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The Broncos finished the regular season with a 20-11 record, a 53 NET ranking and their fifth 20 win season in the past six years. There were six signature wins versus teams ranked near or under the top 70 capped by a road win at Gonzaga. All in all, an impressive year. The strong schedule and all key players returning set the stage for an NCAA tournament run; yet it's no secret that we suffered five losses when we held and lost leads late in the second half that derailed our chances. As a result, the WCC tournament is what's left to meet the season goal of making the NCAA tourney after a 29 year drought.
The only path is to win the tournament and that's why I'm saying we need to channel Van Halen and do it "Right Now - Catch that magic moment."
It could happen, but it will take something different than just shooting threes to get it done. We have a lot of fire power, but sometimes lack the discipline, decision making, and competitive "fire" that it takes to beat opponents like St. Mary's and the Zags; who won't beat themselves. They use and exploit matchups and have first team all conference playmaking guards who get the ball to their teammates in places where they can optimize their advantages. That's why they win close games.
There were six guards selected to the WCC all conference first team. The Zags had two, SMC's Marciulionus was named player of the year for the second year in a row and USF added their two starting guards. Adama Bal was SCU's lone first team member while Christoph Tilly and Carlos Stewart were named to the second team.
There's a theme here. The top 3 WCC teams all have two playmaking guards that run the offense with a pass first mentality, but they can also score when needed. It's a combination that doesn't seem to be part of our recruiting or perhaps coaching philosophy.
Our coaches love the players to push the tempo and shoot early clock threes in transition. Too often when threes aren't falling, we also fall because we don't seem to go to our other strengths. We don't seem to be able to regroup; much like what happened to us during the second half huge run by St. Mary's. We love Tilly and Cam in the post, but not so much for top of key threes too early in the clock. Our bigs score it at a 59% clip in the paint, but 26% from three on about 140 attempts. This takes the ball out the hands of our best three point shooters who are shooting threes at 43%. More touches down low in the paint would be nice to see as well. We can expect a press as it has been effective in slowing our transition to offense. Hopefully, we won't devolve into the one on one dribbling into traffic we've seen when our offense stalls. Suffice it to say, when the ball moves and we get the ball to our shooters in their spots, we are a tough out. Exactly what we need this week.
Add a little of our recent defense and rebounding and we can make a go of it.
The game this coming Sunday against Oregon State will be a tough tournament opener and the season tiebreaker between us. They are better than their record and also beat Gonzaga this season. They are a big team and have depth they use to attack the rim, an area where we have limited defensive depth. Parsa, Rataj, and Kingz are a hand full and were tough for our defense to stop.
In our overtime win, we had a four point lead with 3:48 left. We did not score again in regulation and had six chances to pull away, but missed free throws, a 3pt miss and 3 missed layup attempts sent the game into overtime. We had the ball with 30 seconds left in regulation, but couldn't get a shot off. We'll need to rebound and make them take tough shots. It's a game we should win, but our first round efforts in the WCC Tourney have been inconsistent.
Beating Oregon State gives us another shot at St. Mary's in the Semifinals. It's a great opportunity to play them vs Gonzaga, the 7th best offense in the nation. We'll see if we can breakthrough and prove we can win big games.
So, we'll hope for a Van Halen run to the finals!
A Few Lyrics:Why put it off another day?
Right now....
It's what's happening
Right here and now....
Catch that magic moment, do it:
Right here and now!"
It means everything....
