Rankings Roundup II

It's still early.

I'm interpreting that sentence in two, functionally opposite, ways.

Gonzaga is not only undefeated but they're looking incredible and getting plenty of national recognition for it. It's still early but I am a believer.

Saint Mary's and Brigham Young are struggling as are the teams, Loyola Marymount and San Diego, that I expected to push for a spot atop the conference. It's still early so I'll wait to judge.

It is early, that is true, but this is happening nonetheless.

Does Gonzaga's exceptionally strong start (this year's Gonzaga squad is tied for the most wins to start a season of any Zags team) balance out the stumbles of the rest of the WCC? They're ranked pretty highly... is that enough to make up for the rest of the conference being nearly completely overlooked?

Well, it's early. I can't answer that for sure yet. Sorry, you just read a bunch of questions with no answers (yet). Stats can't provide the answers. Neither can rankings. Wins and losses... those provide little as well. But, since you've read this far, here's a look at the polls and rankings for WCC teams through nearly a month of the season.

Gonzaga (8-0): 10th AP, 10th Coaches, 10th RPI 8th CBS, 8th ESPN, 6th Pomeroy, 5th Sagarin, 4th Massey.

They've climbed into the top ten in the two main polls, after being there in the computer rankings for a while, thanks to an 8-0 start. On Saturday with a win over Pacific this year's Zags tied the 1994-95 Zags (the first squad to make the big dance) for most wins to start a season in school history.

It's not just the 8-0 start that has caught the AP and Coaches poll voters' attention, but how those eight straight games have been won. Gonzaga has won seven of eight by double digits. The 57-49 win over Clemson on Thanksgiving has been the closest game so far. On average they outscore their opponents by 27.7 points. There is more than just a sharpshooting offense that allows the Zags to outscore their opposition by such a margin. The defense has been superb thus far, holding opponents to 36.4% in both effective and regular field goal percentage, which puts them at 17th in the nation in both categories. They sit at 13th in the nation holding opponents to only 0.83 points per possession. Combine that with the uptempo offense the Zags enjoy and the 1.16 points per possession they score (7th in the nation) and it's clear why the Zags have entered pretty much every top ten around.
Among the main statistics nationally the Zags sit in first place in field goal percentage at 53.3%, 5th in points per game (83.5), 16th in assists per game (17.5) and 17th in rebound per game (42.4).

Brigham Young (5-3): 91st RPI, 76th Massey, 72nd Sagarin, 68th Pomeroy. 
The Cougars, despite having more losses than any team in this post, are in the best place of team's not named "Gonzaga" at this time. They have three losses but all three are completely understandable, if not expected, and forgivable. Losing to Notre Dame and Florida State in Brooklyn and most recently at Iowa State are far from bad losses. It's still early and the point guard problems seem to have been fixed (Matt Carlino playing to his known ability could have won one or more of those three losses for BYU).
The Cougars' schedule stays pretty constant through the start of WCC play. If they maintain their ability to beat the teams they should (Utah State, Utah, Weber State and Northern Arizona) and pick up a win or two over Baylor and Virginia Tech (at Baylor and in Salt Lake City respectively) they will be in pretty good shape.

Saint Mary's (5-2): 134th RPI, 79th Massey, 71st Sagarin, 66th Pomeroy.
The Gaels have been stagnant this week. They've bounced back from their two losses at the DirecTV Classic with an 18 point win over Cal Poly (notable only for slaying UCLA at Pauley Pavillion in their previous game). The Gaels have a lot of work to do in order to stay on the right side of the NCAA Tournament bubble, and it's still early...

San Francisco (4-1): 124th Pomeroy, 124th Sagarin, 81st Massey, 70th RPI.
The loss to Stanford in the opener is far from a bad loss as the Cardinal sit at 6-3 right now and have no bad losses themselves. While the other four games have been far from spectacular (the 10 point home win over Montana being their best) they've been good enough to translate into some top-100 rankings from the computers. A win tonight against a 6-2 with Steve Lavin back on the sidelines St. John's will do a lot to help the Dons' case. The rest of their non-conference schedule is solid with games at Pacific and Nevada before heading to Honolulu for the Diamond Head Classic where they open against resurgent San Diego State.
UCLA transfer DeEnd Parker's immediate eligibility has been immediately impactful. Matthew Dellavedova has proven that even a great point guard can't do it alone. Cody Doolin doesn't have to do it alone I suspected he may be forced to after the Dons' tumultuous offseason (I've linked to that article so many times now) thanks to Cole Dickerson and DeEnd Parker stepping up.

Santa Clara (5-2): 206th RPI, 129th Massey, 127th Sagarin, 122nd Pomeroy.
Scoring 83.9 points per game so far the Broncos rank 10th in the land in that category, behind only Gonzaga among WCC teams. Aside from that the news is bleak in Santa Clara. They've dropped two straight games and plummeted in the rankings. A 90 place drop in RPI and 20+ place drop in the Massey, Sagarin and Pomeroy rankings follow those two losses.