We are 17 games into the 2025-2026 season, yet at 13-4 and 4-0 in the WCC, the above headline is a relevant question to explore. There has been significant upgrades to facilities, scheduling, and a lot more winning over the past nine seasons. Add to this, two first round NBA picks and three NIT appearances and there's not much doubt that the program is on the rise. Many grouse that we're still lingering in 3rd or 4th in the WCC and are without an NCAA bid.
After the NCAA lawsuit settlement, college basketball media analysts forecasted that the power conferences and other high major programs would suffocate mid-majors with their NIL funding; enabling buying the best players and leaving scraps for mid-majors. Time will tell. However, a critical potentially overlooked factor may work out to be an advantage for some mid-majors like the Broncos. That intangible is that the global talent available for NCAA basketball has arguably never been bigger and better; perhaps making scouting and recruiting acumen more important than player development.
If schools can't plan on keeping recruits from high school or from the portal more than one season, it's imperative to get players who have solid skills now. Redshirts will still be a valuable tool for another year of skill building, but still may need NIL money. The options appear to be more like the Podziemski formula; one and done.
As crazy as it seems, our roster, IMHO, through 17 games is the best of the Sendek tenure. It's deeper, with a strong blend of experience and young emerging talent that's learning on the job (court) and producing results albeit with some steep highs and lows. Our 11 PPG margin of victory supported by 9 steals/game and 5 blocks/game are standouts versus all the other Sendek Bronco teams.
Despite an inconsistent offense at times, the emergence of Christian Hammond, Alan Graves, and, now Thierry Darlan to go along with the steady scoring of Elijah Mahi is keeping us in games and has fueled 7 blowouts. Add surgical rebounding and assists from Jake Ensminger and Brenton Knapper handling the ball and we're legit. On defense, we are really good at times, but stopping the ball and defending the wide open three's need work. Our offensive rebounding is stellar, ranked # 9 in the NCAA. Alan Graves is a beast on the glass and a major thief, leading the team with 33 steals.
This team plays for each other and may not sound like a big deal, but players on recent teams seemed to care more about their own stats. This team shows its chemistry through assists numbers that are better than past seasons; including the 24 against USD. It's not all pretty, lots of bonehead plays and missed opportunities, but are all part of the learning process. It's amazing to think we "should be" 15-2 after two late game give aways.
Don't get me wrong, there are LOTS of things to clean up. If we don't, there will be trouble ahead as we head into the meat of the WCC schedule starting Thursday at Gonzaga and then Saturday at Leavey versus a tough LMU team. Anybody can beat anybody. I've included a Kenpom analysis of Four Keys to Success Factors data for the top WCC teams through 4 games. These four factors are highly correlated to team success and highlights the difficulty of our WCC schedule.
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One thing for sure, it's not boring basketball. We can be pathetic and unstoppable in the span of a few minutes. For now, we've been more unstoppable than pathetic and that's a trend we'd love to see this roster build on!
Note: eFG% or Effective Field Goal Percentage is a calculation of a teams made three point and two point shots divided by total field goal attempts.
