Santa Clara Men's Basketball - Season Opening "Premiere"

 

                                                                                                              

The Broncos' 2023-24 Men's Basketball debut featured bright lights, loud music, and a crowd of Bronco fans welcoming the new team with warm applause.  It felt like a Hollywood film launch with the new Leavey Center lighting and scoreboard looking like a movie set, setting the stage for a story book five star review as our team took the floor for warmups.  

Then the game started.....

Maybe the lights were too bright, the audio too loud, the excitement too palpable.  From the outset, they were a team amped up to make a statement of what they can achieve this season.  We didn't score for the first two and a half minutes.  After five minutes, the score was 7-6 Utah.  Right about then, we settled in, a little bit.  Our defense sparked the first run of the season.  A strike from Francisco Caffaro to Carlos Marshall for a dunk woke up the crowd.  Four defensive stops, a layup by Caffaro and two more 3 pointers and a layup by Marshall, we were cruising 26-14.  With 2:40 to go, we were up 17 and then Utah finished the half with 5 straight points closing the gap to 12.  

The second half was more of the same.  Build a lead, give it up.  Winning by 7 was mediocre at best, but showed our potential.  Caffaro and Tyree Bryan were saviors off the bench combining for 24 points and looked comfortable in the brighter lights at key moments.  Adama Bal, the transfer from Arizona, had a solid, impactful first game with 17 points and 6 rebounds. Point guard Jalen Benjamin showed flashes of deft passing and scoring with 10 points. 

Carlos Marshall (Chef) was terrific; scoring 22 points in only 22 minutes due to cramps.  Podz type numbers in limited minutes.  His experience showed and he calmy put the team on his back in the first half.  Tyree Bryan had a great debut with 11 points and some lockdown defense. 

All in all, an OK start for so many new players in a new system.  It looked like some of our new guys were trying to do too much; hoisting up long looks in transition and passes into traffic.  There’s is a lot to work on.  20 turnovers and 10 offensive rebounds resulted in 26 Utah Tech points.  Enough said.

It's always a good night when it results in a “W” especially when two starters have off nights.  I like that we can go to the bench and expect production.  There was a time Wednesday when our lineup on the floor was 7’1”, 7’0”, 6’10”, 6’7” and 6’5”.  Now that’s what I call real “horsepower.”

Today, St. Francis is a good chance to get in sync before a big test at Stanford next Tuesday.  Let’s hope the horses are ready to run!