary's is 5th with only 65 possessions.
We have the ball in our hands more, but with a young team, we make more mistakes (TO's) and don't shoot is as well as the others. Growth opportunities.
Truth is, we don't have a true point guard or guards like the top 4. Don't get me wrong, Trey Wertz has made a strong transition to point guard from shooting guard. Tahj can handle, but he's more in the two guard slot. David Thompson has point guard experience, but was not a big assist maker at San Jacinto. What's the big deal? Efficiency. The top two teams' point guards are averaging 3.1 and 2.6 assists to turnovers per game. We are at 1.8. If we were able to achieve St. Mary's offensive efficiency that translates to another 15 points per game. Useful.
On defense, we have periods where we shut down opponents and periods where we can't stop them. This will be a big difference maker in league if we can avoid these lapses. We are also currently thin at center. Willie has been terrific overall, but with Zeke Richards out, and our foul trouble in the post, we could be exposed as the top 4 teams are BIG.
It's not just the top 4 teams that we'll have to deal with, the rest of the WCC have rosters than can give us fits. The teams with quick guards (like Pepperdine) that can both shoot it, penetrate and dish have been tough stops for us. We could postulate about all the other ways that teams can give us trouble, but it just seems no matter how detailed the game planning is, winning is more about executing the in game adjustments. Making every possession count and defensively making it as hard as possible for our opponents to score.
Sounds easy, but it's not. It requires 40 minutes of sustained effort and execution. Execution comes and goes, but in this WCC season, sustained effort is a must. In most of our pre-league games we have come out firing on all cylinders and jumped to pretty big leads only to see those leads dwindle around the 10 minute mark in the first half. It's like we hit "cruise control" and stop doing the things that got us the lead? Frustrating to watch.
The WCC will demand us to be closers. Finish what you started. Don't let teams hang around. Play with attitude and toughness. In the past, it was a rare occasion when coaches needed to tell our players to play hard. I hope this team can show some more of the Bronco grit that punished teams when they came to the Civic or Leavey - win or lose.
For this season to be the "start" of something big, we need to capitalize on our momentum, play hard and finish what we started. That way, fans and season ticket holders will start to believe we are a program to be reckoned with.
Of the many categories, let's compare three key areas that have a great deal to do with potential wins versus your opponents. Offensive efficiency, Defense efficiency, and number of possessions per game. I'll just compare the Broncos to the top four: Zags, St. Mary's, BYU, and USF.
We rank 5th in offensive efficiency which is points scored per 100 possessions. We are at 100 (1 pt per possession). Zags are at 115, St. Mary's 114, BYU 110, and USF 108.
In defensive efficiency, points allowed per 100 possessions, we rank 4th at 99 ahead of USF with 101. Zags are at 92, BYU 95, St. Mary's 96.
NET - the other teams score more and defend better. Not the best combo for us and a harbinger of things to come and overcome in league. Here's the kicker. We rank first in number of possessions per game at 74. St. Mary's is 5th with only 65 possessions.
We have the ball in our hands more, but with a young team, we make more mistakes (TO's) and don't shoot is as well as the others. Growth opportunities.
Truth is, we don't have a true point guard or guards like the top 4. Don't get me wrong, Trey Wertz has made a strong transition to point guard from shooting guard. Tahj can handle, but he's more in the two guard slot. David Thompson has point guard experience, but was not a big assist maker at San Jacinto. What's the big deal? Efficiency. The top two teams' point guards are averaging 3.1 and 2.6 assists to turnovers per game. We are at 1.8. If we were able to achieve St. Mary's offensive efficiency that translates to another 15 points per game. Useful.
On defense, we have periods where we shut down opponents and periods where we can't stop them. This will be a big difference maker in league if we can avoid these lapses. We are also currently thin at center. Willie has been terrific overall, but with Zeke Richards out, and our foul trouble in the post, we could be exposed as the top 4 teams are BIG.
It's not just the top 4 teams that we'll have to deal with, the rest of the WCC have rosters than can give us fits. The teams with quick guards (like Pepperdine) that can both shoot it, penetrate and dish have been tough stops for us. We could postulate about all the other ways that teams can give us trouble, but it just seems no matter how detailed the game planning is, winning is more about executing the in game adjustments. Making every possession count and defensively making it as hard as possible for our opponents to score.
Sounds easy, but it's not. It requires 40 minutes of sustained effort and execution. Execution comes and goes, but in this WCC season, sustained effort is a must. In most of our pre-league games we have come out firing on all cylinders and jumped to pretty big leads only to see those leads dwindle around the 10 minute mark in the first half. It's like we hit "cruise control" and stop doing the things that got us the lead? Frustrating to watch.
The WCC will demand us to be closers. Finish what you started. Don't let teams hang around. Play with attitude and toughness. In the past, it was a rare occasion when coaches needed to tell our players to play hard. I hope this team can show some more of the Bronco grit that punished teams when they came to the Civic or Leavey - win or lose.
For this season to be the "start" of something big, we need to capitalize on our momentum, play hard and finish what we started. That way, fans and season ticket holders will start to believe we are a program to be reckoned with.
