2024-25 Around the WCC and the NCAA

Projected national rank and conference records via Bart Torvik's awesome site -

https://barttorvik.com/conf.php?conf=WCC

#8 Gonzaga (15-3)
#40 Saint Mary's (13-5)
#84 San Francisco (11-7)
#86 Washington St (12-6)
#99 Santa Clara (11-7)
#140 Oregon St (9-9)
#142 Loyola Marymount (9-9)
#239 Pepperdine (6-12)
#268 Portland (5-13)
#293 San Diego (4-14)
#323 Pacific (4-14)

Portland's #268 ranking is based on Masic, Austin, MacKinnon, Bol, and Jones starting with Webb and Lemke/Gebbers coming off the bench. I'd say that's very much in the general ballpark especially when we consider he's doing this for 364 teams, but obviously we expect Oakman and Rapp to be in there as well.

Ken Pomeroy has come out with his 2025 predictions.

He rates the WCC the 9th best conference; last season the WCC finished 11th, with GU at #9, SMC at #20, and UP #299 out of 362.

1. SEC
2. Big 12
3. Big Ten
4. Big East
5. ACC
6. Mountain West!
7. Atlantic 10
8. American
9. WCC

This season KenPom predicts UP to be #274 out 364 D1 teams with a WCC record of 5-13.

DoubleDipper wrote:This season KenPom predicts UP to be #274 out 364 D1 teams with a WCC record of 5-13.

In other words, a tie breaker away from the play-in game.

Just gotta boat race UCSB by about 25 in the opener, should vault the Pilots up to projected 8-win territory. Easy peasy

No surprises here, tied for eighth with USD and no one on the preseason All-WCC team.

Here's the video of the WCC media day.  
https://www.youtube.com/live/SyWvclmcmsg

Mackinnon and Masic along with Legans represent UP.  When asked which freshman is standing out, Mackinnon said Austin Rapp, and Masic said Todd Jones.

UP discussion starts at 1:42.

As most know by now, Virginia coach Tony Bennett announced his retirement from the game yesterday just before the beginning of his 16th season leading the Cavaliers.

His press conference was over 30-minutes long, but this short version gives some of the excellent reasons for his retirement...reasons that many of us on this forum have expressed publicly and privately about the state of college athletics.

DoubleDipper wrote:As most know by now, Virginia coach Tony Bennett announced his retirement from the game yesterday just before the beginning of his 16th season leading the Cavaliers.

His press conference was over 30-minutes long, but this short version gives some of the excellent reasons for his retirement...reasons that many of us on this forum have expressed publicly and privately about the state of college athletics.

When Nick Saban left Alabama, he said it was because he didn't have enough "salary cap," at of all places the SEC powerhouse. Now we have Bennett leaving with related concerns, suggesting that the college game is not only  unhealthy, it is becoming more of a "professional model."

Whatever chaos is now present in the college game with the transfer portal and NIL payments, a realistic question  is whether an institution the size of our beloved Alma Mater can continue to compete at the D1 level?