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?

College hoops start tomorrow!

Santa Clara/Saint Louis and Baylor/Gonzaga should be fun.

What do you all want to do for Pilots games this year? A thread for each game, or one thread for the whole season?

Dean Murdoch wrote:What do you all want to do for Pilots games this year? A thread for each game, or one thread for the whole season?

Hmm, good question.

How many visitors to this site, of which there are quite a few, actually contribute instead of merely reading?  If it is left to just two or three to faithfully start a game thread two to three times a week, is the time doing research and posting worth the effort?

PilotNation was once a very active site with many contributors, but now it is simply where many go to find the information not provided by the "official" sites.  Everyday someone says how much they enjoy reading PilotNation, but "no, I have nothing to contribute, so I don't."  

My answer is, "but everyone has an opinion or a reaction, and it would be a great boost to this site if we could have civil discussions about UP athletics and sports in general."

This year's version of the MBB will likely take a while to jell and discover how to win, in the meantime, will PilotNation readers and contributors lose interest and find they are more interested in WBB or something else?

Perhaps, if there is enough interest, we could just have one preseason thread for Pilots basketball and this thread, "2024-25 Around the WCC and NCCA," and if the team is going well and fans are interested, we can start a thread for each Pilots WCC game.

What do others think?  Speak up!

Bless me father (DD) for I have sinned.  

As a faithful reader and only very occasional contributor, I recall times last year when nobody would comment on a game, before or after.  It was always disappointing.  

I firmly resolve, with the help of thy grace, to sin no more and to (increase my contributions).

To your suggestion:
I like the idea of a Pilot preseason thread,
A Pilot conference games thread,
Other WCC games and news,
Other NCAA games and news.

Gotta go start on my Our Fathers and Hail Marys

I don't like the mega threads as I often try to go back and refer to something I remember reading, and I often struggle to find it on the mega threads. For some reason, I have no luck using the "search" function. So I like Bullwinkle's suggestion.

bullwinkle wrote:As a faithful reader and only very occasional contributor, I recall times last year when nobody would comment on a game, before or after.  It was always disappointing.  

Let's face it, last year's team was very disappointing and there wasn't much positive to say.

I like the idea of a Pilots MBB preseason thread and then a Pilots MBB WCC game thread once the regular season begins. 

We already have an NCAA/WCC thread, but I guess it could be refreshed.

It seems Dean, Up7587, and DD always do the work of starting game threads, but ANYONE is free to start them...I will attempt to do better.