The Problem With Poor Scheduling

I often complain about the Gaels aversion to setting up a quality non-conference schedule. Those complaints, normally a sentence or two in length, are followed by something along the lines of "...but I won't get into that now".

I have been working, for a while, on a team-by-team analysis of the Gaels' non-conference schedule as I did for BYU and Gonzaga. I became more and more frustrated the further I went with the analysis. So, now, I am writing this because, for one, I need a break but also because I need to finally explain myself for all those times I've said "I won't get into that now".

Do you remember January 21st, 2012?

Countdown 9/22

46 days remain.

Short documentary on the golden days of the University of San Francisco Dons and Bill Russell. Back to back national championships in 1955 and 1956. Gonzaga fans worry when the Zags play at San Francisco these days but they should be thankful that Gonzaga wasn't in the WCC back in those days.

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.