luke sikma – Rush The Court

RTC Summer Updates: West Coast Conference

Brian Goodman — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 21:06:40 +0000

With the completion of the NBA Draft and the annual coaching and transfer carousels nearing their ends, RTC is rolling out a new series, RTC Summer Updates, to give you a crash course on each Division I conference during the summer months. Our first update is from the West Coast Conference and comes courtesy of Will Green, an editor and writer with The Slipper Still Fits.

Readers’ Take One

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Summer Storylines

Brigham Young University Joins The Conference: When this story was first reported back in September, it was largely forgotten. BYU’s move was a [...]

Season in Review: By the (Jersey) Numbers

rtmsf — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 20:44:19 +0000

Andrew Murawa is an RTC contributor. When he’s not traveling all night to get to Vegas, Los Angeles, Tucson or Anaheim to cover games in the southwestern quadrant of the country, he’s acting as the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West and Pac-10 Conferences and writing about whatever strikes his basketball fancy.

When it comes to wrapping up a college basketball season, I have a hard time doing an All-American team, because, for one, it just seems hard to narrow down four and a half months of basketball to just five names (or even ten or 15 if [...]

WCC Wrap-up and Postseason Primer

Brian Goodman — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:52:35 +0000

Michael Vernetti is the RTC correspondent for the West Coast Conference.

Power Rankings and Postseason Outlook

1) Saint Mary’s (24-8, 11-3). The record puts them slightly ahead of Gonzaga, but the Gaels would gladly trade places with the Zags as the NCAA Tournament looms. Without an automatic bid, the Gaels and their mediocre out-of-conference record are at the mercy of the NCAA Selection Committee. Hope for the Big Dance, but consider the NIT a strong possibility.

2) Gonzaga (24-9, 11-3), WCC Tournament Champions, recipient of automatic NCAA bid. How well a rugged out-of-conference schedule will [...]

Set Your Tivo: 02.03.11

Brian Otskey — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 18:01:15 +0000

***** – quit your job and divorce your wife if that’s what it takes to watch this game live **** – best watched live, but if you must, tivo and watch it tonight as soon as you get home *** – set your tivo but make sure you watch it later ** – set your tivo but we’ll forgive you if it stays in the queue until 2013 * – don’t waste bandwidth (yours or the tivo’s) of any kind on this game

Brian Otskey is an RTC contributor.

Another Thursday night of mediocre power conference games means the mid-majors [...]

Checking in on… the WCC

Brian Goodman — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 22:47:36 +0000

Michael Vernetti is the RTC correspondent for the West Coast Conference.

A Look Back

It’s been mostly preliminary skirmishing in conference play so far, but the race heats up next week with some key showdown games. Saint Mary’s (4-0) and Gonzaga (3-0) remained undefeated in conference play, with Portland and San Francisco tied for third with 2-1 marks. Santa Clara (1-2) kept a half-game lead over Loyola Marymount, which continued to struggle at 1-3, the same record as Pepperdine, while San Diego (0-4) is still searching for its first win.

Saint Mary’s boasts the conference’s longest winning streak at ten in a row, [...]

ATB: Ow, My Eyes!

jstevrtc — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 09:45:29 +0000

The Lede. Thursday night was angry because it had to follow Wednesday night’s ridiculous bounty of hoops and the Florida State upset of Duke. Still, there were some compelling storylines to follow on tonight’s slate, including a streak on the line at Minnesota, some serious glare coming off the Jackson Pollock painting that is Oregon’s new floor, and whether or not Seth Greenberg and Virginia Tech would have enough players to finish their game at North Carolina.

Your Watercooler Moment. For those in the East who stayed up long enough to see it, here’s a look at [...]

Checking in on… the WCC

Brian Goodman — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 22:32:48 +0000

Michael Vernetti is the RTC correspondent for the West Coast Conference.

A Look Back

With the pre-conference season all wrapped up, let’s look all the way back to October and the WCC coaches poll for a reset on conference expectations. The coaches overwhelmingly picked Gonzaga to finish first, giving the Zags 48 total votes and six for first place. By a total of 42 to 39 they also picked Loyola Marymount to finish second over Saint Mary’s, Santa Clara (28 votes) to finish fourth and Portland (25 votes) fifth. How would the coaches vote if the [...]

Checking in on… the WCC

Brian Goodman — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 04:42:59 +0000

Michael Vernetti is the RTC correspondent for the West Coast Conference.

A Look Back

It was a slow, after-finals week for most WCC teams, but the pace picks up considerably this weekend. Early-season top dogs Saint Mary’s and Portland cruised to expected wins – the Gaels by a score of 75-56 over UC Riverside at home and the Pilots in a closer-than-expected 71-64 win at Denver – and Gonzaga continued its slide against Top 25 teams, losing to Notre Dame in South Bend to fall to 4-5 for the first time in many people’s memory. Loyola-Marymount and San Francisco [...]

Checking in on… the WCC

Brian Goodman — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 00:42:17 +0000

Michael Vernetti is the RTC correspondent for the West Coast Conference.

A Look Back

It began as a whisper earlier in the season, but recent events have given it full throat – the WCC is down this year. Gonzaga, which has waved the conference’s banner brilliantly for over a decade, has stumbled to a 4-4 record, most recently Wednesday’s 81-59 beat-down at Washington State. Saint Mary’s, coming off a Sweet Sixteen year with high expectations, has whiffed in its only two statement games, losses to BYU (close, 74-73) and to San Diego State (not so close, [...]

ATB: Don’t Give Up, Don’t Ever Give Up…

rtmsf — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 09:22:55 +0000

The Lede. Monday night was one of the lightest weekday nights you’ll see this season, with only a handful of games on the docket and only a couple that seemed to have any potential (they didn’t, as it turned out). So we’ll use this opportunity to prep for Tuesday night’s Jimmy V Classic, featuring four ranked teams: #4 Kansas, #6 Michigan State, #14 Syracuse and #18 Memphis. It’s an exceptional group of teams that should make for a double-header that will have the Garden rocking. But if you want breakdowns on the games, we encourage you to read [...]

Set Your Tivo: 12.06.10

Brian Otskey — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 19:41:32 +0000

Brian Otskey is an RTC contributor.

Tonight is one of the lightest nights of the season [...]

Checking in on… the WCC

Brian Goodman — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 21:53:50 +0000

Michael Vernetti is the RTC correspondent for the WCC Conference

A Look Back

Saint Mary’s lost two out of three from tough opponents outside Moraga, Gonzaga got a brief respite from its grueling pre-conference schedule and Portland righted itself after losses to two tough foes. The expectation of a pulse from pre-season darling Loyola-Marymount was raised by a win over Long Beach State (then dashed by a loss to UC Santa Barbara), and the rest of the pack stumbled along with no break-out performances.

Player of the Week

Portland’s unapologetic three-point bomber, Jared Stohl, shot himself [...]

Checking in on… the WCC

Brian Goodman — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 04:12:19 +0000

Michael Vernetti is the RTC correspondent for the West Coast Conference.

Looking Back

With an overall record of 24-16 through games of Nov. 23, the WCC might appear to be cruising along in the non-conference portion of the 2010-11 season. But looks can be deceiving, as only Gonzaga and Portland have faced challenging schedules so far while the rest have been staging versions of Patsy of the Week. Saint Mary’s is the poster child for weak competition, as Randy Bennett’s Gaels have romped over College of Idaho, Point Loma Nazarene, Mississippi Valley State and, [...]

Set Your Tivo: 11.23.10

Brian Otskey — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 19:06:14 +0000

Brian Otskey is an RTC contributor.

Two good games from both Kansas City and Maui involving six [...]

RTC 2010-11 Impact Players – Northwest Region

rtmsf — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 17:05:15 +0000

Welcome to our RTC Impact Players series. The braintrust has gone back and forth on this and we’ve finally settled on a group of sixty players throughout ten geographic regions of the country (five starters plus a sixth man) to represent the who and where of players you should be watching this season. Seriously, if you haven’t seen every one of these players ball at least once by the end of February, then you need to figure out a way to get a better television package. As always in a subjective analysis such as this, some of our decisions were [...]