2021-22 Other Games

Well here is why BYU is in no hurry to reschedule the game at Chiles



I thought we were back to straight-up seeding by W/L, but apparently not. I'm guessing the bottom four would currently be ordered #7 Pacific, #8 LMU, #9 Portland, #10 Pepperdine?

There are always an unequal number of games contested so Gonzaga can schedule out of conference cupcakes in the Mcarthey Center.

In the 2/5 games, GU had a wire-to-wire blowout in Provo, 90-57.
SMC put away LMU 71-60, in a game that was fairly close most of 2nd half.
SCU went to USD and won 79-66 with a big first half.
PU got off the schneid with a 70-64 win at home against UOP.

Standings
GU 8-0, with SMC right behind at 7-1.
USF and SCU tied a 6-3.
USD at 6-5, and BYU at 5-5.
Pilots and UOP still tied at 2-6.
LMU at 2-7, and PU at 1-9.

On the strength of their victory over the Pilots, Saint Mary's has entered the top 25 for the first time this season at #22.

In the other 2/8 WCC games, UOP had a non-conference game against #21 USC.  They led by 8 points at half, but gave up 52 points in the 2nd half, and lost 74-68.

SCU hosted #22 SMC, and beat them 77-72.  The fans rushed the court, as SCU had lost 44 consecutive games to ranked teams.  Oh, and Randy Bennett did not blow-by his coaching twin Herb Sendek.  

Remember that talk about 4 WCC teams to the Big Dance?  Not so fast.

The updated standings:
GU    8-0
SMC  7-2
SCU  7-3
USF  6-4
USD  6-5
BYU  5-5
UP    3-6
UOP  2-6
LMU  2-7
PU    1-9

The Pilots are up to #208 in KenPom rankings.  The next four games are home games, and three of the teams are behind the Pilots in the standings.  Hope Meadows gets better soon.

NoPoNeighbor wrote:On the strength of their victory over the Pilots, Saint Mary's has entered the top 25 for the first time this season at #22.

I expect that didn’t last long.

In case anyone was wondering about the impact of the Pilots' big win last night on the chances of a #4BidWCC, here's some early returns:

"San Francisco lost at home to Portland, an untimely Quad 4 loss for the Dons.  One bad night doesn’t undo an otherwise solid season, but it still stings." - Dave Ommen of the Bracketville site (https://bracketville.wordpress.com/seed-list/) still has Gonzaga as a 1 seed, SMC as a 9 seed, USF still with one of the last four byes as a 10 seed, and BYU in as one of the play-in games for a 12 seed.

Same deal with Joe Lunardi - https://twitter.com/ESPNLunardi/status/1491532967449141249 - USF as one of the last four byes, BYU as one of the "last four in" play-in games.

USF has four games in eight days.  Their next game is home against PU.  Then they go to SCU, to UOP, and to SMC.  They finish the year hosting GU and at USD.  Not many gimees in that list.

BYU plays LMU and PU twice, with a game at SMC in the middle.

SMC plays USD, at GU, USF, BYU, at USD, and finishes hosting GU.

On 2/10, GU cruised past USD in Spokane 89-51.
USF took out their anger about losing on Saturday, put up 60 in the first half on PU, and won 105-61.
SMC thumped USD 86-57.
LMU hosted BYU, and built a 17 point lead early in the 2nd half. BYU came back, tied the game with 13 minutes left, and it was neck-and-neck the rest of the way. Eli Scott made a layup to tie the game with 2 seconds left, and they went to OT. Neither team led by more than 2 in OT, and BYU had the last shot. LMU fouled the shooter with 1 second left. He made the 1st FT, missed the next on purpose, and LMU couldn't get a shot off. BYU 83-82.

On 2/12, no upsets in WCC.
GU handles SMC, 74-58.
USF went to SCU and beat them 74-58.
USD hosted UOP and won 60-54.
BYU went to last place PU and won 91-86.

Pilots solidly in 7th place.  3-1 against the teams in 8th,9th & 10th.  1-5 against the top six teams.

I’m pretty sure there have only been two victories by teams in the bottom-5 of the WCC standings over teams in the top half. Pilots over USF, and Pacific over BYU.

up7587 wrote:
USF went to SCU and beat them 74-58.

Karma?

up7587 wrote:Pilots solidly in 7th place.  3-1 against the teams in 8th,9th & 10th.  1-5 against the top six teams.

Kenpom has the Pilots favored in the next three games (including this Thursday against USD) and underdogs at SCU.

Kenpom also has USD as underdogs in their remaining three games. They host SMC and USF on the 24th and 26th to finish off WCC play.

That would put the Pilots at 7-7 and USD at 7-9.

To put it simply, the Pilots have every reason to still be aiming for that 6 seed in Vegas. Thursday's game should go a long way towards deciding that!

You'd think the WCC will be putting out its first Kenpom AdjWP standings tomorrow. This is about the time they started with them last year.

KenPom has the Pilots up to 204, and LMU is 202. (We need a seminar on the ranking statistics methodology and how to read the adjustments, etc.) USD is 182.

In the Net rankings, Pilots moved up from 212 to 202. One Quad 1 win in 6 games. 0-2 in Quad 2, 1-4 in Quad 3, and 10-1 in Quad 4. Switched places with LMU, as they went from 203 to 212. I am guessing the Quad 4 loss is the home loss to San Jose St., when they made 17 of 33 3's. They are 6-17 on the year in D-1 games.

Just watched LMU game - great effort.
Question - since Santa Clara won’t play us....
What tickets do we use for Bushnell?

Snus Junction wrote:Just watched LMU game - great effort.
Question - since Santa Clara won’t play us....
What tickets do we use for Bushnell?

Use the same tickets. They will honor them

I see FOX sports is living up to the journalistic rigour FOX news pioneered.

Geezaldinho wrote:I see FOX sports is living up to the journalistic rigour FOX news pioneered.

Nothing to do with Fox - it's a news bot from AP that all the news providers aggregate.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/santa-clara-visits-portland-following-robertsons-31-point-outing/2022/02/13/3dbd7e82-8c98-11ec-838f-0cfdf69cce3c_story.html

https://www.sanluisobispo.com/sports/article258351218.html

Two random thoughts -

If the WCC comes out with the Kenpom standings tomorrow, I’m guessing the Pilots would be in 6th. Yes, 5-6 vs 7-7 but UP’s away win over USF must be worth so much more than USD’s away win over LMU. And USD’s other two wins are games upcoming on Portland’s schedule (home to Pepperdine, away to Pacific).

The amount of BYU fans calling out Santa Clara on Twitter for cancelling the game is amusing me greatly. I wonder why they think the BYU @ Portland game was never rescheduled

Dean Murdoch wrote:If the WCC comes out with the Kenpom standings tomorrow, I’m guessing the Pilots would be in 6th. Yes, 5-6 vs 7-7 but UP’s away win over USF must be worth so much more than USD’s away win over LMU. And USD’s other two wins are games upcoming on Portland’s schedule (home to Pepperdine, away to Pacific).

Nothing to do with KenPom, but the NET has the Pilots in 6th, having moved up from 200 to 187 and USD dropping from 192 to 207.

1 Gonzaga
20 Saint Mary's (CA)
33 San Francisco
51 BYU
75 Santa Clara
187 Portland
207 San Diego
210 LMU (CA)
282 Pepperdine
283 Pacific

I see Joe Lunardi’s bracketology site currently lists BYU as first team out.

I wonder where they could pick up another game to try and better their prospects?

Geezaldinho wrote:I wonder where they could pick up another game to try and better their prospects?

Problem is that a Q3 result at this point does BYU no good. And the Kenpom AdjWP means it might not do them any good in terms of Vegas seeding. Who knows?

I'm just sitting here waiting for up7587 to create the Pepperdine game thread. Dude is on an absolute heater and we should be riding the hot hand around here

Dean Murdoch wrote:

Geezaldinho wrote:I wonder where they could pick up another game to try and better their prospects?

Problem is that a Q3 result at this point does BYU no good. And the Kenpom AdjWP means it might not do them any good in terms of Vegas seeding. Who knows?

I'm just sitting here waiting for up7587 to create the Pepperdine game thread. Dude is on an absolute heater and we should be riding the hot hand around here

I mentioned this to Scott and he said we could have played BYU if Santa Clara hadn’t locked down the date.

Geezaldinho wrote:

Dean Murdoch wrote:

Geezaldinho wrote:I wonder where they could pick up another game to try and better their prospects?

Problem is that a Q3 result at this point does BYU no good. And the Kenpom AdjWP means it might not do them any good in terms of Vegas seeding. Who knows?

I mentioned this to Scott and he said we could have played BYU if Santa Clara hadn’t locked down the date.

Yet another reason to look for Karma next Saturday.

On 2/19/22:
GU beat SCU 81-69
SMC had a 16 point lead with 8 minutes to go, then BYU closed within 3. Barcello missed a chance to tie, and SMC made 2 FTs. SMC wins 69-64.
UOP was down 3 with a minute to go, made2 FTs, got a steal and made the go ahead score with 15 seconds to go, and beat LMU 69-68.

Pilots tied for 6th place on percentages with USD, a half-game behind BYU.