Santa Clara Men's Basketball - Eight The Hard Way

 

The first four games in league play proved what our Coaches have known, and said since pre-season, there are no "gimmies" in the WCC.  Not long ago, Mark Few called out all the other WCC teams not named St. Mary's or BYU saying they "suck."  At that time, I'm not sure he thought he could have been 1-3 to start the 2023 league play.  Had it not been for his deep stable of 5-star recruits making improbable NBA level threes in the waning seconds, they would have lost the games against USF, SCU, and BYU.

Every team is better.  The Broncos know they have to bring it every game.  The next eight will be a huge test and tell fans and season ticket holders what this team is about.

Our schedule is stacked as we play seven of our first twelve games against our top four rivals:  Zags, Gaels, Cougars, Dons.  No other team has this challenge.  The consensus top 3 teams get a lot of "layups" early on.  We could use a "hard way" eight (4-4) or even better, an "easy eight" (5-3) during this next tough stretch.  Long odds, but possible.

Of the eight games, St. Mary's, USF, Zags, and Pacific are road games.  All these teams are beatable, but much harder to win away.  We need Leavey to be our friend in the next four home games versus Pacific, LMU, San Diego, and BYU.  In addition to the above, most every team is now healthy as BYU, Pacific, LMU, Portland, and USD had injuries to top players that caused early losses.  Witness LMU taking down BYU last week.

I think the coaches and players will use this stacked schedule as kindling for motivation to prove who we can be.  Playing the Zags down to the wire at home is great, but not a "W."  Pacific won't care about how we played Gonzaga as they want their "creds" and taking us out is a notch they want.

BYU needs to recover from the shellshock of literally throwing away a win over Gonzaga in Provo.  ICYMI, with under a minute left, a BYU unforced turnover and missed free throw resulted in two Zag three pointers.  The last was the dagger with 9 seconds to go from 35 feet by Julian Strawther.  That's what 5-star recruits can do at crunch time.

For the Broncos, Keshawn, Parker, and Carlos have been on a roll and Podz will be doing his thing, scraping the boards, diving for balls, and draining some threes.  Add some blocks in the paint from Bediako and we can beat the odds. 

I like our chances.

Santa Clara Men's Basketball - Breakthroughs and Breakdowns

 

     

The first week of WCC league competition for the Broncos included a breakthrough win over USF and a loss versus St. Mary's.  A game we let slip away.  

With the success USF has had against us the past six games we've played them, followed by St. Mary's, an 0-2 start was staring us in the face.  With the USF game tied at 38 at halftime, the Broncos went on a gallop in the second half sparked by Braun and Bediako knocking down 10 of 14 shots and Podz burying 7 of 12 to cap a 62% FG shooting display that sent the "Don's" looking for Luca Brasi to bail them out.  Result, Broncos win it by 12.

Saturday, we had a huge opportunity to knock off St. Mary's', # 16 in the NCAA NET rankings on our home court.  We saw first hand that experience is huge as the Gaels used a 13-3 run mid second half to win.  Frustrating, in that St. Mary's had a a season worst shooting percentage, but found others ways to win.

Pregame, our coaches wanted to accomplish three things critical to stealing the win.

#1 Rebound:  We had more overall rebounds (38-35) but they had 15 offensive rebounds that resulted in 12 second chance points.  

#2 Get through their high ball screens to prevent two-way mismatches that result in a quick guard against our bigs and an SCU small guard on their bigs:  Their ball screens are Velcro, they catch us and force switches.  Randy Bennett used his best guards, Aidan Mahaney and Logan Johnson, to take advantage of the two-way mismatch described above resulting in 5 layups plus 8 assists from that duo.

#3 Defend the 3 ball, especially against Mahaney and Ducas:  Although we held their team well below their shooting averages, Mahaney and Ducas were 5 - 10 combined from three.  BTW, their other main shooters were 1-11.

Credit St. Mary's using their defense and experience finding ways to win on the road while having the worst shooting game of their season.  It will be a much harder challenge when we play them again on January 21st in Moraga.

The road ahead is full of more great opportunities and potholes.  Three of the next five games are away:  this Thursday at Pepperdine, the 14th at Pacific and the 21st at St. Mary's.  We are home on this Saturday vs the Zags and the following Thursday, January 19th, against BYU.

Pepperdine on the road is a big challenge.  At 7-8 on the year, they are much better than their record.  They, like SCU, beat UC Irvine and then shot 52% from 2 point and 40% from 3 point range and lost to Gonzaga by 23!  BTW, the Zags shot a gaudy 61% and 46% from 3 point range in their 111-88 win.  Pepperdine can flat out shoot it. They can and will score inside and from deep up and down the roster.  We'll need every bit of grit we can muster.

Saturday night we get the Zags at Leavey.  Another chance for a breakthrough win.  The Zags have all but one of their main pieces back AND more talented newcomers.  We've played them tough at home and must play our best 40 minutes to have a good chance.

Expect a big dose of Drew Timme as the offense likes to run through him in a variety of sets.  There are few great defensive options and our coaches will have to pick their poison.  My guess is we might double Timme and the other bigs in the post and force them to kick it out for a long two or three point attempt.  Timme shoots 66% around the rim versus everyone else who shoots it at 38% from three.  

We have to pressure and contest the threes without fouling and basically hope they miss.  Gonzaga loves to run and beat you in transition just like us; so should be fun to watch.

Last season, after 25 years, we had a breakthrough season earning an invitation to the N.I.T.  We'll need another two breakthrough wins and can't afford breakdown losses.  I'm still going with "eight is enough" wins in the WCC to get us into the conversation.  I like the fight in this team.  Each player "expecting" the other to get it done and are vocal with each other when we are not.  Accountable. 

Let's hope we have something great to "count on" this week!