Zags at .500 in December?

Purplegeezer wrote:I personally don't give a damn if more than one team from the WCC gets in or not, as long as we are the team that gets The bid. We just need to concentrate on the Pilots. Thinking that we have to worry about Gonzaga and Saint Mary's is a bit much.

I think it might be close to the point where we need to stop thinking about sneaking into the back door of the dance and start thinking that we have to go out and win the WCC outright and WCC tournament. Then let the other conference teams wring their hands about how they slipped this year.

Then even if we don't win the conference Bid outright, I think it will be pretty hard to keep UP out if we have 22-23 wins.

Agreed. It's up to us and our accomplishments to get into the tourney. No one else but us controls that. As a pretty good football coach has said once or twice, let's not run our program based on outside influences. Let's just go out and win games the way we do.

As an aside, I was at the ND v Zags game last night, and I just don't understand Gonzaga. They've got great talent, but they just can't play team ball. A few things I did notice, they use their hands a lot on defense. Hopefully that junk keeps getting called, because ND got a good amount of foul shot opportunities (and of course missed many of them down the stretch). Also, good lord does Sacre ever just park it in the lane. As GU likes to fast break, Sacre will sit in the lane during the break (when the refs probably haven't started counting yet), and he just stays there until he gets the ball. It never got called on him, but if I was an opposing coach, I would be all over it. He's tough to stop when he gets the ball in there. Also, for how much size GU has and ND doesn't, GU didn't seem to rebound that well.

Of course, in true Mike Brey fashion, the Irish dang near blew a 13 or 14 point lead late in the game. It's really unbelievable.

Yeah, that's a good point PG. As long as the WCC is respectable enough to keep our RPI in the top 64 by the end of the year with 20-24 wins, that's good.
I watched the ND vs. GU game as well. Stephen Gray just doesn't seem like the same explosive player as he once was, and overall, their guard play doesn't impress me on GU. Their offense looks pretty stagnant right now... I think this is our year to at least split with GU. I think a big key to beating them and continuing to win on the road will be continuing to improve our perimeter defense. Tyler Hansbrough's little brother at ND is pretty impressive...

ESPN summarizes our conversation:

Gonzaga’s schedule is taking its toll. The Zags deserve credit for their play-anyone-anywhere scheduling strategy. If every name program scheduled like Gonzaga, Butler and Michigan State, college hoops in November and December would be infinitely more entertaining. But credit or not, the Bulldogs’ brutal nonconference schedule has already backfired in a big way. After nine games, Gonzaga is 4-5, with losses to San Diego State, Kansas State, Illinois, Washington State and, as of Saturday, Notre Dame. Things don’t get easier anytime soon: Gonzaga has games with Baylor, Xavier, Oklahoma State and Wake Forest before the WCC season begins, and there’s still that Feb. 5 date with Memphis to contend with down the line. That’s also good news, because Gonzaga has some proving to do if it wants any chance of landing an at-large bid come March. Failing a few key wins -- upsetting Baylor on Saturday would be a start -- the Bulldogs’ path to the tournament will almost certainly travel through the WCC tournament title game.

LINK

From ESPN College Basketball Nation Blog:

It's good to see San Diego State getting some top-10 love after its win at Cal. (SDSU is ranked No. 10 in this week's poll.) The Aztecs don't have the toughest schedule in the world, but they've proven themselves in several true road games thus far (including a win at Gonzaga, for whatever that's worth these days) and hey, the 10-0 Aztecs just keep winning. You can't ask for much more than that.

Ouch!
(emphasis added) LINK

Ho, Ho, Ho!!! Merry Christmas....great find UP7587, thanks for the early Christmas present...I believe Butler or some other team is becoming the new "underdog" to root for for the casual fan, definitely a more sucessful program....has few's days of grace started to slip...when will the AD, PRESIDENT, OR casual Zag fan start turning up the heat on little FEWIE their "idol"., sic..how many more excuses can they make for him or Grier at USD and blame the players, lol..

Anybody betting on Gonzaga upsetting Baylor?

Purplegeezer wrote:Anybody betting on Gonzaga upsetting Baylor?

First, they have to get past Lewis Clark State!

Baylor has had a pretty easy schedule, all at home so far. They may be vulnerable to an upset. But I'm not making any wagers.

onetouchfutbol wrote:Yeah, that's a good point PG. As long as the WCC is respectable enough to keep our RPI in the top 64 by the end of the year with 20-24 wins, that's good.
I

I don't think the conference is good enough to keep the RPI that high with wins in the 20-24 range. And more realistically to be safely gettting an at large bid you need to be in the top 40 because every conference gets one bid free which go to teams outside the top 64 in a lot of cases.

dholcombe wrote:

onetouchfutbol wrote:Yeah, that's a good point PG. As long as the WCC is respectable enough to keep our RPI in the top 64 by the end of the year with 20-24 wins, that's good.
I

I don't think the conference is good enough to keep the RPI that high with wins in the 20-24 range. And more realistically to be safely gettting an at large bid you need to be in the top 40 because every conference gets one bid free which go to teams outside the top 64 in a lot of cases.

Yeah, that's one of my concerns as well...but, if we win the WCC tourney it becomes a mute point. The last time I checked we slipped to #70 because of wins over weaker competition:

http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_Men.html

On the flipside, our losses to good competion (Kentucky, UW) actually raised our RPI because this still improved our SOS (strength of schedule)... It will be interesting to see what happens to our strength of schedule ranking as we go through league play this year.

I figure RPI calculations are a waste of time in the WCC this year. If we want to dance, it is "win the tourney" or nothing.

up7587 (Thu Dec 16, 2010 1:43 am) wrote:I figure RPI calculations are a waste of time in the WCC this year. If we want to dance, it is "win the tourney" or nothing.

DITTO!!!

According to Statsheet (and Pilotsreport.com) our SOS is projected to be 181 at the end of the year. That's compared to 127 at the end of last season.

http://statsheet.com/mcb/teams/portland

RiseUP wrote:According to Statsheet (and Pilotsreport.com) our SOS is projected to be 181 at the end of the year. That's compared to 127 at the end of last season.

http://statsheet.com/mcb/teams/portland

Good thing Oregon and Oregon State are afraid of us. OH SNAP!

RiseUP wrote:According to Statsheet (and Pilotsreport.com) our SOS is projected to be 181 at the end of the year. That's compared to 127 at the end of last season.

http://statsheet.com/mcb/teams/portland

I think it's premature to state what our SOS will be by the end of the season. Some of the WCC teams have lost to some very good teams like San Diego State...which might turn out to be one of the best teams on the west coast. I think that Gonzaga will be a better team with Elias Harris whether we like it or not as Pilots fans, and their RPI will start to go up again. I think that a win over Gonzaga in February will still be a big accomplishment...

Now that Gonzaga upset #9 Baylor yesterday there's a nice little build up for our WCC opener...

Zags at .500 in December? Not so fast! After a 5 game win streak to close out the year, the Zags are 9-5, or .643 in December. Maybe not what GU fans are used to, but they are playing good basketball now. They walloped OK St yesterday, that had lost only one game. They also beat Xavier and Lafayette, and they play at Wake Forest tomorrow. Next Saturday's game in Spokane will be a difficult a challenge, as usual.

Update: Zags also beat Wake Forest. They're baack.