WCC MBB Results

In other opening night contests for WCC teams:
GU beat Utah Valley at home 92-69
UOP lost at UCLA 119-80
SMC beat Nevada at home 91-63
PU beat Cal Poly at home 77-68
LMU beat Vanguard at home 99-51
SCU beat Northern Arizona at home 67-64
USF beat Illinois-Chicago at home 82-80
USD lost at San Diego St 69-59
BYU does not play until Monday.

The only common opponent for the Pilots in last night's WCC action was UCLA, a 119-80 winner over Pacific.

Of note, and a common defensive weakness on the part of the Pilots in recent years, the Bruins scored almost half their points off 3-pointers, scoring 54 on 18/30 shooting.  

UCLA has a storied past, but their performance last night was a program record.

Mid-Major Madness has the first WCC power rankings, written by Will Maupin.  Has UP at #5, in a way too early to evaluate season.  He also names 5 players as the team of the week, and includes GU's Williams-Goss for his 14/8/6 almost triple double performance.  Considering Alec had 24/8/8 with only 2 turnovers, seems he may have merited that spot instead.
west-coast-conference-wcc-power-rankings-gonzaga-zags-saint-marys-gaels-byu

If you want to scout some UP opponents tonight:

Pac12 Network at 6 PST, Seattle U at Colorado

ESPN2 beginning at 7 PST, back-to-back-to-back, Princeton at BYU; San Diego St. at Gonzaga; and Green Bay at Pacific.

Some catch-up scores:
SCU lost at home to UC-Davis 63-58 on Sat., and lost to Tenn. St. 69-61 on Sun.
On Monday:
GU beat San Diego St 69-48 at home
USD lost to Samford 83-65 at home
LMU lost at Neveda 79-64
BYU beat Princeton at home 82-73
UOP beat Green Bay at home 76-58

In addition to the Pilots' win tonight,
PU beat Weber St 69-68 at home.

Not WCC, but an upcoming opponent: Oregon State lost to #316 RPI Lamar.

SouthCarolinaPilot wrote:Not WCC, but an upcoming opponent: Oregon State lost to #316 RPI Lamar.

And this only a couple of days after UTSA took them down to the wire. Apparently having to replace Gary Payton II and Malcolm Duvivier has been a bit of a tall order so far.

27 turnovers for OSU last night!!

SouthCarolinaPilot wrote:Not WCC, but an upcoming opponent: Oregon State lost to #316 RPI Lamar.

I watched the game, and the strange thing is it seemed OSU was always in control and would break away at any time, but they never did because of the crazy number of turnovers.  Lamar was athletic and quick, but many of the OSU turnovers were because the OSU players often tried to do too much.

If only UP could have sealed the deal with local kid Drew Eubanks a couple of years ago....last night he dominated with 17 points, 18 rebounds and 6 blocked shots in 33 minutes of play.  If only UP's bigs could achieve half those numbers!

USF won at UC Santa Barbara 75-63
SMC beat Prairie View 110-73 at home (naturally, they only have two non-conf road games, and only one outside the Bay area)

Tonight, USD goes to Pauley to play UCLA. DD can scout two upcoming opponents for us. Here's an article on UCLA's Coach Alford, another in a long line of "not Wooden" coaches. http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/17963639/ucla-bruins-coach-steve-alford-make-break-season

up7587 wrote:USF won at UC Santa Barbara 75-63
Tonight, USD goes to Pauley to play UCLA. DD can scout two upcoming opponents for us.

That USF win at UCSB was big for the WCC as the Big West team was favored by 7-10 points

I'm not going to scout the USD/UCLA game as I will be at UP to watch the Pilots at New Mexico on the telly and the volleyball team in the Chiles Center.  However, I did talk to TP about UCLA hitting 18 3's against Pacific, and besides stifling a bit of choking sound, he said, "man, we've got a lot of work to do before Thanksgiving."

The interesting WCC game for me so far was GU's easy win over San Diego St. on Monday.  It was like an All-Star game.  I can see why SMC is currently ranked ahead of GU, but once all the transfers and first and second year players start jelling as a unit in Spokane, that is a team that will dominate.  Also, it was good to see Przemek Karnowski back on the court at full strength....love 'em or hate 'em, GU has some guys on the team that are not just good ballers, but good guys too.

UC Riverside lost at UNLV 74-62; better than they did against the Pilots.

USD lost at UCLA 88-68 (kept them under 100!). USD now 0-3.
BYU beat Coppin St 96-59. They don't play a road game before league play.
PU beat Life Pacific (?) 85-79. Not sure why they played an insurance company.
LMU lost to UConn 65-62 at home. UConn's first win against 3 mid-majors.

Couldn't sleep after the soccer match so I watched tape of the USD/UCLA game....the game was much closer than the score would indicate until Bruins freshman sensation and big man T.J. Leaf took over. With no inside presence or game, USD just didn't have a chance once UCLA starting going there.

Scouting tip: USD likes to shoot the 3-ball...they attempted 31 last night and converted 10.

I also watched portions online of PU's game against the life insurance company....it too was very close, and without Lamond Murray's 28 points and his defense, I don't think the Waves would have survived.  With under 2 minutes left, the game was tied at 79, but Murray blocked two shots and the Warriors were forced to foul....game over.

Tough loss for LMU.  They led UCONN virtually the entire game until less than 3 minutes to play. LMU's Kelvin Amayo, a transfer from Iona in his 6th year of eligibility scored 18 for the Lions.

I watched the LMU game, and the Lions looked pretty darn tough to me.

Just because I have no life, I looked at what KenPom's WCC rankings were. SMC and GU are both in the teens (15 & 19), BYU is 47. UP and PU are 147 and 150. UOP, LMU, SCU and USF are all clustered between 200 and 232. And USD is 294.

up7587 wrote:Just because I have no life, I looked at what KenPom's WCC rankings were.  SMC and GU are both in the teens (15 & 19), BYU is 47.  UP and PU are 147 and 150.  UOP, LMU, SCU and USF are all clustered between 200 and 232.  And USD is 294.  

As we all know, Coach Reveno was intimately familiar with all the numbers provided by KenPom.  When I asked Coach Porter if he used the site at all, he said he'd never heard of it.

That is just one indication of the change in coaching style on the Bluff....

DoubleDipper wrote:As we all know, Coach Reveno was intimately familiar with all the numbers provided by KenPom.  When I asked Coach Porter if he used the site at all, he said he'd never heard of it.

That is just one indication of the change in coaching style on the Bluff....

That approach works for other successful coaches.  When asked about an advanced metric website, one NFL head coach said,

"What the hell is that? I mean, you can take those advanced websites and metric them in whatever you want. I don't know. I have no idea. I've never looked at one. I wouldn't even care to look at one. I don't even care what they say.”

And he seems to do pretty OK.

Saturday scores:
SMC goes to Dayton, and holds on to win 61-57.
BYU beats Coastal Carolina 81-65.
SCU beats No. Colorado at home 88-72.
UOP loses at UC-Irvine 72-65.

I thought UOP might pull it out...they were down 2 at the half, it was tied with 9 to go, and they were down by 3 with of couple minutes to go, but a very good UCI team hit their free-throw down the stretch.

USD finally gets a win (1-3), 81-72 at home over Nicholls of the Southland Conference.

Good balanced scoring for USD with 4 in double figures, including Carter with 21 (4/6 from 3 pt) and Bailey with 19 (4/5).

After scoring 114 points tonight against Long Beach St., UP's next opponent, UCLA, is averaging 106 points per game while averaging 45% from behind the arc and 63% from 2-pt range.

USD "held" the Bruins to 88 points in their 20 point loss, can the Pilots do the same?

DoubleDipper wrote:After scoring 114 points tonight against Long Beach St., UP's next opponent, UCLA, is averaging 106 points per game while averaging 45% from behind the arc and 63% from 2-pt range.

USD "held" the Bruins to 88 points in their 20 point loss, can the Pilots do the same?

Yikes. This could be ugly.

DoubleDipper wrote:After scoring 114 points tonight against Long Beach St., UP's next opponent, UCLA, is averaging 106 points per game while averaging 45% from behind the arc and 63% from 2-pt range.

USD "held" the Bruins to 88 points in their 20 point loss, can the Pilots do the same?

No matter what happens, I'll always remember 74-47 back in 2009.    

I remember watching that game and just laughing with glee and amazement all through the second half.

Wish I could find the video highlights of that game... best I could find was the last six minutes of our next game, the win over Minnesota. Unfortunately, the Pilots played their best basketball in the first 34 minutes of that game...

Stonehouse wrote:No matter what happens, I'll always remember 74-47 back in 2009.    

I remember watching that game and just laughing with glee and amazement all through the second half.

Wish I could find the video highlights of that game... best I could find was the last six minutes of our next game, the win over Minnesota. Unfortunately, the Pilots played their best basketball in the first 34 minutes of that game...  

The pinnacle of Coach Rev's tenure at UP.

Two things I didn't realize...
• Minnesota was ranked #16 at the time?? Wow
• According to the ticker, that was the day after Tiger's wife caught him cheating and smashed out his SUV windows with a 6-iron

up7587 wrote:SMC goes to Dayton, and holds on to win 61-57.

My good buddy who is a SMC fan drove all the way to Dayton for this one, his first Gaels game in person. Met up with the God Is A Gael forum guys and had a great time.

He says Dayton has an unbelievable college hoops atmosphere, and it's no accident that the NCAA play-in games are held there every year.