Countdown: 9/21

47 days remain.

#10 Saint Mary's vs. #2 Villanova Highlight Reel, 3/20/2010.

Can the Gaels do this again this year? Better question, can they even get to the NCAA tournament? Stay tuned.

Countdown #4

48 days remain.

Steve Nash: Santa Clara Broncos '96. He's back in California this season, alongside Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles.

Countdown #3

49 days remain.

 

149 points for 49 days.
3/18/1990 #11 LMU 149, #3 Michigan 115.

Golden Anniversary Inverted and in Days

50 days remain.

I won't normally post two items about the same school in a row during the countdown but I had to today. Adam Morrison signed a one year deal with the Portland Trail Blazers yesterday. He's back in the NBA and he's back on a team from the Northwest. He did pretty well last time he played for a team from that part of the country.

Return/Countdown

The Mid-Majority has been doing this all summer and I should have stolen the idea from them sooner. Every weekday they have posted "One college basketball thing to read, see, remember, or do". With 51 days until the WCC season tips off with San Francisco vs. Stanford on November 7th I figure there is enough interesting WCC hoops related material floating around the internet to post one a day until then.

I'm still working on my analysis of Saint Mary's non-conference schedule (it shouldn't take so long, I know, because they are very weak teams) because I've been on something of an end of summer vacation for the past two weeks. Now I'm back and getting excited for the season to start. Along with the Gaels' preview I will be picking up the rate at which I write articles. Those won't count as part of this one a day series. So when I post an article you'll also get a low quality youtube video, old picture, or whatever I can find.

The idea for this came from seeing the video that I will post at the end of this text. It is, like I said above, a low quality youtube video. However, it's a great fit to kick off the countdown. It's not the season yet so we need to get a warmed up a bit before we go into full countdown mode. On that note, behold Gonzaga's pregame warm-up at their home game against then #13 Saint Mary's on February 9th.

 

Kudos to Scotthen49 over at The Slipper Still Fits for finding and sharing this video, and kudos to The Mid-Majority for the item-a-day idea and for being awesome in general.

WCC Calendar

It's August and there's very little to write about concerning college hoops. So I've spent my time looking at schedules and putting them into spreadsheet form. I've done that for every team that has released their schedule so far (I'm looking at you Saint Mary's, hurry up already!). Since I've done the spreadsheets I decided to take my schedule work one step farther. Much like I had hanging on my wall last season, I went to the calendar. Unlike last year when I wrote down the big games that I needed to remember I've put every game on this one.

Thanks to Google Calendar you can easily keep track of WCC action. If you use Google for anything beyond just googling, you can use this calendar. For now it's incomplete, as not every WCC team has released a non-conference schedule (see parenthetical above). Some teams haven't released times yet, and most games don't yet have full information on TV coverage. When that is released, it will be added to the calendar. As for scores, those will go on the spreadsheet schedules for each team, like last year.

Now is the time folks. Read the calendar, find the big games and request a day off so you can watch them.


https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=willswccblog%40gmail.com&ctz=America%2FLos_Angeles

Early Analysis: Gonzaga's Non-Conference Opponents

The non-conference schedule for the Zags was released last week. Once again, as is becoming the trend, big time programs are coming to Spokane and the Zags are playing only two true road games before WCC play. The farthest the Zags will travel is Orlando, for the Old Spice Classic. In mid January the Zags will travel to Butler for the second of a home and home series with the Bulldogs that started last season in Spokane. I'm excited for this year's schedule because it has a lot of big games and a decent (though in my opinion too many) games that should be entertaining blow out home wins for the Zags. The Zags will face three teams that made the NCAA tournament last season and five that made the postseason, potentially six depending on how the Old Spice Classic works out.

Zags' non-conference schedule, click for larger size.

Going Forward and Looking Back: Gaels and the Olympics

Saint Mary's product Patty Mills was the star for Australia in men's basketball competition at the 2012 London Olympics. He ran up a tournament high in points with 39 against Great Britain, slayed then undefeated Russia with a buzzer beating three, and was tied (with two time NBA champion and four time NBA all-star Pau Gasol) for first in scoring during group play at 20.6 points per game. This was Mills' second Olympic games. His first, Beijing 2008, came during the offseason before his last season at Saint Mary's. His Boomers were eliminated by the United States, a team that is for all intents and purposes an NBA all star team, in both 2008 and 2012. The situation in Moraga this offseason is eerily similar to 2008.

Matthew Dellavedova, fresh off his first Olympic Games, will play his last season at Saint Mary's this season... sound familiar? As a Zags fan, I've always been afraid of the awkward but effective Aussie when the Gaels play Gonzaga. Things have changed and now I'll be terrified. Dellavedova, like Mills before him, had his first Olympics end at the hands of the King James, Kobe Bryant, and the rest of Team USA.

WCC and Olympic Basketball

West Coast Conference basketball is represented by three players in the 2012 London Olympics. With the opening ceremonies happening tomorrow it's time to start getting excited. Patty Mills and Matthew Dellavedova take the Saint Mary's flavored Australian squad into battle against Brazil to start things off on the 29th, later that day Ronny Turiaf and the French squad face what should be a blowout loss to the United States.

All times local (London).

Sunday, July 29th.
Australia vs. Brazil, 11:15 AM.
France vs. USA, 2:30 PM.

Tuesday, July 31st.
Australia vs. Spain, 11:15 AM.
France vs. Argentina 8:00 PM.

Thursday, August 2nd.
France vs. Lithuania, 9:00 AM.
Australia vs. China, 11:15 AM.

Saturday, August 4th.
France vs. Tunisia, 9:00 AM.
Australia vs. Great Britain, 8:00 PM.


Monday, August 6th.
Australia vs. Russia, 9:00 AM.
France vs. Nigeria, 2:30 PM.

The group stage ends on the 6th, if France and/or Australia advance to the quarterfinals I will post an update. The quarterfinals are August 8th, the semis on the 10th and the finals, as well as the bronze medal game, on the 12th.

Summer League Look-Back

The NBA Summer League has now come and gone. For the 13 players from WCC schools who participated in the Summer League, their hopes of landing a job in the association now rest on film, stats, and the memories of NBA coaches and staff. The following is a brief overview of these players 2012 Summer League performances and their statistics, arranged subjectively by me.


1. Austin Daye: Gonzaga 2007-2009, Detroit Pistons 2009-present.

Daye has played for Detroit for the past three years. He's appeared in 182 games for the Pistons, started in 24 of them, and holds a career average of 5.9 points per game. Not bad for a bench player, but not the production the Pistons hoped for from the 15th pick in the 2009 draft. Which is why the Pistons keep sending Daye to the Summer League to work on his game.

Daye's averages, click for larger size.

 

Austin Daye's Summer League highlights.