The NCAA as we knew it, save for March Madness, is gone. It's now a pay for play, semi Pro operation that resides on college campuses. Loyalty to a school is now auctioned off each post season to the highest bidders via the transfer portal.
The Broncos are a prime example of the above. We have nearly a complete new roster with nine new players on a roster size of 17. If you only count the returnees that played more than 100 minutes all last season, it's, experience wise, 13 new bodies including two good players who redshirted.
More than 70% of our last season scoring either graduated or left via the portal. Like I said, even though it's all new, the fundamentals remain the same. They are: find great talent via high school, international, and the portal, have facilities and a location that are top 20, a coaching staff with a winning culture AND proven ability to develop talent for the pro draft, "Enough" NIL money to land both top rated and under the radar players. The Jalen and Pods model has been working in building a stronger roster the past three years. Of all the above, quicky developing players will be crucial this year. In the past, redshirts have allowed teams to use a year to further develop promising players. While still a valid program, teams may have to pay players to redshirt in order to sit out.
All of the above begs the question, how do the Broncos compete at a NCAA potential tournament bid level given the Power 5 and top 25 schools all have war chests to pay players far in excess of what we have available today? BTW, if any of you have a spare $50 million, please call Heather Owen immediately.
The current portal season revealed a potential sweet spot for teams like Santa Clara. We were able to attract both transfers from perennial top 30 programs AND land top high school recruits. It is similar, yet better than the prior years of getting transfers like Pods, Johnny O'Neil, Tyeree Bryan, Adama Bal, Elijah Mahi, and the return of Carlos Stewart.
Our coaches have the contacts and reach and have landed transfers from schools like Villanova, Iowa, Michigan State, and the NBA G League. Our French pipeline is paying dividends again this year with two good players. You don't get 20 wins in five of the last six seasons and three NIT's without good talent.
IMHO there's more talent than ever available as basketball popularity continues to explode nationally and globally. We won't get or be able to pay for the 5 star athletes that top 20 teams will have access to. We CAN and have found 3 and 4 stars that blossomed into 5 stars. That's our critical path for success, to find better talent than St. Mary's and USF.
Our new roster has six freshman, four sophomores, two juniors, four seniors and a grad transfer. We have size. Coach Sendek seems to love big guards and wings to run his fast paced, three point shooting scheme. We have six guards 6'4"- 6'9", four forwards 6'7" - 6'9" and centers 6'10" to 7'0".
The season schedule is NCAA worthy. Our average preseason opponents rank at about 120; with ten of those games against sub 100 ranked teams including Xavier, ASU, St. Louis, Stanford or Minnesota. Our WCC opponents ranking is around 125; unfavorably skewed by Pepperdine, Portland, and Pacific's low rankings and Gonzaga and St. Mary's high ranking.
You will soon see players Thierry Darlan, Sash Gavalyugov, Gehrig Normand, Chris Tadjo, Noah Badibanga, and a redshirt, Louisiana State high school player of the year Allen Graves a 6'9" skilled player. Elijah Mahi, Brenton Knapper, Bukky Oboye and Jake Ensminger are the experienced returnees. This roster has something else we need; more "grit" as several on the staff have witnessed as players compete for minutes. Two scrimmages will take place. One was Saturday, October 19 and the other will be next week: giving the confirmation as to who may start and the rotations.
Learning the details of our rapid fire play system and solid "team" defense will be a challenge for this young roster. At the end of the day, it's basketball and still fundamentally the same. Shoot the ball well, stops on defense and own the boards. They've all done this thousands of times, just not with a Santa Clara Bronco jersey on!
Next up our roster scouting report.
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