Preseason Predictions: Fifth Place

#5 San Diego Toreros

2011-12 Record: 13-18 (7-9) 6th WCC, RPI: 193

2011-12 Recap:

San Diego entered last season as an extremly green team. Of their 14 players 11 were freshmen, one was a sophomore and the only one was a senior. Two of those freshmen, guards Christopher Anderson and Johnny Dee, became the Toreros starting backcourt and quietly had very productive seasons.

The inexperienced Toreros opened the season 4-1 with the loss coming to a Montana team that would make the NCAA tournament. Two of the wins, however, came against non-D-1 squads. That was followed by a three game losing streak capped off by a 12 point home loss to intracity rival San Diego State. The Toreros then picked up a win over Maine to stay above .500 but went on another three game losing streak to enter WCC play at 5-7.

The losing streak extended to six with losses to BYU, Loyola Marymount and Saint Mary's before the Toreros faced the to-be-winless Broncos of Santa Clara. All but one of the Toreros WCC wins came via season sweeps of Santa Clara, Portland and Pepperdine, the three teams that finished below them in the standings. San Diego's only other conference win came at Loyola Marymount in the last weekend of the regular season. LMU was a strange team that played significantly better on the road last season, but none the less that was San Diego's best win of the season.

The Toreros took the third game against Pepperdine in their first game of the WCC tournament before falling by only five points to BYU in the quarterfinals.

Key Losses: 

• Darian Norris, Senior, Guard. The only loss from last year's team, Norris played in 31 games and started in 15 but was quickly surpassed by the freshmen duo in at guard. Shot 43.7% from the field in just over 26 minutes per game.

Key Additions: 

• Jito Kok, Freshman, Center. The 6'9'' big man from the Netherlands comes via the Canarias Basketball Academy (which also produced Oskars Reinfelds and Thomas van der Mars who now play for Portland). 
• Mike Daivs, Junior, Guard. A transfer from Texas Tech, Davis' age and experience will help with this young squad going forward.

Positives:

• It's pretty much the same team.
  It is almost unfathomable for a team to retain all but one player in today's college basketball landscape filled with transfers and early departures. San Diego did just that and the one player they lost was lost the old fashioned way, to graduation. This squad showed flashes of brilliance last year, particularly in the backcourt. With everyone back and everyone a year older, remember there were nine freshmen last year, this team will be no doubt improved.
• It's no longer freshman fest in San Diego.
  Nine freshmen on a team, three of whom are starters, doesn't bode well unless they are recruited by John Calipari. Well, Bill Grier got a pretty good season out of his crew in their first go around despite not being at Kentucky. Now they've got a year of experiencing the college game.

Best Case Scenario:

Development continues right along with the now sophomores. The Toreros close the rebounding margin and, along those lines, the play of their big Ken Rancifer stays steady. Only one or two stumbles against the average or below average teams they face in non-conference combined with an upset or two over San Diego State, Montana or Oregon State. If those things happen the Toreros will enter WCC play with at most four losses and a lot of confidence (with the play to back it up). They will be more than on pace to finish above .500 and will likely finish ahead of LMU in the standings.

 

Negatives:

• This is still a young team.
  The freshmen from last year are just sophomores after all. The Toreros only lose one player but are bringing in multiple new faces. While the personnel shift is not dramatic as with some other WCC teams, it doesn't do much to add veterans to the team. The most veteran addition, Mike Davis, hasn't played for two years and saw only about 10 minutes per game that season at Texas Tech.
• The backcourt is their strength, and everybody's.
  Last year Anderson and Dee were often overlooked as another freshman backcourt hogged the attention up in Spokane. People shouldn't have overlooked the Toreros guards, but were right in paying more attention to the Zags'. The WCC is a league that has always, and once again is, been dominated by great guard play. San Diego found two great freshman guards last season. Unfortunately, pretty much every team in the league has at least one great guard. Those teams guard's are either older or better than San Diego's.

 

Worst Case Scenario: 

Sophomore slump (even just sophomore stagnation). The frontcourt remains shaky. Rebounding is once again difficult for the Torerors. In three chances for a good win the Toreros come up short. In their other games the Toreros win more than the lose, but with two of those wins coming against non-D-1 teams (which don't get counted on Selection Sunday), they're at .500 or worse in the eyes of the selection committee. It looks to be another year in the middle of the pack for San Diego, not a cellar team, but not a team that picks up wins over the big three.

Thoughts on 2012-13:

This team could be vastly improved. It was very difficult for me to put them below Loyola Marymount. They bring back all their starters and lose only one reserve. They overachieved as freshmen and now look to improve upon that achievement. However, that overachievement was only good for 13 wins and sub .500 records in WCC play and overall. Unlike the Toreros, the Lions have a core of players who have won big games, made the postseason and ran up a nice win total. That's why, despite suffering more losses, the Toreros aren't ahead of the Lions... at this point.
Bill Grier brings back a scary squad, if not for this season for the next two. If this team gels and improves at the rate it managed in their first tour last season they should vault into fourth place by the time I revisit these at the end of the non-conference slate.

One other thing I will be watching is Bill Grier's seat's temperature. He's a WCC guy through and through. An assistant at Gonzaga from 1992 through 2007 now entering his sixth year at the helm in San Diego. Grier hasn't led the Toreros to a winning season since his first year (when they won a game in the NCAA tournament). I hope his squad puts together a season that gives him some job security going forward. 

 

(Editors Note: I will revisit each team's Preseason Prediction at the start of WCC play to recap, revise and repost them. It's hard to predict a team's season when they haven't played a game yet. Injuries, breakouts and disappearances can come out of nowhere. Hopefully my predictions for each team's place in the standings stay true, but hopefully each team does far better than I expect them to at this point.)