Santa Clara Men's Basketball - "Third" Times A Charm?

 

        

After one of our best weeks of the season, the Broncos have a lock on third place in the WCC.  This makes back to back seasons placing third in league.  While third is two below our ultimate expectations, we have played our way into establishing us as legitimate top three in the WCC; ousting not only USF, but also BYU in that hierarchy over two successive seasons.  

Will this third place be the charm for the Broncos?  The proverb suggests that on the third time, we'll succeed.  We came close in last year's WCC tourney semi-final losing by "three" to St. Mary's.  We'll see.  But, there's still meaningful work to be done this Thursday at Leavey vs Pepperdine and away at San Diego on Saturday.

Pepperdine is young and explosive and are ranked third in points scored per game.  The Waves rank 10th in the NCAA in tempo with about 73 possessions per game.  They run and shoot.  The Waves had a recent win against BYU at home and an 11 point loss to Gonzaga last Saturday; where they were within one point with under four minutes to go.  They are 0-11 on the road, but desperately want to get off the schneid.  It's a talented team.  Four of their five starters can put up 20 or more; as three of them did versus the Zags.  We need to play like we did last week against BYU and defend, rebound, and move the ball.   We cannot afford a "Pacific" let down; raining 17 three's on us.  

San Diego is much of the same challenge who is playing well lately.  They boast wins at USF and LMU at home, then lost at home by three to St. Mary's.  Remember, they were ahead of us by nine at half and by six points at Leavey late in the second half.  Enough said.  

The Broncos have played really well the past two weeks.  After winning five in a row, we are # 1 in total rebounding, # 2 in offensive rebounding, # 2 in FG%, # 3 in 3pt %, and 3rd in overall offensive efficiency in the WCC.  Pretty stout.  In addition to the great play of our guards, the emergence of Christoph Tilly and Cameron Tongue has been huge to our success.  Tilly brings size, speed, and mobility around the rim.  Tongue is an energetic, physical defender, and finisher at the rim.  These positive minutes are sorely needed to spell our starters who, in turn, have played better as a result.  Witness Parker Braun with 15 points and 3 assists vs Portland.  Our defense has held our last five opponents well below their shooting percent averages; particularly from 3pt range.

Thursday is Senior night at Leavey.  It will be fun to honor our seniors and thank them for their contributions to Bronco basketball.  

Two more games to go and then we'll see if we can complete the "Third Time's a Charm" proverb by getting to and beating St. Mary's in the WCC tourney semi-finals and have our run at an NCAA automatic bid in the tournament finals!

Santa Clara Men's Basketball - Intangibles

 

It was a great week and a half for the Broncos with a convincing win at USF and two nail-biters at home versus San Diego and LMU.  In third place at 7-5 in league and 19-8 overall we are in position for another post season berth in a tournament that begins with an N.  Our current league standing is higher than any of the pre season "experts" predicted with four games remaining.  

How we've gotten to 19-8 and third place is a tale riddled with "are you kidding me's".  In the WCC, we've either been within one point, tied, or behind at the half in eight of our twelve games, winning five of those.  We have won every game when we have had a lead at halftime by more than one point.  Translation, we rarely wake up before the second half.  But when we do - "are you kidding me!"  We have scored 538 second half points compared to 345 first half points.  

We are either ice cold or en fuego shooting.  Our leading scorers are our guards.  The trio has had periods of 21% three point shooting in the first half followed by 65% in half two.  Keshawn Justice is a prime example.  Against San Diego, he goes 0-4 from three in the first half, with some air balls.  In the second half, he goes 6-7 including three in a row in transition rhythm. "Are you kidding me?"

Our defense is ranked 6th in the WCC in overall efficiency, but like our shooting, it evaporates often in the mid first half then, at times is suffocating mid to late second half.  We rank 4th for the MOST three point shots given up (109).  That's 20 more than we've made WCC season to date as a team!  That's nearly a full game number of points.  "Are you kidding me".

Despite the above, we are on track for our third 20 win season in the last four years which includes the 2020-21 abbreviated 20 game Covid season.  To put this in perspective, this has happened only two other times in Bronco history.  You'd have to go back 1982-83 through 1984-85 when the Broncos had three-straight 20-win campaigns under head coach Carroll Williams or 54 years to find that the only other Coaching staff besides Coach Sendek's staff to accomplish this are the Dick Garabaldi teams from 1967-69.  

While more consistent winning is great, it's National legitimacy and rankings we seek and need.  For some Bronco fans, the progression upward is too slow.   Other teams in the WCC are stepping up and have rebooted with high profile coaches at Portland, San Diego, LMU, and Pacific.  Those teams have gone full transfer portal reloads, finding players who are making immediate big impacts.  The parity between teams 3rd - 10th in the standings has narrowed quickly, while St. Mary's and Gonzaga continue to dominate, albeit suffering an unusual upset here and there.  

Our results just don't add up on paper.  In fact, National stat houses can't figure it out either and attribute it to a stat named luck.  It's a real stat and get this, we are ranked 16th in the nation in "luck!"  At least we're top 20 in something.  

My view is while luck plays a part, it's our teams "intangibles" that are carrying us.  Things stats can't and don't measure.  Examples.  If this were the NFL, Podz would be leading the league in fumble recoveries.  He must have more floor burns than a hardwood floor installer from all his diving for loose balls.  Carlos Stewart would be leading in interceptions.  His cat quick reflexes are undetectable by our opponents and he has become a master thief.  Our offensive rebounding is # 2 in the WCC and those result in second chance points.  Justice, Braun, and Podz are the sweep masters for us, keeping possessions alive.  We've also gone more to our bench with Tilly and Tongue contributing valuable minutes.

While these are all good qualities, I think our top two intangibles are selective amnesia and confidence.  We just don't linger on our mistakes.  That, and our players believe in themselves at crunch time.  They forget they missed 10 shots in a row and then, when needed, make a bunch in a row.  Justice, Podz, and Carlos all have stepped up time and time again to make key shots back to back to back to retake leads.  Minutes of misery vanquished in seconds.  That's where the confidence brews strong.  A season ticket holders we see Justice or Podz take a three from, well outrageous distance and we say "Oh, no" only to say "Oh yeah" when it drops. 

That's not luck.

Three of next four are away games at BYU, Portland, and San Diego.  All are "Jones-ing" for revenge.  Especially Portland.  They left Leavey last year with a monster chip on their shoulder.  They are now healthy and their leading scorer is back in form.  That will be a war. 

I think 2-2 gets it done for post season positioning.  I also think if we can go 3-1 it will keep us in third - a BIG deal for the WCC tourney.

Not matter what, it's fun to watch.  Where else do you get to see the lowest of lows and the highest of the highs in one place - Leavey!  That's my new moniker for this team - "The Intangibles!"

Santa Clara Men's Basketball - "The Best Laid Plans"

 

       

It was a tough week and a half for the Broncos losing two of three games.  Our perceived momentum from the great BYU home win quickly disappeared with a blowout loss at St. Mary's and a lackluster loss at home to Pacific. 

The plan it seemed for 2022-2023, was success in the preseason with a more difficult schedule that could propel us to third or fourth place in the WCC.  Overall, notch 21 or 22 wins and be in the conversation for another NIT invite.  Looked perfect on paper until last Saturday's loss to # 222 ranked Pacific.  

As they say, "The Best Laid Plans....."  will now be put to a much harder test the last eight games.  IMHO it's not the planning that's at issue, it's consistency executing the plan.  Here's an example from our St. Mary's loss.  St. Mary's has the lowest total scoring average in the WCC but has the best record 12-0.  What?  How?  Execution.  They are ranked near the top in the NCAA in both offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency (4th).  While most would say the way they play is boring, winning and NCAA berths are never boring.  Witness the recent St. Mary's front page newspaper ink that a national ranking brings.  We barely can get our game time announcements in print.  

Our style tries to be the polar opposite.  Go fast, not slow, and we never seem to see a shot we don't like.  At 16-7 we've done pretty well, but in key games we go off script for long stretches.  A number of those games we've won due to shear will power, hustle and streaky hot shooting.  In our seven losses, only three of those teams have better athlete's.  St. Mary's is not one of those three.  

For those Broncos able to attend the Bronco Bistro pre game, a coach comes in and draws up the game plan on a whiteboard.  The Pacific game plan called for; control the boards, make sure we defend against their elite top 3 point shooters particularly # 20 Boone and # 21 Avdalovic, and get out in transition to get easy baskets.  Also in the Pacific game plan, we wanted to pound it down low to our bigs since Pacific has smaller post players.  

The Pacific game recap shows our bigs scored 16 of our 89 points, we had 5 more rebounds,  just 5 fast break points, but gave up 17 three pointers.  That's not a typo.  Boone and Avdalovic made 11 of those three's.  I believe, that's the most we've given up in the Coach Sendek tenure.  OK, these are college kids and mistakes always happen, but we weren't able to "reset" our game plan and execute.

In the WCC, we now rank last in 2pt FG % and 9th in 3pt FG%.  A testament to out grit in overcoming execution lapses.

January and February have not been kind to the Broncos over time.  In our past two 20 win seasons about half our losses are in late January and February, including six straight losses in 2019-2020, four of which were not against the top three in the WCC.  

This February is key, if our aspirations for post season are to be met.  There's no easy answer.  Some say we play our starters too many minutes and as we get into the heart of the WCC season, we're playing with tired bodies.  Season to date in conference our starters have logged 76% of the minutes and for the entire season 77%.  Add in Knapper as the sixth man, it's 84%.  I Have no idea of the correlation, but in our loss to San Jose State at home it was our third game in 7 days.  The first loss to St. Mary's at home was on 1 1/2 days rest after just playing USF.  Our second loss to St. Mary's again 1 1/2 days rest after the BYU victory.  Anyway, I'm not buying the minutes argument.

Others think it's that our opponents have figured us out and game plan to have anyone other than Keshawn, Carlos, or Podz beat us.  It's a lot easier to guard 3 vs 5.  On offense our opponents are more successful at fighting through our perimeter screens or doubling our guards off the screen.  They're not too worried about our bigs making a three when we shoot it at 16% or handling the ball while rolling to the rim.  Consequently, they play our guards tough resulting in late in the clock looks that are hard to make.  Might be one reason our WCC shooting percentages are low. 

When we are on defense our opponents strategy is to catch our guards in a top of the key ball screen and force our bigs to switch, resulting in two mismatches.  A quick guard on our big and a small guard on their big rolling into the paint.  Evidence Mahaney of St. Mary's and Boone of Pacific lighting us up in those situations.  

Expect more of same opponent game plan the next eight games.  All have a good balance of scoring guards and bigs.  It will take our best effort to win these games with five on the road and three at Leavey.  

It all starts tonight at Gonzaga then a quick turnaround at USF.  The Zags had their 75 game home winning streak snapped by LMU recently an let's hope the Broncos can pull it off as well.

Hopefully our "Best Laid Plans" and execution are with us the next eight!

Santa Clara Men's Basketball - Eight The Hard Way

 

The first four games in league play proved what our Coaches have known, and said since pre-season, there are no "gimmies" in the WCC.  Not long ago, Mark Few called out all the other WCC teams not named St. Mary's or BYU saying they "suck."  At that time, I'm not sure he thought he could have been 1-3 to start the 2023 league play.  Had it not been for his deep stable of 5-star recruits making improbable NBA level threes in the waning seconds, they would have lost the games against USF, SCU, and BYU.

Every team is better.  The Broncos know they have to bring it every game.  The next eight will be a huge test and tell fans and season ticket holders what this team is about.

Our schedule is stacked as we play seven of our first twelve games against our top four rivals:  Zags, Gaels, Cougars, Dons.  No other team has this challenge.  The consensus top 3 teams get a lot of "layups" early on.  We could use a "hard way" eight (4-4) or even better, an "easy eight" (5-3) during this next tough stretch.  Long odds, but possible.

Of the eight games, St. Mary's, USF, Zags, and Pacific are road games.  All these teams are beatable, but much harder to win away.  We need Leavey to be our friend in the next four home games versus Pacific, LMU, San Diego, and BYU.  In addition to the above, most every team is now healthy as BYU, Pacific, LMU, Portland, and USD had injuries to top players that caused early losses.  Witness LMU taking down BYU last week.

I think the coaches and players will use this stacked schedule as kindling for motivation to prove who we can be.  Playing the Zags down to the wire at home is great, but not a "W."  Pacific won't care about how we played Gonzaga as they want their "creds" and taking us out is a notch they want.

BYU needs to recover from the shellshock of literally throwing away a win over Gonzaga in Provo.  ICYMI, with under a minute left, a BYU unforced turnover and missed free throw resulted in two Zag three pointers.  The last was the dagger with 9 seconds to go from 35 feet by Julian Strawther.  That's what 5-star recruits can do at crunch time.

For the Broncos, Keshawn, Parker, and Carlos have been on a roll and Podz will be doing his thing, scraping the boards, diving for balls, and draining some threes.  Add some blocks in the paint from Bediako and we can beat the odds. 

I like our chances.

Santa Clara Men's Basketball - Breakthroughs and Breakdowns

 

     

The first week of WCC league competition for the Broncos included a breakthrough win over USF and a loss versus St. Mary's.  A game we let slip away.  

With the success USF has had against us the past six games we've played them, followed by St. Mary's, an 0-2 start was staring us in the face.  With the USF game tied at 38 at halftime, the Broncos went on a gallop in the second half sparked by Braun and Bediako knocking down 10 of 14 shots and Podz burying 7 of 12 to cap a 62% FG shooting display that sent the "Don's" looking for Luca Brasi to bail them out.  Result, Broncos win it by 12.

Saturday, we had a huge opportunity to knock off St. Mary's', # 16 in the NCAA NET rankings on our home court.  We saw first hand that experience is huge as the Gaels used a 13-3 run mid second half to win.  Frustrating, in that St. Mary's had a a season worst shooting percentage, but found others ways to win.

Pregame, our coaches wanted to accomplish three things critical to stealing the win.

#1 Rebound:  We had more overall rebounds (38-35) but they had 15 offensive rebounds that resulted in 12 second chance points.  

#2 Get through their high ball screens to prevent two-way mismatches that result in a quick guard against our bigs and an SCU small guard on their bigs:  Their ball screens are Velcro, they catch us and force switches.  Randy Bennett used his best guards, Aidan Mahaney and Logan Johnson, to take advantage of the two-way mismatch described above resulting in 5 layups plus 8 assists from that duo.

#3 Defend the 3 ball, especially against Mahaney and Ducas:  Although we held their team well below their shooting averages, Mahaney and Ducas were 5 - 10 combined from three.  BTW, their other main shooters were 1-11.

Credit St. Mary's using their defense and experience finding ways to win on the road while having the worst shooting game of their season.  It will be a much harder challenge when we play them again on January 21st in Moraga.

The road ahead is full of more great opportunities and potholes.  Three of the next five games are away:  this Thursday at Pepperdine, the 14th at Pacific and the 21st at St. Mary's.  We are home on this Saturday vs the Zags and the following Thursday, January 19th, against BYU.

Pepperdine on the road is a big challenge.  At 7-8 on the year, they are much better than their record.  They, like SCU, beat UC Irvine and then shot 52% from 2 point and 40% from 3 point range and lost to Gonzaga by 23!  BTW, the Zags shot a gaudy 61% and 46% from 3 point range in their 111-88 win.  Pepperdine can flat out shoot it. They can and will score inside and from deep up and down the roster.  We'll need every bit of grit we can muster.

Saturday night we get the Zags at Leavey.  Another chance for a breakthrough win.  The Zags have all but one of their main pieces back AND more talented newcomers.  We've played them tough at home and must play our best 40 minutes to have a good chance.

Expect a big dose of Drew Timme as the offense likes to run through him in a variety of sets.  There are few great defensive options and our coaches will have to pick their poison.  My guess is we might double Timme and the other bigs in the post and force them to kick it out for a long two or three point attempt.  Timme shoots 66% around the rim versus everyone else who shoots it at 38% from three.  

We have to pressure and contest the threes without fouling and basically hope they miss.  Gonzaga loves to run and beat you in transition just like us; so should be fun to watch.

Last season, after 25 years, we had a breakthrough season earning an invitation to the N.I.T.  We'll need another two breakthrough wins and can't afford breakdown losses.  I'm still going with "eight is enough" wins in the WCC to get us into the conversation.  I like the fight in this team.  Each player "expecting" the other to get it done and are vocal with each other when we are not.  Accountable. 

Let's hope we have something great to "count on" this week!

 

Santa Clara Men's Basketball - Eight Ball

 

The Broncos open their WCC season tonight against the USF Dons at home after a successful 12-3 preseason record.  The team seems to have found a winning formula with strong wins against UC Irvine and Boise State by rebounding, moving the ball to open shooters and playing tough defense at crunch time.  While our overall defense is decent, we are # 259 defending the three ball.  We've be able to overcome this by averaging nearly 16 assists the past three games.  

It will take all of this, and more, to make some noise in the WCC standings; where we are "picked" to finish anywhere from 4th to 7th.  One thing for sure, there are no "layup" games in a much stronger league from top to bottom.  It's going to take at least "eight" to get us into a position for another post season nod.  

We got hosed in the league scheduling this season putting us behind the "eight ball" right out of the gate.  We are the only team who plays their top rivals (USF, St. Mary's, Gonzaga) when our students are away on Christmas break!  Witness St. Mary's plays USD, LMU, and Portland in addition to us.  Five of our first seven games are against the consensus top four teams - St. Mary's twice, USF, Zags, and BYU.  I hope our team uses this as motivation and plays with an extra chip on their shoulders.  We will have to earn respect.  

It's going to take crazy eights to get it done.  At least eight wins (8-8), contributions from eight or more deep in our roster, eight or more three's per game, going 4-4 in our eight home games and two upsets against the top four teams in those eight games.  With those results, I think "eight" is enough.  

While eight might be enough, it's not what our coaches are after.  They are ultra competitive, and IMHO, tired of the league status quo.  They'd like nothing more than to disrupt the pecking order of the WCC.  

Tonight vs the Dons will be like a Gunfight at the OK Corral.  Whoever shoots often and best wins.  They play up tempo like we do, shoot better from two and are ranked #20 in defending the three.  They have a more experienced and deeper roster.  If it comes down to a free throw contest, we have the edge.  It's a great test and tonight we hope "there's no place like home!"

Santa Clara Men's Basketball - I Want the "Broncos" to Lose

 

                            

Sounds terrible doesn't it?  A staunch supporter of the team wanting the Broncos to lose.  Well it's true.  The Broncos need to lose so our Broncos win!  This Thursday is one of those rare nights when our Broncos will play another team of Broncos - The Boise State Broncos!

In a way, it's fitting for this season, as so far, there has been nothing "usual" about this team except winning.  It's been "Forrest Gump" and some "Cinderella" as we head into our last preseason game with an 11-3 record.   Games with slow starts, fast starts, tough defense, no defense, can't miss, and can't shoot combined with terrific late in the game comeback runs just in time before the clock runs out.   Midday games, evening games, neutral sites, resort sites, and, soon, a game on New Year's Eve.  

You just can't make this stuff up!  To boot, guess what?  We are ranked #14 in the country in Luck.  Simply put, we are wining more games and close games than our overall statistics suggest we should win.  Why?  Well, there's not a stat for that.  We just are.  

I have a theory.  The Chaos Theory of selective short term memory loss.  Huh?  IMHO, we just don't care what happened minutes ago, only what can happen in the minutes ahead.  Examples:  Keshawn Justice starts the season shooting frozen tundra numbers only to go off like Steph Curry, making three's from anywhere.  Carlos Stewart (Los) struggled for a few games and then carried us to second half wins with clutch shots and 20 + points efforts.  Our bigs have rebounded well to a #12 ranking, but have had to overcome the "fumble-ruskies" when receiving passes in the paint for layups.  

Then there's Podz, Brandin Podziemski, who plays with a Mt. Everest size chip on his shoulder.  He's a gamer.  Dive on the floor to save another possession, nail a deep three when it counts, and make sharp passes to cutters as he did against CAL to Parker Braun for a helicopter two hand dunk in crunch time.  He leads the team in minutes played, rebounds, steals, assists, and scoring at 18.4 points per game.  Pretty stout when you consider every opponent game plans to slow him down.  

What sums up the selective memory loss and play on mentality for me is Keshawn.  Against CAL he was O-fer shooting in the first half.  Then, late in the second half, he goes off for 10 of our next 14 points with under seven minutes to go to give us an eight point lead.  After drilling a key off balance three point shot, he backpedals to play defense and he is pressing two fingers against the side of his head saying "don't think about it, let it fly!"  That's the mantra.  Don't think - just do.  

We will need any and all mojo against ranked #39 in the country Boise State.  It's a great test for what we will face in league play.  The WCC top seven contenders are NET ranked as follows:  Gonzaga (13), St. Mary's (19), LMU (92), SCU (113), USF (121), Portland (123) and the outlier BYU (141).  NET is the de-facto post season rating system.

For now, we just need our Broncos to take down the Boise St. Broncos for bragging rights and momentum heading into the WCC.  We will need all the "Chaos" we can muster.  So let's get at it and "Create Havoc And Out Score" Boise State. 

Next up.  WCC league outlook.   Go Broncos!