At 18-11 overall and 5-9 in the WCC, the Bronocs have shown improvement with Coach Sendek's first fully recruited roster. One could argue we should have three more wins. However, with no seniors and seven new players, it would have been tough to predict wins over St. Mary's, Washington State, and Cal or two losses to Pepperdine, then LMU, and Pacific. Some complain, we play too many patsies. So does everyone. Gonzaga's pre-season schedule had 10 doormats.
We faced a "hard six" ending our WCC season. Four at home and two away. USF, LMU, St. Mary's, and Portland at Leavey. BYU and Pacific roadies. The old adage "there's no place like home" went out the window with our losses to Pepperdine and LMU. Opportunity knocked and we haven't been able to answer the call in our last four WCC games.
Whether home or away, all these teams have rosters, that for the most part, are quick-guard centric. Our losses have had three common denominators - inability to stop those guards, poor defensive rebounding, and spotty shooting. We made Jahlil Tripp from Pacific look like a first round NBA pick, ripping us for 29 points on 63% two point shooting and 66% from three. His season averages are 52% and a whopping 16% from three.
It's like we have a game plan that works for just the first 10 minutes of a game. We start fine. The ball moving, players cutting, good passing, shooting and then "poof" - gone. Off to dribble, dribble land. It seems like half our turnovers lately are self inflicted. Balls bouncing off our feet, simple passes up court intercepted, and dribbling into traffic making it easy on the defense. All the above was painfully visible in the losses to USF, LMU, and at Pacific.
It's a long season for our young players. The loss of Willie Caruso in the post didn't help our "post season" ambitions. That said, every team has injuries. When you factor the road games at BYU and Pacific, who are playing very well, running the table in our final six would have been about the same odds as rolling a hard six in dice - about 5.5%.
We have another opportunity with two games left at Leavey. IF, we can regroup and win our last two vs St. Mary's and Portland, it would be a 20 win season. That would only be the seventh 20 win season in the last 30 years. You read that right, the last 30 years!
Steps in the right direction. Shedding the apathy of the past into ambitions for the future.
With seven WCC games to go, our season results, to date, have shown the depth and breadth of Coach Sendek's roster. Depth in that ten players see action and breadth in that it's not uncommon to have five of those ten score in double figures.
We just need to get back our "height" to go with our depth to make a final run to 20+ wins. While no one player makes the total difference on this roster, the loss of Willie Caruso for the past nine games, all of our WCC games to date, has been especially rough given the season ending loss of Zeke Richards. Small ball is not our core strength.
So I say, when there's a Willie, there'as a way to 20+ wins or more. He's OUR Caruso, in the lineage of the great Caruso, both from Naples; one with a virtuoso voice and one with a nifty jump hook in the lane we sorely miss. Longer term, the upside to his injury is that Jaden Bediako, as he is racking up more minutes, is also filling up stat sheets, coming off a 13 point, 9 rebound game at Portland.
More depth and height.
With both Jaden and Willie back, we can stop the offensive rebounding parade of our recent opponents. The loss to Pepperdine was particularly glaring in the final minutes as Kessler Edwards made us pay with two putbacks to close us out. That probably doesn't happen with both Willie and Jaden available.
With the Broncos at Pepperdine Thursday, we have an opportunity to get one back at their house. The Waves have been a mercurial team this year. They took the Zags to the final seconds, but also lost to San Jose State, Sacramento State and Pacific in Malibu. With or without Willie, it would be huge to get this one back.
If we do, and soon after Willie returns, I can see 22 wins possible. Doing that and making a little noise in the WCC tourney and who knows?
All I know is for the stretch run, we will need our "stretch" center to try take us to new heights. And that's a view we will all enjoy!
