Santa Clara Men's Basketball - Can We Seize the Opportunities Thirty Years in the Making?

 

                                                                                                          

The 2025-2026 season was our year to break through the seemingly impenetrable path into the NCAA tournament. The heartbreaking loss to Kentucky sparked a new reality for Santa Clara Men's Basketball.  We belong.  

Not only do we belong, but our expectations are conference titles and more NCAA invites.  More importantly, our University leadership is also committed to this reality - a long overdue, but essential component.  It's how, then, lowly Gonzaga rose from anonymity 30 years ago to a basketball powerhouse while we and other WCC teams sat flatfooted. 

With Gonzaga gone from the WCC, our new reality presents an incredible opportunity to seize the top spot in the WCC and create a new trajectory into the future.  It's all there for the taking; even amidst the chaos of the new NCAA Moneyball roster building among the Power Conferences.  The 2026-2027 season will be our first chance to ascend to this level by winning the WCC.  It will not be easy.

Part of new reality is that with the Zags out, the WCC conference ranking dropped from 6th down to 10th.  Translation, the WCC may go back to being a one bid league.  More pressure to win the WCC tourney.      

Our schedule supports this quest and our roster is capable.  The difficulty is solving the roster integration Rubik's Cube and integrating 14 players into our system and get the most from them.  It's a lot to learn in three months.  For the Freshman and transfers it's akin to learning to be fluent in a new language and applying it in real-time.  The coaches are now assessing where the pieces will fit best and who will earn the minutes.  

Let's be clear, minutes are earned; not entitled.  Every practice uses a Plus-Minus box score formula to see which players are contributing the most on the floor in live action.  A testament to this formula's success was last year when Allen Graves came off the bench much of the season and his unit was key to many victories.  Obviously, competition in practice is fierce.  Coach Sendek has a lot of options at every position, a potential big advantage in our frenetic up tempo defense and offense.

No one in the WCC is standing pat.  Every team in the realigned WCC conference is investing to take the top spot.  More name brand name coaches have come into the WCC and facility makeovers are in progress.  NIL budgets are expanding in the search for the next under the radar stars.  

In the past five years, we have distinguished ourselves as the only mid-major program that developed three players into first round NBA draft picks.  There are only five power conference teams who have achieved this. They are the Bluebloods of NCAA basketball.  This momentum needs to continue as the NIL price to buy top talent is out of our reach. The global growth of college basketball should help us greatly as the top 20 power teams will just buy what they need.  

Scouting and recruiting become even more important as the transfer portal makes it very difficult to retain players.  Congress is about to vote on a College Basketball rules package that will cap University monies at $41 million, but this does not include NIL.  Transferring will be allowed only once in the five year eligibility rules. That should help SCU be able to recruit talent and have a season or two to develop them under these new transfer rules.

We'll see.  Our first preview is today at Leavey when we take on Stanford in a preseason exhibition contest.  Stanford had the 15 best transfer roster per several college basketball analysis sites; including the son of Hall of Famer, Hakeem Olajuwon.  I think coaches open with likely starters if they are healthy, but will play a lot of different combinations to see the newer players get experience in full game situation intensity. 

Nice to have this exhibition for Bronco season ticket holders and fans.

The irony to this season is a real "Back to the Future" moment.  It was exactly 30 years ago that Santa Clara finished first in the WCC and went to the NCAA Tournament with a roster of Steve Nash, Marlon Garnett and Lloyd Pierce.  Will this harbinger of our past success give us the momentum to seize this new opportunity 30 years in the making?