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.