Today's Games: all times Pacific
Portland at San Diego 5:30 PM
Brigham Young at San Francisco 7 PM ESPN U
Pepperdine at Seattle 7:10 PM (non-WCC game)
#24 Gonzaga at Santa Clara 8 PM ESPN 2
The Big Game: Brigham Young 21-6 (9-3 WCC) at San Francisco 17-10 (7-6)
BYU fell into 4th place due to Loyola Marymount's win on Wednesday, but only because LMU has played more games than BYU. A win here would once again switch the two teams, a loss will make it official.
San Francisco started the WCC season with an unfortunate loss at Pepperdine, but that was last year and Pepperdine has tallied only one more win since. San Francisco on the other hand has gone on to lose only to those teams ranked above them, which has the Dons sitting in 5th place right now. They're the uncategorizable team in the conference; not elite as two games separate them from BYU, LMU, and beyond, but not bad as two games separate them from San Diego, the closest of the bottom four teams. San Francisco has a nice 17-10 record over all, but they aren't likely to hit 20 with only 3 games left. BYU comes to town tonight, then Gonzaga on Saturday and Saint Mary's visits to end the regular season on the 25th. Going to San Francisco has been a stumbling block for the elite teams of the WCC in recent years, however BYU hasn't been in the conference in recent years. Will the giant killer magic of the Golden Gate work on the Cougars? Only if the Dons can put together a performance completely unlike the 81-56 whooping they got in Provo back on January 7th.
BYU is the team with the most to play for. A loss tonight will most likely kill any chance of an at large berth for the Cougars. It would also make their already small hopes for a conference title in their first year in the conference even smaller, Every team above them would need to lose out, and then the best that can happen is the Cougars would share the title with the Gaels. San Francisco is still in the running for a bye in the WCC tournament. Beating BYU would make the Cougars the team most likely to cough up the bye, as they too have to play the Zags before the season ends. BYU should win this game, they've got recent experience in winning against a good team on the road. They played at Virginia Tech a couple weeks back and escaped the with a 70-68 victory.
Despite the lopsided outcome of the previous match up between these two teams, I expect this to be the most competitive game in the WCC tonight.
TV: ESPN U (online espn3.com).
Radio: KSL 102.7 FM in Utah, 95.7 The Game in the Bay Area.
The Other Games:
#24 Gonzaga 20-4 (10-2) at Santa Clara 8-17 (0-12)
Santa Clara had a decent start to the season, with wins over Big East power Villanova, though they're having an off year, and New Mexico, who are currently alone atop the Mountain West after Wednesday's upset of #15 San Diego State in San Diego. My how things can change. Santa Clara hasn't won since December 29th, a non conference win over Eastern Michigan. They've lost the leader of their team and scoring category in Kevin Foster to a DUI charge and every game this year. In the first meeting of these teams the Zags easily dispatched the Broncos 82-60 in Spokane back on January 7th, and that was with Kevin Foster. This game is on ESPN 2, and back when ESPN made their schedule it looked like a good one to have. Santa Clara was looking to have a big year in the WCC coming off the heels of a College Invitational Tournament championship to wrap up their 2010/11 campaign. In the preseason the only Senior on the team, Marc Trasolini, suffered a torn ACL during an exhibition game in his hometown of Vancouver, BC. Then Foster gets arrested mid season and the Broncos sit in dead last, far from where they were last year.
Fortunately, barring extended legal trouble for Foster (who passed Steve Nash in scoring at Santa Clara just before being suspended) both the veterans, and their scoring ability, will return next year.
Enough about the worst team in the league. Gonzaga is coming off a weekend that saw them beat two of the top four teams in the WCC, Saint Mary's and LMU, in Spokane, and in convincing fashion. Then last night LMU beat Saint Mary's. Which means Gonzaga's quest for a 12th straight WCC title, which would be second only to UCLA's 13 straight (1966/67-78/79), is not only still alive but entirely within their control. Gonzaga can easily achieve that goal, and it starts with winning this game. The only hurdle is BYU in Spokane on the 23rd.
There will be an interesting match up at the point guard position between two freshman who have been putting up solid number from their first starts. Kevin Pangos leads Gonzaga in minutes, points and assists per game. His first start was Gonzaga's second game of the season, November 15 against Washington State, when he buried a school record tying 9 3 point shots. Denzel Johnson hasn't been starting for as long or playing as much as Kevin Pangos
TV: ESPN 2 (online at espn3.com).
Radio: KDOW 1220 AM in the Bay Area, Oldies 101.1 FM in the Inland Northwest. Both have online streaming.
Portland 6-19 (3-9) at San Diego 10-15 (5-8)
Portland is horrible this year, but they are young and promising. Unless they grow up fast this game will be very lopsided despite these two teams being next to each other in the standings. San Diego went to Portland and won by 19 back on January 19th. The Pilots have had a whole week to prepare for this game, so let's hope they've come up with a good plan.
San Diego has fallen off the map since they upset Gonzaga in the WCC tournament finals and then Connecticut in the first round of the 2008 NCAA tournament. The Toreros have finished at or below .500 every year since, and this year looks no different.
This game could affect the who participates in the 8/9 seed or play in game for the WCC tournament. Right now Pepperdine is 8th and Santa Clara 9th. Santa Clara doesn't look to move up at all, and Pepperdine has 2 conference games remaining. Against Santa Clara and Portland. A Pilots loss tonight would open up possibility that Portland, not Pepperdine, ends up with the 8 seed.
TV: Comcast SportsNet Northwest, Channel 4 San Diego (upon visiting their website I learned it's 68 degrees in San Diego... it's 39 in Chicago).
Radio KPDQ 800 AM Portland area, XTRA Sports 1360 AM San Diego area (and online xtrasports1360.com)
Pepperdine 8-17 (2-12) at Seattle 8-14
Seattle University's basketball program is currently independent, though it was a member of the WCC (women's golf is currently an affiliate member) from 1971 to 1980 before dropping to Division-2. The Redhawks recently made the transition back to D-1 and have accepted an invitation to the Western Athletic Conference for next season. Which is a shame as I can see the Redhawks being a good fit for the WCC Seattle has lost almost twice as many games as it has won, but they've scheduled a pretty tough season for themselves. With games against Stanford, Virginia, Washington (naturally, it's across town), Harvard and San Francisco. "Our membership in the WAC will move us closer to our goal of building championship programs, especially for basketball fans." said Seattle University President Stephen Sundborg. Seattle is obviously trying to build a basketball program, just like the WCC is trying to build a basketball conference. Plus, Seattle would be the 5th Jesuit school in the conference and bring in the very large Seattle TV market. Extra facts, Seattle is 4th in the nation in rebounding at 40.9rpg. Aaron Broussard is 32nd in scoring at 18.4ppg.
Considering this game is in Seattle, and these two teams have similar records I am going to have to pick Seattle in this one. This post took way longer to write than I expected it would, and it's now almost 5 AM here in Chicago.
About Pepperdine, they've lost 12 of 13.
TV: Prime Ticket, L.A. Area
Check back tomorrow for post game analysis of a more statistical nature.
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