Santa Clara Men's Basketball - Eight Ball

 

The Broncos open their WCC season tonight against the USF Dons at home after a successful 12-3 preseason record.  The team seems to have found a winning formula with strong wins against UC Irvine and Boise State by rebounding, moving the ball to open shooters and playing tough defense at crunch time.  While our overall defense is decent, we are # 259 defending the three ball.  We've be able to overcome this by averaging nearly 16 assists the past three games.  

It will take all of this, and more, to make some noise in the WCC standings; where we are "picked" to finish anywhere from 4th to 7th.  One thing for sure, there are no "layup" games in a much stronger league from top to bottom.  It's going to take at least "eight" to get us into a position for another post season nod.  

We got hosed in the league scheduling this season putting us behind the "eight ball" right out of the gate.  We are the only team who plays their top rivals (USF, St. Mary's, Gonzaga) when our students are away on Christmas break!  Witness St. Mary's plays USD, LMU, and Portland in addition to us.  Five of our first seven games are against the consensus top four teams - St. Mary's twice, USF, Zags, and BYU.  I hope our team uses this as motivation and plays with an extra chip on their shoulders.  We will have to earn respect.  

It's going to take crazy eights to get it done.  At least eight wins (8-8), contributions from eight or more deep in our roster, eight or more three's per game, going 4-4 in our eight home games and two upsets against the top four teams in those eight games.  With those results, I think "eight" is enough.  

While eight might be enough, it's not what our coaches are after.  They are ultra competitive, and IMHO, tired of the league status quo.  They'd like nothing more than to disrupt the pecking order of the WCC.  

Tonight vs the Dons will be like a Gunfight at the OK Corral.  Whoever shoots often and best wins.  They play up tempo like we do, shoot better from two and are ranked #20 in defending the three.  They have a more experienced and deeper roster.  If it comes down to a free throw contest, we have the edge.  It's a great test and tonight we hope "there's no place like home!"

Santa Clara Men's Basketball - I Want the "Broncos" to Lose

 

                            

Sounds terrible doesn't it?  A staunch supporter of the team wanting the Broncos to lose.  Well it's true.  The Broncos need to lose so our Broncos win!  This Thursday is one of those rare nights when our Broncos will play another team of Broncos - The Boise State Broncos!

In a way, it's fitting for this season, as so far, there has been nothing "usual" about this team except winning.  It's been "Forrest Gump" and some "Cinderella" as we head into our last preseason game with an 11-3 record.   Games with slow starts, fast starts, tough defense, no defense, can't miss, and can't shoot combined with terrific late in the game comeback runs just in time before the clock runs out.   Midday games, evening games, neutral sites, resort sites, and, soon, a game on New Year's Eve.  

You just can't make this stuff up!  To boot, guess what?  We are ranked #14 in the country in Luck.  Simply put, we are wining more games and close games than our overall statistics suggest we should win.  Why?  Well, there's not a stat for that.  We just are.  

I have a theory.  The Chaos Theory of selective short term memory loss.  Huh?  IMHO, we just don't care what happened minutes ago, only what can happen in the minutes ahead.  Examples:  Keshawn Justice starts the season shooting frozen tundra numbers only to go off like Steph Curry, making three's from anywhere.  Carlos Stewart (Los) struggled for a few games and then carried us to second half wins with clutch shots and 20 + points efforts.  Our bigs have rebounded well to a #12 ranking, but have had to overcome the "fumble-ruskies" when receiving passes in the paint for layups.  

Then there's Podz, Brandin Podziemski, who plays with a Mt. Everest size chip on his shoulder.  He's a gamer.  Dive on the floor to save another possession, nail a deep three when it counts, and make sharp passes to cutters as he did against CAL to Parker Braun for a helicopter two hand dunk in crunch time.  He leads the team in minutes played, rebounds, steals, assists, and scoring at 18.4 points per game.  Pretty stout when you consider every opponent game plans to slow him down.  

What sums up the selective memory loss and play on mentality for me is Keshawn.  Against CAL he was O-fer shooting in the first half.  Then, late in the second half, he goes off for 10 of our next 14 points with under seven minutes to go to give us an eight point lead.  After drilling a key off balance three point shot, he backpedals to play defense and he is pressing two fingers against the side of his head saying "don't think about it, let it fly!"  That's the mantra.  Don't think - just do.  

We will need any and all mojo against ranked #39 in the country Boise State.  It's a great test for what we will face in league play.  The WCC top seven contenders are NET ranked as follows:  Gonzaga (13), St. Mary's (19), LMU (92), SCU (113), USF (121), Portland (123) and the outlier BYU (141).  NET is the de-facto post season rating system.

For now, we just need our Broncos to take down the Boise St. Broncos for bragging rights and momentum heading into the WCC.  We will need all the "Chaos" we can muster.  So let's get at it and "Create Havoc And Out Score" Boise State. 

Next up.  WCC league outlook.   Go Broncos!

Santa Clara Men's Basketball - "Whoa Nellie!"

                                                                                                                         

The Broncos won two neutral site road games against Iona and Wyoming and a gritty home game versus Sac State.  They did it in impressive style having their best shooting performances of the season.  Iona, coached by two time NCAA champion Rick Pitino and Wyoming are two teams on the rise.  Both teams were not at full strength, but still the Broncos overcame stiff challenges and an overtime scare to prevail. 

Naturally, Bronco Season Ticket Holders and fans expectations went from "oh no,who are these guys" to "oh wow, who are these  guys!"  To this I say "Whoa Nellie!"  

It is great to see the team step up together and get strong contributions across the roster.  Our bigs played big, our shooters finally found their range, and we showed real moxie not fading away to close out these games.  Is this the new normal for this team?  We will find out in the next six games. 

Fans expectations are soaring for the next six.  They feel the Broncos have broken out the Corral and will run roughshod over our opponents.  Make no mistake, I like our chances, but we are still learning this team's identity, so hold your horses a bit.

Are we the team that has shot it at nearly 50% the past three games or the team that shot it in the mid 30% the prior six games?  Are we the defensive team that that is making key stops late in the game or the team that doesn't close out to shooters fast enough?  Our opponents are outshooting us season to date from both the two and three point areas.  Are we the dominant rebounding team with an + 8 offensive advantage season to date and 42 boards a game?  Are we a deeper roster than past seasons or are we a short roster, playing only seven guys more than five minutes team as in the past three games?

My feeling, is that we are a bit of all those team qualities and stats.  That's what makes us a difficult team to play and at times to watch.  One thing for sure, we'll need all of the qualities above to finish preseason in contention for a post season nod.  If we can get to 11-4 before the WCC league starts, we have a shot at another "N" bid of some type.  More on this in a later column.

The next four are very winnable and we need to get it done.  The last two are potential season builders against UC Irvine (63) and Boise St. (53).  Both are good Quad 2 games which help NET rankings.

It begins tonight against New Mexico State, who are favored to win the Western Athletic Conference this season.  They are talented and can score it from all areas; averaging over 80 point per game.  

We'll see where we are after tonight.  Hopefully a step forward and in the right direction - UP!