It was a tough week for the Broncos needing to win two games to get a better seeding in the WCC tournament and it paid off with SCU earning the #3 seed.
This is a great bracket for us. The big unknown was how the league would seed based upon the conference records or a combination of league record plus KenPom rankings. KenPom is a nationally followed MBB statistical cite used by the NCAA and NIT for selection purposes. If you look into KenPom we are ranked well below St. Mary's, USF, and BYU. With the St. Mary's win over Gonzaga last night, they certainly earned the # 2 seed and an NCAA tourney higher seed.
However, I was a bit surprised to see us seeded ahead of USF and BYU given some WCC bias. We beat BYU and St. Mary's once and lost to USF twice. USF split with BYU, lost twice to St. Mary's and had a bad loss to Portland at home. My guess is our wins over BYU and St. Mary's and beating all the lower ranked WCC opponents got us the # 3 seed nod. Our impressive win over Portland yesterday, who had won five straight and came in with a huge "chip" on their shoulder, was a late statement win.
This opportunity for the Broncos is 25 years in the making and in the sixth year of Coach Sendek and his staff. His second 20 win season in three years is a feat accomplished three times since about 1950! The best run was the awesome Awtrey, Ogden, Eagleson nationally ranked group, who had 20+ wins three seasons in a row.
Last night's win was a throwback to the epic showdowns we would have vs USF in 70's and 80's; except it was against Portland. They came in sky high and mad as a hornet's nest after the cancellation of our game in Portland. You could see and feel the coaches on both sides wanting a smackdown. It turned into a trench warfare game as the officials lost control with the coaches by making both phantom calls and bludgeoning's left uncalled. Portland Coach Legans seemed to lose his mind in joy over a monster dunk by Kristian Sjolund along the baseline in front the Broncos bench to go ahead by three points in the first half. He got reality back with 10 minutes left in the second half when Josip Vrankic dished in transition to Jalen Williams who made an atmospheric level poster dunk over two Pilot players along the same baseline to put us up by 10 points. The Pilots were "grounded" after that statement dunk.
Nothing is given in the WCC tournament. If we can get by our second round game versus most likely Portland or San Diego, we get another shot at St. Mary's and more importantly a shot at a post season tourney that starts with a "N."
Credit this team and the coaches for playing through Covid, Mono, and injuries to get to this moment.
The oddsmakers in Las Vegas will have a tough time figuring out the Broncos. I'm sure Randy Bennett wants another chance to beat the team that has been a thorn in his side on the way to post season tournaments. For Bronco fans we don't want "what happens in Vegas, to stay in Vegas." We want a trip to the "dance." We'll have to break out the "Macarena" from 1996 and love doing it!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments and ideas welcome