Part 2…WCC scores, news, and more...

Maybe you two are talking about different games. Student Pilot is talking about Thursday's Gonzaga game. LMU played a great game for 35 minutes. Bateman, Douglas, and the two bigs were especially impressive against the number 3 team in the country. Even the pro-Zag announcers talked about it.

Didn't see that game. I watched them against Portland twice, UCLA and BYU. Guess I watched the wrong games, I'll look forward to seeing those guys in the NBA.

Saturday's other games:
GU won at USD 79-67; game was tied at half
BYU won at LMU 70-62, after trailing at half by 6
SCU beat UOP 64-59; won first half by 20, lost 2nd half by 15
SMC beat PU 72-65

Home teams went 2-3, and 3-6 for the weekend. Now home teams are 37-25 on the season.

In the conference standings, BYU maintains their 1.5 game lead over USF and SMC for the 2nd place double bye in Vegas. After those teams, there is a 2.5 to 3.5 game gap to SCU, USD, LMU and PU, who are clustered within a game of each other. UOP is stuck on 3 wins.

Triple bye, I think!

Dean Murdoch wrote:Triple bye, I think!

Yup, 1 and 2 don't play until the semi-finals on Monday.  

Based upon recent history, a GU/BYU final will be a lot more interesting in the stands than on the court!

Latest Power Rankings: wcc-power-rankings

Comment on Pilots:

Two overtime games in their last four. The Pilots are getting closer to a win. Unfortunately, their next three are on the road.

Yup.

It's almost embarrassing how much I love to see Haws, Emery, Coach Rose and the BYU fans get angry and lose.

When I tuned-in to the televised game tonight, USF was down 63-49, but the Dons caused BYU turnovers and, although one of the worst free-throw shooting teams in D1, stepped-up for some timely shots from the stripe to edge the Cougars, 77-71.

Pilots got off to a nice start in both halves tonight. Then McSwiggan came in and in both halves the offense started sputtering and USD took the lead.

Completely inexplicable why McSwiggan is playing any minutes at all at this point, let alone so many minutes per game (3rd most on the team in conference play at 28.2mpg).

Over last few games an obvious upper echelon has emerged. The best five players are Shaver, Walker, Diabate, Hogland and Franklin Porter. That should be the starting lineup. When Diabate and Hogland need rest or get into foul trouble bring in Akwuba and Tryon. But get Diabate and Hogland back out there ASAP. And When Tryon is in the game, he needs to be under strict instructions to stay inside the three-point line at all times.

For the guard/wing subs, the OBVIOUS best sub we have on the roster is Malcolm Porter. The advanced stats all show that Malcolm is clearly more efficient than either McSwiggan or Clark, yet McSwiggan still plays starter's minutes and Clark is still out there for nearly 16 minutes/game (in conference play), while Malcolm has barely seen the floor in the last several weeks.

We could have won both of the last two games if the coaches had just played the best players. I don't get it. Does McSwiggan have blackmail material on one of the coaches?

It's a puzzle. I wonder if the coaches are sticking with him out of loyalty or if they're blinded by the success he had at the beginning of his career. But if he's not giving them outside shooting he's hurting the team

NoPoNeighbor wrote:I don't get it. Does McSwiggan have blackmail material on one of the coaches?

What I don't get is how a few weeks ago you accuse DD of drunken slander for stating facts about the MBB program, and now you insinuate my friend Josh is blackmailing a coach.

I guess the recent losing streak has made us all a little cranky...

There was one key play late where McSwiggan was in the vicinty of a rebound after a missed USD shot, but just let the ball come to him and a USD player was able to outhustle him for it. And then seconds later USD hit an open three from the corner with McSwiggan unable to get there in time to really challenge the shot.

If I was coaching this team, I'd have no idea what to do with McSwiggan. He's obviously mired in a deep slump, but at the same time he was sensational for the first half of last season and had a strong start to this year as well - remember he pretty much singlehandedly kept the Pilots in the game during the first half at Colorado. I would be tempted to do just as the coaches are doing now, shake up the starting lineup but still give McSwiggan regular floor time in the hopes that he'd bust out.

I mean, he shot 44% from 3 last year, and 40% during conference games. That's down to 19% in WCC games this year after he was 41% in non-conference games. That's an insane discrepancy, and honestly it kind of reminds me how Bobby Sharp was lights-out for the Pilots in his first year and then was barely seeing the floor by the end of his second.

DoubleDipper wrote:It's almost embarrassing how much I love to see Haws, Emery, Coach Rose and the BYU fans get angry and lose.

Has anyone ever considered designing a Bobby Sharp shirt to wear just to troll BYU fans in Vegas? That would be brilliant.

(Huh, it's 2019 and I just made two consecutive posts mentioning Bobby Sharp. I like it)

Already mentioned is that USF ran down BYU in Provo, 77-71.
GU blew out PU 92-64 in Spokane.
And SMC won at UOP 58-32. That's more like a halftime score. Any know what happened?

up7587 wrote:And SMC won at UOP 58-32. That's more like a halftime score. Any know what happened?

I didn't watch the game, but the Tigers shot only 20.8% for the game, and Roberto Gallinat who was averaging 15 ppg coming into the night, was only 1 of 7 from the floor.

UOP put up only 17 second half points (UP scored only 22 in their loss to USD), so the Pilots game at SMC tomorrow could be a huge test for their anemic offense.

Dean Murdoch wrote:

DoubleDipper wrote:It's almost embarrassing how much I love to see Haws, Emery, Coach Rose and the BYU fans get angry and lose.

Has anyone ever considered designing a Bobby Sharp shirt to wear just to troll BYU fans in Vegas? That would be brilliant.

(Huh, it's 2019 and I just made two consecutive posts mentioning Bobby Sharp. I like it)

The OG three pointer was definitely Jared Stohl. Wonder what he's up to? Mitrovic was pretty lights out too until his senior year when teams started double teaming him.

SouthCarolinaPilot wrote:The OG three pointer was definitely Jared Stohl. Wonder what he's up to?

Last I heard, Jared was living in the Everett area and working as an accountant and property manager, but his real passion is as the Director of the Washington D-1 Elite Basketball Program where the "goal is to help aspiring kids learn what it takes to reach their dreams of playing college basketall.... https://d-1elite.leagueapps.com/

Not only is the website in UP purple and white, it lists a few of Jared's accomplishments:

All coaches are trained by Jared Stohl who played 4 years under Coach Eric Reveno who is currently assistant coach at Georgia Tech and was also head assistant for Stanford during their final 4 run.
 
Jared led the nation in 3pt percentage in 2010 and is currently ranked #11 this century in between JJ. Reddick and Stephen Curry.  

I bet Jared would love to return to The Bluff to give UP's current players a few pointers...if asked.

This video, with Jared's highlights, was posted by former UP player Brant Minor over six years ago, but it is still viewed.  (The intro words are from former UP assistant Eric Jackson, now an assistant at Concordia-Portland, at a UP camp)....enjoy

DoubleDipper wrote:UOP put up only 17 second half points (UP scored only 22 in their loss to USD), so the Pilots game at SMC tomorrow could be a huge test for their anemic offense.

Pilots at Pepperdine tomorrow, at SMC on Thursday

Dean Murdoch wrote:

DoubleDipper wrote:UOP put up only 17 second half points (UP scored only 22 in their loss to USD), so the Pilots game at SMC tomorrow could be a huge test for their anemic offense.

Pilots at Pepperdine tomorrow, at SMC on Thursday

Haha, yeah I recognized the error later, but then thought, "who reads this crap anyway," and left it...

DoubleDipper wrote:UP nemesis and two-time All-WCC selection, senior point guard KJ Feagin of Santa Clara, is out for the remainder of the season due to a foot injury.

According to a San Diego area sports writer's twitter, KJ has decided to grad-transfer to San Diego State.

https://twitter.com/sdutzeigler/status/1099040223382532096

GU blew out BYU 102-68
LMU won at UOP 63-56
SMC won at USD 66-46
SCU beat USF 68-65

Home teams went 3-2, 5-4 for the week. Now have a 42-29 edge (59%) overall.

The conference race has changed.  BYU's and USF's losses this week allowed SMC to take the 2nd place spot at 10-4 vs BYU's 10-5 and USF's 9-5.  SMC finishes with two home games, us and GU, so likely ends 10-6.  BYU finishes at USD.  They split the season with SMC, and lost twice to USF. USF finishes with USD and LMU at home. They split with SMC.  I don't think BYU finishes 2nd.  If they also end 10-6, SMC's split with USF should break the tie.  And USF could win out to be 11-5.  If they end up 10-6, they have the head-to-head vs BYU, which I think would also give them 2nd in a 3-way tie.  Someone please double check this.

SCU's win over USF put them at 7-7, with finishing road games at LMU at us.  So we know they'll be no better than 8-8 .  LMU, USD and PU are 6-8. 6-8, and 6-9 respectively. LMU is hosting SCU and finishing at USF; they might get 7 wins. USD has lost their last four non-UP games, and end on the road at USF and BYU.  They are likely to finish with 6 wins.  PU finishes at home with UOP, so likely to get 7 wins.  If form plays out, then UP, UOP, USD and either PU or LMU play on Thursday in Vegas.

The bad news is, if SCU loses at LMU on Thursday, they'll be looking to get out of the 7-win scrum on Saturday.  If they win on Thursday, Saturday's game shouldn't matter much for seeding.

USD is still #107 (WCC 5th) in KenPom, but likely to end up in the first round games.  SCU is #187 (WCC 8th), UOP is #221, and UP is #318.  So two teams with higher KenPom ratings than SCU are likely to end up playing Friday Thursday.

up7587 wrote:Someone please double check this.

According to BYUTV guy on Twitter...

@Spencer_Linton wrote:1) Head-to-Head

2) Go down standings — until tied teams haven’t played a foe same # of times (complicated if so).

3) In case of 3-way tie, USF = 2 seed (3-1 vs BYU/SMC). Then, BYU & SMC split (both theoretically 0-2 vs Zags), but Gaels are 1-1 vs 2 seed USF. So SMC = 3. BYU = 4

Statistically, this would be the most likely result after Saturday's games...

1 Gonzaga 16-0
2 USF 11-5 *3-1 against SMC/BYU
3 SMC 11-5 *1-1 against USF
4 BYU 11-5
5 SCU 8-8
6 Pepp 7-9 *1-1 against SMC (?)
7 LMU 7-9
8 USD 6-10
9 Pac 3-13
10 Port 0-16

But I have no idea if I've done the Pepperdine/LMU tiebreaker correctly for 6/7. They split their two games this year. According to tweet above, you "go down standings until tied teams haven’t played a foe same # of times (complicated if so)" - okay so they haven't played any of the top four seeds the same number of times. With LMU's record listed first and Pepperdine second, the two teams are 0-2 and 0-1 against Gonzaga. 0-1 and 0-2 against USF. 0-1 and 1-1 against SMC. 0-2 and 0-1 against BYU. 1-1 and 0-2 against Santa Clara.

So does Pepperdine's win over the Gaels hold up as the tiebreaker? Or is it discounted because LMU only played them once, and they use the LMU win over SCU because that's the highest seed that they both played twice? Or does the fact that LMU lost to SMC at home hold any weight?



Edit: Thinking out loud here, I wonder if the tiebreaker is actually going down standings taking into account common venue. So LMU and Pepperdine were both 0-1 against Gonzaga away and 0-1 against USF away. But Pepperdine was 1-0 against SMC at home and LMU was 0-1 against the Gaels at home, so give the breaker to Pepperdine? Then you're at least accounting for where the game was played.

Ha, I was not trying to be funny when I suggested SMC finishes 10-6 after playing us and GU. I just fubar'd my numbers. Thanks for fixing the projected final records. At least I was right in thinking BYU drops from 2nd to 4th. Two weeks ago I thought they were locked into 2nd, but USF stole it from them.

That actually screwed me up for an embarrassingly lengthy amount of time. I was one win off at the top and could not for the life of me figure out where I'd gone wrong!