Next Season

And so it begins, here is a pretty good look at the WCC for next year. This has Portland finishing 6th in the conference despite losing its frontcourt. Of course we know that replacing Kevin's scoring will also have to be addressed.
This report also picks Pepperdine to replace one of the "big 3" and finish behind GU and BYU. Santa Clara also gets some love, picking the Broncos to place in the top 5.

I dont know, if Hartwich can pull a Kelly O and gain some weight, work on his footwork etc, I think he could provide some inside presence. Bryce and Alec will be solid and Todd, Tyson and Taylor all gained game time experience and should be ready to have a great sophomore campaign.


http://basketballpredictions.blogspot.com/2015/04/2015-16-preview-mid-majors-part-i.html#WCC

Among the returning players, D'Marques and Bryce need to fill the scoring gap left by Kevin.  I find it interesting that in the 3 league games Kevin scored his most points after his return, they were all losses.  In the 8 games he missed plus the PSU game he only played 11 minutes, no points, the team was 5-4, with two OT losses.  IOW, Kevin playing well did not guarantee wins, and the team won games without him. Not saying he was not important, just that the results did not hinge solely on his presence or performance.

With Bryce, we need to see much better consistency.  He had 10 games he scored in double figures, and 10 games he scored 5 or fewer points, not including the two games he missed. Hopefully, since the back-end if his season was much better than the front-end for scoring, that will carry over to next year.

Alec had 17 games in double figures, and only 6 with five or fewer points.  Interesting the analysis called him the best player on last year's team. He could be poised for a big season next year.

It looks like the analysis did not consider transfers; at least they didn't mention Tollefson leaving USF.  It will be interesting to see what transfers come into the league. 

Pacific should be better, but enough to move into the middle group? USD with a new coach, how will they respond?

Obviously much too soon to get too serious about the order of finish next year, but at least it gets the conversation going....and I'm sure that's all the article was meant to do.

Pretty tough to make predictions beyond the Top-2 without knowing who's transferring to the various teams and whether any of the freshman are to be considered "immediate impact" players.  For most players, the leap from high school to D1 is immense, but the transfers, especially ones like Jarrel Marshall who is three years out of high school, should be able to contribute right away.

I agree that PU should be a contender to break into the 3rd spot....and I also believe it will be very hard to predict how USD, USF, UOP, LMU, and UP will perform until they've actually played five or six games and figure out their new rosters.

It will be important for these teams to have "reasonable" schedules while each team learns to work together as a unit.....and from what we know, the UP schedule is "reasonable" with only 3 away games (PSU, Colorado, and UC-Davis).

I expect the WCC as a whole to have a down year next season. My prediction is that Pepperdine, Santa Clara and Pacific should be better, but the other 7 teams will all be worse than they were in '14-'15.

Too many top players are departing from all 7 rosters:

GU: Pangos, Bell, Wesley
BYU: Haws, Winder
SMC: Waldow, Bright, Simmons
USD: Dee, Anderson
UP: van der Mars, Gerun, Bailey
USF: Glover, Tollefsen, Pickens
LMU: Payne, Siame

Gonzaga and BYU will probably still be the top 2, but Pepperdine and Santa Clara have a chance to move up past some teams they finished behind this year. Everyone else will be struggling to hold their ground.

up7587 wrote:It looks like the analysis did not consider transfers; at least they didn't mention Tollefson leaving USF. 

It obviously depends who Coach Walters brings in, but IMO the loss of Mark Tollefson will be a tough blow for USF to overcome.   My two favorite players in the WCC last year were Tollefson and BYU's Kyle Collinsworth, with only a slight edge to the latter.

From what I'm hearing and reading, Arizona, UW, Cal, UCLA, and San Diego St. are all vying for Tollefson's services next year.  Cal would seem the likely choice as it's very close to his home and he likely grew up a Cal fan, but it probably depends upon where he can get the best post-graduate degree....

DoubleDipper wrote:it probably depends upon where he can get the best post-graduate degree....

DoubleDipper wrote:

From what I'm hearing and reading, Arizona, UW, Cal, UCLA, and San Diego St. are all vying for Tollefson's services next year.  Cal would seem the likely choice as it's very close to his home and he likely grew up a Cal fan,

There was some talk on DonsCentral about a girlfriend in So. Cal., so maybe SDS?

NoPoNeighbor wrote:I expect the WCC as a whole to have a down year next season. My prediction is that Pepperdine, Santa Clara and Pacific should be better, but the other 7 teams will all be worse than they were in '14-'15.

NoPoNeighbor wrote:Gonzaga and BYU will probably still be the top 2, but Pepperdine and Santa Clara have a chance to move up past some teams they finished behind this year.

Hard to argue against any of this, really.

I suppose a wildcard at this point would be what BYU's roster will actually look like next year with all the players leaving for/returning from missions. Another one, how many fifth-year transfers Bennett gets down to SMC.

As for the original article…I thought it was actually pretty well written for what we know at this point.

Thought we could bring this back this prediction thread from April 2015 and see how accurate some of the thoughts turned out to be.  The article in the original post had this finish order prediction:
1. Gonzaga
2. BYU
3. Pepperdine
4. Saint Mary's
5. Santa Clara
6. Portland

So neither the writer nor any PN commenters saw SMC coming this year.  Bennett's COY award is undisputedly deserved. The love for Pepperdine didn't hold up, as they had too many inexplicable losses that offset their SMC sweep.  But they still finished ahead of everyone not in the Big 3.  And USF out-performed expectations.  Much as we think Rex is a big jerk, and runs players out of town in the blink of an eye, his team won some games.

One poster above nailed some thoughts:

Among the returning players, D'Marques and Bryce need to fill the scoring gap left by Kevin.

Alec had 17 games in double figures, and only 6 with five or fewer points.  Interesting the analysis called him the best player on last year's team. He could be poised for a big season next year.

 

NoPo had some good predictions, too.

NoPoNeighbor wrote:I expect the WCC as a whole to have a down year next season. My prediction is that Pepperdine, Santa Clara and Pacific should be better, but the other 7 teams will all be worse than they were in '14-'15.

Terry Cahill wrote:Do we have to concede a top four spot to St Mary's already? Losing Waldow would be a big enough hit...but they also lose Jackson, Simmons, Carter, and Bright. Five of their top six contributors, with Naar as the only one of that group returning. I know they expect Joe Rahon to be good, but they need a TON of guys to step up if they want to assume their usual lofty standing in a quality conference.

I've said it before, basketball knowledge is not a prerequisite to post on this forum and I proved it again with this one! Never count out SMC under Bennett, I suppose. Lesson learned.