WCC Power Rankings: Opening Week (over)Reactions!
The first week of college basketball is great even if the games really aren’t all that good.
After months without any basketball, suddenly fans find themselves enveloped in it. Starving after the long offseason, the diehards will watch just about anything they can find.
And with our tolerances as low as they’ll be all year long, it can feel a bit overwhelming.
Then, if you try to make sense of anything that’s happened, you start to realize that really not much has happened at all.
Teams have played one, maybe two games. If they’ve played three, at least one has been against non-D1 competition.
It’s the smallest of small sample sizes in the first power rankings of the season. An exercise in reacting without overreacting, even when sometimes the overreactions are just about all we have at this point.
Anyway, it was a mixed bag from the new-look, nine-team West Coast Conference in week one. Some big wins, some bad losses and some monster performances that won’t show up on the team sheet come Selection Sunday.
Let’s make some sense of it, shall we?
1) Gonzaga Bulldogs
Record: 1–0
AP: 11; KenPom: 5
Last week: W 86–71 vs. Yale
This week: 11/14 vs. Eastern Oregon (NAIA)
Gonzaga and Wright State had the latest season openers in Division I, with both set to tip off at 6 p.m. Pacific on Friday. Wright State at Colorado State got underway while the Zags were still introducing their starters. By a matter of maybe two minutes, Zag fans had to wait longer than any others for their season to get underway.
Despite the not-exactly-marquee opponent, the wait was worth it.
The all-important quadrant system used by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee uses the NET Rankings, but those start updating until sometime in December. So, if we substitute KenPom (a metric the committee also looks at) in the interim, you’ll see Yale ranked at №67 in the country. That makes Yale, in this KenPom remix version of the quadrant system, a Quad 2 win for Gonzaga.
Since the NCAA adopted the NET for the 2018–19 season, Gonzaga’s home opener opponents have ended the year ranked 307th (Quad 4), 337th (Quad 4), 308th (Quad 4), 273rd (Quad 4), and 238th (Quad 4).
This year, the Zags played an actually good team instead.
Next, though, they’ll play a game that the Selection Committee won’t even look at when NAIA Eastern Oregon comes to town. The Zags hosted them last season, too, and won 120–42.
I hate it, but after one good team, and before heading to the absurdly loaded Maui Invitational field where their first game will be AP №2, KenPom №1 Purdue, I guess a confidence-building tune-up is whatever.
Also worth mentioning: Braden Huff.
The fourth note I jotted down during the Yale game, midway through the first half, was, “Huff a focus.” That note remained true for the rest of the game. He finished with 19 points and became the 16th freshman under Mark Few to go for 10+ in a season opener. He joins some pretty stellar company.
2) Saint Mary’s Gaels
Record: 2–1
AP: RV (-10); KenPom: 44 (-6)
Last week: W 107–28 vs. Cal St. Stanislaus (D2), W 72–58 vs. New Mexico, L 61–57 vs. Weber State
This week: 11/17 vs. San Diego State (Las Vegas)
Remember that run from 2016–2018 when the Gaels finished top-four nationally in effective field goal percentage each season? When their offense was beautiful and unstoppable and almost never faltered?
Me too, and I miss it. I missed it immensely for the better part of 20 minutes on Sunday evening when the Gaels offense was the exact opposite.
The Gaels offense was a dumpster fire on a train that had gone off the rails. It was miserable.
These extended scoring droughts have become an unfortunate hallmark of Saint Mary’s in recent years, and it sucks. It costs them games, at least one that they have no business losing, often at home, every year.
On Sunday, it cost them a game against a Big Sky team.
It’s a “seed-line drop” kind of result as CBS Sports Matt Norlander likes to refer to such results. One that could, likely should, cost the Gaels a higher seed in March.
But to overreact this early would be a bit rash. As I’ve said, they’ve dropped these kinds of games before. Last season they lost at home to a Colorado State team that finished six spots lower in KenPom than where Weber State is now, and they still earned a 5 seed for the second straight season.
And it will just one of 30+ games the committee looks at, Thursday’s convincing win over a New Mexico team expected to be in the NCAA Tournament picture.
That win, despite the embarrassment that was Sunday’s second half collapse, is why they are not yet falling in these rankings (also because it’s better than any other win in the league so far).
A big bounce-back opportunity comes Friday in Vegas when the Gaels take on San Diego State. Unfortunately, the Aztecs are coming off a loss to BYU which knocked them out of the AP Poll. Fortunately, they’ll get to take out their frustration on Long Beach State before facing Saint Mary’s. The Gaels, on the other hand, should still be steaming and out for blood when they get to Sin City. Let’s hope, anyway.
3) Portland Pilots
Record: 3–0
KenPom: 142 (+18)
Last week: W 78–73 vs. Long Beach State, W 89–72 vs. Lewis & Clark (D3), W 76–63 vs. UC Riverside
This week: 11/15 vs. Tennessee State, 11/18 at Nevada
Gonzaga’s Ryan Nembhard and Saint Mary’s Aidan Mahaney are preseason Naismith Player of the Year watchlist honorees, but overall, pound-for-pound, the Pilots might just have the best backcourt in the WCC.
Tyler Harris (19.7 ppg, 11 rpg and WCC Freshman of the Week), Vukasin Masic (15.7 ppg, 5 rpg, 3 apg), Tyler Robertson (15 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 5 apg), Chris Austin (7.3 ppg) and Juan Sebastian Gorosito (3.7 apg off the bench) are all listed as guards.
They can play small, but big. Harris is 6-foot-8, Robertson is 6-foot-6, Masic is 6-foot-5 and Austin is 6-foot-4. Only Gorosito at 6-foot-1 won’t present a size mismatch, and he’s the only one of those four not in the starting lineup.
It’s a versatile lineup that can exploit mismatches over-and-over-and-over again in Shantay Legans’ uptempo offense.
Each of the first two years of the Legans era brought early season excitement to the Rose City, and not just because of the years of doldrums which came before. Could this be the year the Pilots can keep that early season momentum rolling into WCC play?
4) Santa Clara Broncos
Record: 2–0
KenPom: 139 (+11)
Last week: W 77–69 vs. Utah Tech, W 82–59 vs. Saint Francis
This week: 11/14 at Stanford, 11/14 vs. Southeastern Louisiana
Have the Broncos been challenged yet? No (but that’s coming). The next couple of teams below them have been challenged, but they’ve come up short. The Broncos, unchallenged sure, remain unblemished. That counts for something.
Carlos Marshall Jr. scored 22 and 25 points in the Broncos’ two games last week. He was named WCC player of the week for his impact.
Marshall missed all but the first two games last season due to injury. If he can stay healthy, the two-time all Ohio Valley Conference performer has the pedigree to fill the backcourt production role previously held by Brandin Podziemski and Jalen Williams (not saying he’ll be a lottery pick, but who said either of them would be this early either). Early returns back that up, too.
If Santa Clara truly has the chops to be a top-three WCC team for a third consecutive season, they can start to prove that Tuesday down the road at Stanford. I know Stanford is a power conference team in name only at this point, but they’re certainly on a different level than Utah Tech and Saint Francis.
Santa Clara is 6–6 vs. the Pac-12 in non-conference play since year two of the Sendek era, including 1–1 versus Stanford.
5) San Francisco Dons
Record: 2–1
KenPom: 86 (+7)
Last week: W 128–59 vs. Bethesda (NCCAA), W 84–52 vs. Saint Francis, L 63–58 at Boise State
This week: 11/17 vs. Grand Canyon (off-campus, but in Phoenix)
Entering the season I didn’t have San Francisco as an NCAA Tournament team. They barely got in a couple years ago when they had their best season since the 1980s. And I don’t think this year’s squad is on that level.
An NIT team, though? That is certainly attainable. Or at least it was, until the NCAA went full coward mode and decided to give the power conferences two bids each, minimum, starting this season.
Now we are in uncharted waters with how the NIT selection process will play out, and it seems good mid-major programs like San Francisco will be at risk of getting squeezed out in favor of bottom-feeder P6 crap.
Which is why a competitive loss to Boise State, normally not the end of the world, could be more damaging this season than before. I just don’t know how much more.
On the positive side, even though it matters nowhere but the record books, the season opener was San Francisco’s largest margin of victory in program history.
6) LMU Lions
Record: 1–1
KenPom: 94 (-6)
Last week: W 109–68 vs. Westcliff (NAIA), L 83–80 vs. Yale
This week: 11/14 vs. Jackson State, 11/19 vs. Stephen F. Austin (Cayman Islands)
This is where early-season power rankings get tough. The Lions did not look like a sixth-place WCC team in their game against Yale (a Yale team which led 16–6 early at Gonzaga two days prior), even if they did come up short.
But, they’re winless against D1 so far, which is something that can’t be said of any team I have above them.
Buoyed by their high-scoring win over NAIA Westcliff in the opener, the Lions sport seven players averaging double-figures scoring. That’s not sustainable. It’s small sample size run amok with this team in these rankings right now.
One thing that could be sustainable, and would be huge if it is, is Gonzaga transfer Dominick Harris. He currently leads the team at 16.5 ppg after scoring a team-high 21 points off the bench against Yale.
7) Pacific Tigers
Record: 1–1
KenPom: 172 (+14)
Last week: L 64–57 vs. Sam Houston State, W 87–79 at California
This week: 11/15 at Nevada, 11/18 vs. Lamar
The Tigers, at home in the opener, managed just 57 points in 80 possessions. Do the math, that’s 0.71 points per possession. That’s bad. Granted, Sam Houston State has been one of the better defenses in the sport in recent seasons, but that’s still very bad. It’s the home opener. Come on.
Then they turned around and kinda made it look easy on the road at Cal. 87 points in 71 possessions. 1.11 points per possession. That’s good.
The thing is, it’s Cal. Cal’s been not good for a very long time.
At this level of the rankings, inconsistency reigns. Sometimes, that means beating a Pac-12 team on the road, but normally it means a bumpy ride.
8) Pepperdine Waves
Record: 2–1
KenPom: 165 (+25)
Last week: W 76–64 vs. Concordia Irvine (D2), L 79–78 at UC Davis, W 76–53 vs. Lafayette
This week: 11/13 vs. LIU, 11/17 vs. UNLV
Concordia Irvine was picked near the bottom of its D2, lost its home opener against an NAIA team, and then held a 5 point halftime lead in Malibu. Make it make sense.
Ultimately, the Waves pulled out the win, but it wasn’t pretty.
Then they gave one away at the buzzer to UC Davis, extending their road losing streak to 26 consecutive games. They haven’t won a road game since Colbey Ross was on campus. It’s even worse than their league record in recent years, which is impressive in a terrible way.
Then they beat a really bad Lafayette team at home. Good job meeting expectations. And those expectations are very low for this program, not because of the talent, but because of the staff.
9) San Diego Toreros
Record: 2–1
KenPom: 223 (+40)
Last week: W 68–64 vs. Sonoma State (D2), W 87–61 vs. Jackson State, L 69–63 at UC San Diego
This week: 11/17 vs. Le Moyne
It took 30 minutes for the Toreros to pull ahead of a D2 school inside the Slim Gym on Monday evening. They trailed that D2 school by 19 points on multiple occasions. They needed nearly 15 minutes to score their second bucket and went over 10 minutes without a field goal.
Then they blitzed Jackson State. Like I said with Pepperdine, congrats on meeting your low expectations by blitzing a SWAC team.
Then they lost, on the road, sure, to a team in its fourth year in D1 that has never finished .500 or better at this level.
Like I said with Pacific, inconsistency reigns at this level of the rankings. And when you’re this wildly inconsistent, both in and between games, good luck being good.
