After a 3-5 rough start to the season, the Broncos are riding a five game winning streak and stand at 8-5 after a blowout win against South Dakota before WCC league play starts. While 8-5 is not what this team expected, three late game lapses with sizeable leads sent us off the rails of a season goal of finally making another NCAA tourney.
While all is not lost, the slight odds of an NIT or NCAA berth depends upon this experienced team playing to their potential, and more, in the WCC. We'll need to be "King of the Road" in league to have a sniff at postseason.
The 18 game conference schedule is much more difficult than in the past as Washington State and Oregon State have crashed the party; adding two more worthy opponents who are ranked ahead of us. This is on top of our usual nemeses, Gonzaga, St. Mary's, and USF; where we've have had very limited success against over the past eight seasons. The short answer is, we can't afford a loss to the bottom five in the league: Portland, Pepperdine, LMU, USD, or Pacific. Their average NCAA rank is # 259. Compare the WCC top teams average ranking of # 45, skewed by the Zags at # 6.
One's tendency would be to think that's 10 wins from the bottom 5 teams and expect 3 wins against the top teams for a 13-5 WCC record. That would be a mistake, particularly when you inspect the league travel schedules. The Broncos have seven one day rest turnarounds between games and most will require flights traveling far North to far South in that two day span. Oh, and they'll need a practice after a game the night before and then, after practice, fly south and play that same night. For example, we play LMU in Los Angeles on January 16th at 7:00 pm. We then fly North to Spokane to play the Zags on January 18th at 6:00 pm! Imagine this scenario 6 more times playing the other teams during league. Daunting.
It's the same for most all WCC teams, except of course the Zags, who have fewer one day turnarounds AND more days between most games, three versus two days and four games with four days in between. Perks for the perennial champs.
So we have to be "King of the Road" to reach 13-5. We will most likely lose one or two to the bottom 5, but will need to find two more upset wins against the top 5. The Broncos' horses will be ridden hard and put away wet as they say in ranching.
Everyone will have to play to their potential. During our five game win streak, the new starting lineup has performed like was expected at the start of the season. Christoph Tilly, Carlos Stewart, Jake Ensminger, and Elijah Mahi have sustained a high performance level in those games and, against Kennesaw State, Adama Bal had his best game of the season with 27 points. Tyree Bryan has been clutch and Brenton Knapper and Cam Tongue have provided strong minutes.
The key is we are moving the ball better as witnessed by 104 assists the past five games and, in each game, more assists than turnovers. Consequently, the shot selection for the most part is much better and scoring is more balanced. Even our defense has been better at key points in the game, but there's still much work needed to be done as we prefer to drop under high ball screens and leave good shooting opponents open three point looks. As such, out of 364 D1 teams, we are ranked # 227 in three point rate defense.
We will know after the first five WCC games if we are up to the challenge as we play USF twice in addition to Pepperdine and Oregon State at Leavey and San Diego on the road. As Bronco season ticket holders and fans, we all know "it's good to be King" and "King of the Road" is what we aspire to and want to see happen!
Merry Christmas to all Bronco fans!
