As the season rolls along into mid-February, we are about to hit the one-month mark until Selection Sunday. This weekend has a number of match-ups that will play a role in deciding conference titles and bubble trouble. Here are 10 questions I have heading into this weekend’s action.

1. Which MAC team will bolster its resume? (Buffalo @ Toledo, Friday 7 PM EST, ESPNU) Buffalo and Toledo lead their respective divisions in the MAC heading into this showdown of 20-win teams. A win at Toledo would give the Bulls a Quadrant 1 victory that could be the difference on the bubble come Selection Sunday if the Bulls ultimately do not win the MAC Tournament.
2. Can Kentucky stay alive in the race for the SEC regular season title? (Tennessee @ Kentucky, Saturday 8 PM EST, ESPN) The Wildcats’ mid-week loss to LSU pushed them two games behind the SEC-leading Volunteers. In SEC play, no team has logged a better offensive efficiency than Tennessee while Kentucky leads the way defensively. Cleaning up the defensive backboard will be a big key for both sides in what appears to be the game of the weekend.
3. How much trouble can Bruno Fernando cause for the Michigan defense? (Maryland @ Michigan, Saturday Noon EST, Fox) Maryland’s Bruno Fernando has grabbed 10 or more rebounds in each of his past seven games. Fernando owns the Big Ten’s second best defensive rebounding rate and the third best offensive rebounding rate. While Michigan sits just outside of the top 20 in opponents’ offensive rebounding rate, they just surrendered 12 offensive boards in Tuesday night’s loss at Penn State.
4. Can Baylor sweep Texas Tech? (Baylor @ Texas Tech, Saturday 2 PM EST, ESPN) After falling behind 23-10 to Texas Tech in the teams’ first match-up, Baylor went on to win 73-62. The Bears forced the Red Raiders into 17 turnovers, including a career-high seven from Jarrett Culver.
5. If San Diego’s offense ticks again, can it get enough defense to give Gonzaga a scare? (Gonzaga @ San Diego, Saturday 10 PM EST, ESPN) While Gonzaga won by a comfortable 16 points at home against San Diego, the Toreros did not lose a single 10-minute segment of the game by more than five points. Any hope of slowing Gonzaga down begins with the Toreros doing a better job of not turning the ball over as much as they did the first time around.
6. Can NC State make it three in a row against Duke? (N.C. State @ Duke, Saturday 6 PM EST, ESPN) An NC State victory on February 24, 1988 represents the last time the Wolfpack won three straight games against Duke. In the two teams’ most recent match-up, Duke shot a mere 3-of-15 from behind the arc and Kevin Keatts’ squad put six players into double-figure scoring.
7. Is Minnesota a loss away from being on the wrong side of the bubble? (Indiana @ Minnesota, Saturday 2 PM EST, ESPN2) Having now dropped four straight games, Minnesota sits at 16-9 overall and 6-8 in Big Ten play. With games remaining against Michigan, Maryland and Purdue, the Gophers need to rack up wins everywhere they can. Indiana comes into this game as losers of nine of its last 10 games.
8. Does a win at Dayton open up VCU’s path to an at-large bid? (VCU @ Dayton, Saturday 4 PM EST, NBC Sports Network) VCU is quietly sitting just outside of the top 40 in the NET Rankings. With four of the Rams’ final six games coming at home and with no further games against a KenPom top-130 opponent left on the schedule, the Rams could rack up enough wins to be selected even if they were not to win the Atlantic 10 Tournament.
9. Can Kansas State stay two games clear of second place in the Big 12? (Iowa State @ Kansas State, Saturday 4 PM EST, ESPN2) At 9-2 in the Big 12, Bruce Weber’s Wildcats are now two games in front of a quartet of Big 12 teams. Kansas State has won eight of nine games since the return of Dean Wade from injury — the senior has scored 10 or more points in eight straight contests and is just one of two players taller than 6’6″ who ranks among the league’s top 20 in assist rate.
10. How does Lipscomb respond to a mid-week loss? (Lipscomb @ Kennesaw State, Saturday 4:30 PM EST, ESPN+) Despite losing on Wednesday night to Liberty, Lipscomb remains in the NET Rankings top 40. With few resume-building wins and no opportunities for statement victories outside of an Atlantic Sun championship game win over Liberty, Lipscomb must avoid another loss the rest of the way.

Michael Vernetti is the Rush the Court’s correspondent for the West Coast Conference.

2015-16 Projected Order of Finish

Same As It Ever Was in 2015 as Gonzaga Won Another WCC Trophy

1. Gonzaga (35-3, 17-1 in the WCC)
2. BYU (25-10, 13-5)
3. Saint Mary’s (21-10, 13-5)
4. Pepperdine (18-14, 10-8)
5. San Diego (15-16, 8-10)
6. Santa Clara (14-18, 7-11)
7. San Francisco (14-18, 7-11)
8. Pacific (12-19, 4-14)
9. Portland (17-16, 7-11)
10. LMU (8-23, 4-14)

Player of the Year

• Kyle Wiltjer, 6’10” senior forward, Gonzaga

Rookie of the Year

• Anthony Townes, 6’6″ freshman forward, Pacific

All-Conference First Team

• Kyle Collinsworth, G, BYU, 6’6″, 210
• Jared Brownridge, G, Santa Clara, 6’2″, 190
• Josh Perkins, G, Gonzaga, 6’3″, 185
• Stacy Davis, F, Pepperdine, 6’6″, 235
• Kyle Wiltjer, F, Gonzaga, 6’10”, 240

Read the rest of this entry »

Throughout the season, the Other 26 microsite will run down our weekly superlatives, including team, player, coach and whatever else strikes our fancy in that week’s edition.

O26 Team of the Week

Pepperdine. Entering last week, you know how many WCC teams had beaten BYU in the Marriott Center since it joined the conference in 2012? Four, and Pepperdine wasn’t one of them. In fact, the Waves had lost their previous three contests there by an average of 25 points per game. So when Marty Wilson’s team went to Provo and beat the Cougars in wire-to-wire fashion on Thursday night, yeah, it was kind of a big deal. The six-point win turned heads and garnered Pepperdine some positive national attention for the first time in a long while (the game was on ESPNU). And as for the Waves’ encore victory at San Diego on Saturday? That win may have propelled Wilson’s club into the upper echelon of the conference.

Pepperdine stunned BYU in the Marriott Center on Thursday. (AP Photo/The Daily Herald, Ian Maule)

Defense has been Pepperdine’s M.O. this season and it put that stinginess on full display against BYU. The Waves, which entered the contest tops in the country at taking away the three-point line, held the oft-scorching Cougars (15-of-28 threes in their previous game) to just 23 percent (6-of-26) from behind the arc. BYU’s high-scoring, hyper-efficient attack had trouble finding consistent offense all night long, ultimately winding up tied for its lowest point total of the season (61 points). “We talked about our discipline and our toughness and we showed that from the tip,” Wilson said afterwards. Yet, his best coaching move of the night had nothing to do with an instilled mindset or strong defensive principles. Instead, it was probably his decision to bring top scorer and rebounder Stacy Davis (15.7 PPG, 7.7 RPG) off the bench for the first time. The 6’6’’ junior responded with a 23-point, eight-rebound performance that included a couple big free throws to ice the game. “They got us a little bit out of rhythm and they got us to take tougher shots out of our sets,” BYU guard Anson Winder said after the game, summing it up perfectly. “They scored on the other end and it’s hard to beat a team when you can’t stop them from scoring.”

But Pepperdine wasn’t done. Despite having not won back-to-back WCC road games since 2007, the Waves promptly travelled to San Diego two days later, put forth another excellent defensive effort and beat the Toreros by 12. No San Diego player – not even Johnny Dee, the conference’s fourth-leading scorer – ended up with double figures, as Bill Grier’s crew mustered only 0.75 points per possession. In a matter of three days, the team that had been picked seventh in the preseason outdid the second and fifth-place picks in their own gymnasiums. Now at 4-1 in WCC play and cracking the top-100 in KenPom, Pepperdine appears to have staying power among the top half of the WCC.

Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Vernetti is the Rush the Court’s correspondent for the West Coast Conference.

Looking Back

Maybe finals were unusually hard this year, causing a build-up of aggression within WCC members. Maybe the conference is ready to establish itself alongside the Mountain West as one of the best outside the Power Five. Whatever the motivation, conference schools celebrated their first post-finals games with a handful of memorable efforts on Saturday.

Kyle Wiltjer has fit right in with a talented Gonzaga squad. (AP)

• Gonzaga toyed with UCLA as if the Bruins were a middling WCC opponent, leading wire-to-wire in an 87-74 romp at Pauley Pavilion.
• Saint Mary’s broke Creighton’s 24-game home winning streak with a 71-67 overtime win in Omaha.
• BYU went 2-0 on the road by topping Weber State 76-60 in Ogden.
• Santa Clara notched its fourth straight win by knocking off Washington State 76-67 – its first home win against a Pac-12 school in 10 years.
• San Diego trounced New Orleans 85-60 to remain undefeated at home.
• Pepperdine almost made it an epic fail for the Pac-12 against the WCC, leading Arizona State 43-42 with less than 12 minutes left before ultimately succumbing, 81-74.
• Only rebuilding Loyola Marymount went down Saturday, losing 71-69 to Northern Arizona.

It has been a mostly satisfying non-conference performance so far for the WCC, with only one team, Loyola Marymount, posting a losing record through December 13.

Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s play a little word association game. I say WCC, you say… Gonzaga – right? But when I say Gonzaga, there are bound to be a dozen or so words that will escape your lips before you say WCC. This only makes sense, because for as long as anyone can remember, Gonzaga has been the WCC. Or, at the very least, that interchangeability has served as a quick and easy (and fairly accurate) mental shortcut. But here in 2013-14, the times are a changin’ as Gonzaga has shown more fragility than it has in a long while, but more importantly, the rest of the conference has taken a significant step forward.

BYU Is A Big Part Of The More Balanced West Coast Conference We Have Seen This Year. The Cougars Are Also One Of Many WCC Teams That Should Be Even Better In 2014-15.

That pairing of Zag vulnerability and WCC uprising was on full display Saturday night in the WCC quarterfinals, where a Santa Clara team that finished eighth in the league pushed Mark Few’s team to the final buzzer. Gonzaga managed to narrowly escape the Broncos’ challenge (on a David Stockton coast-to-coast layup in the final seconds) and is still the clear favorite to take the WCC Tournament title this week, but are these more balanced days here to stay and flourish in the WCC?

The WCC will likely only send two teams to the 2014 NCAA Tournament (an outside shot at three if Saint Mary’s or San Francisco can steal the WCC Tournament title), but even with Gonzaga slightly down, the league has been better than it has been in a very long time. Their current conference RPI and KenPom ranking of #9 is the best since the 2004-05 season, and there may be even better days ahead. Saint Mary’s core of seniors leaves Randy Bennett’s team vulnerable to a significant drop-off next season (the SMC situation almost demands its own post, honestly), but outside of the Gaels and a senior-laden Pacific team, most every WCC team will return the bulk of its core. The young nuclei around the league have all had their moments this season, and coaching staffs at Pepperdine, San Diego, Portland, Loyola Marymount and Santa Clara should all be expecting improved teams to return in 2014-15.

Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Vernetti is the Rush the Court’s correspondent for the West Coast Conference.

Tournament Preview

There are some new contenders, some elevated expectations and the hint of upset in the air. But, in the end, will it add up to someone other than Gonzaga or Saint Mary’s winning the WCC Tournament title next Tuesday and an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament? Those two have played in the championship game for the past five years – Gonzaga winning three – and the first change in 2014 is that they will not repeat that engagement. The Gaels and the Zags are in the same half of this year’s bracket; their clash, if it comes, will be in the semifinals on Monday, and only one will emerge to contend for the championship.

The replacement of Saint Mary’s by BYU as the tourney’s second seed and the emergence of San Francisco as a legitimate championship contender is the first major change in the tournament makeup. BYU and San Francisco tied for second place behind Gonzaga in the conference standings, with BYU earning the second seed by virtue of a sweep over San Francisco, and Saint Mary’s limped in at fourth. The other major change is a requirement that all teams in the tournament play at least three games. Gone is the WCC’s controversial practice of granting the first and second finishers a bye to the semifinal round. For the last five years, Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s had only a semifinal game to contend with before squaring off for the title.

Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Vernetti is the Rush the Court’s correspondent for the West Coast Conference.

Looking Back

Perris Blackwell is pulling down rebounds for Washington, De’End Parker is leading Cal State San Marcos to the top of NAIA ranks, and Cody Doolin is plotting his comeback next year at UNLV. But Rex Walters has commanded a resolute Gang of Six anchored by senior forward Cole Dickerson to propel San Francisco to the brink of second place in the WCC with an outside chance of tying for the title. By holding off hapless Saint Mary’s and still-struggling Pacific at home last week, the Dons moved to 11-5 in conference play and into a virtual tie with BYU for the second spot (the Cougars have a half-game lead by virtue of having played one more game). If the Dons sweep Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount this week in Southern California and BYU and Gonzaga stumble in their final contests, Walters’ embattled troops will have pulled off one of the most stunning upsets in WCC history.

It is still a slight possibility that Cole Dickerson and USF could earn itself an improbable conference crown. (ISI Sports)

Gonzaga paved the way for this potential outcome by dropping both its road contests last week, first to an aroused BYU in Provo, and then to a scrappy San Diego at the Jenny Craig Pavilion. The Zags’ lack of depth was a factor in both losses, as Mark Few has narrowed his rotation to exclude anyone besides Przemek Karnowski and Sam Dower, Jr. in the frontcourt. Providence transfer Gerard Coleman, Louisville transfer Angel Nunez and two freshmen are anchored on the bench as the Zags plow unsteadily towards another conference championship and a top seed in the WCC Tournament, opening March 6 in Las Vegas. Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Vernetti is the WCC correspondent for RTC.

Looking Back

The scramble for second place in the WCC continued unabated last week, as Saint Mary’s and BYU held off defeats that would have made any conference title dreams impossible. As things stand now, they’re only just unrealistic. San Francisco and Pepperdine, two other teams harboring dreams for a lofty finish, stumbled.

Stephen Holt (right) had an outstanding week for the Gaels. (SMC Athletics)

Gonzaga’s three-game lead in the loss column over BYU and Saint Mary’s seems impregnable, but the schedule-makers have done the Zags no favors. After entertaining Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount at home this week, Gonzaga hits the road for four season-ending games that could prove harrowing. BYU, San Diego and Saint Mary’s must be considered at least potential upset opportunities, and even Pacific has showed its Tiger teeth occasionally this season. What better way to salvage a disappointing return to the WCC than by knocking off the Zags? Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Vernetti is the WCC correspondent for RTC.

Looking Back

The previous week’s play might have sealed the WCC’s fate as a one-bid league. With the shocking demise of Saint Mary’s as a serious contender for an at-large NCAA berth, only Gonzaga has an overall resume and a potential WCC Tournament championship firmly in its grasp. BYU proved its strength in the Marriott Center with an 84-71 victory over Saint Mary’s, but still has road games against the Gaels and up-and-down San Diego and has posted a so-so 15-9 record so far. San Francisco may be better positioned than BYU to challenge for second place behind Gonzaga, with a Saturday showdown in Provo looming to possibly settle that question, but second place will not win an at-large bid for the Dons either.

Bennet’s Tough Week May Have Resigned Saint Mary’s to the NIT (Photo credit: Jason O. Watson/US Presswire).

The Gaels’ meltdown against San Diego – a 61-43 humiliation in which they barely registered a pulse – and subsequent loss to BYU marked several milestones for Saint Mary’s, none of them positive. In absorbing four losses with eight games to go, the Gaels have guaranteed their worst WCC performance since going 10-4 in 2008-09. Saint Mary’s record of winning at least 25 games a year for six straight seasons also seems doomed, with possibly 11 games left (assuming three games in the WCC tournament) and only 16 wins so far.

The only apparent path to a second bid for the conference lies in an upset of Gonzaga at the WCC Tournament in March. In that case, the victor would receive the automatic NCAA bid and Gonzaga would presumably receive an at-large bid based on its history of 14 straight NCAA appearances and its overall resume in 2013-14. But which team is likely to pull that off? There is no bye to the semifinal round this year, as each potential champion must play at least three times in Las Vegas. None of the would-be contenders has shown the consistency to pull off three tournament wins, which would include a victory over Gonzaga along the way. A single bid seems all but assured.

Power Rankings

Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Vernetti is the WCC correspondent for RTC.

Crystal Ball Time

With most teams in the WCC having completed half the conference schedule it’s time to do some end-game handicapping. Here’s how the rest of the schedule shapes up for the main players:

• Gonzaga, although sitting pretty at 8-1 with a game-and-a-half lead on Saint Mary’s, has a tough second half of conference play ahead. Its three home games should give the Zags little trouble, but road pitfalls could come against the Bay Area schools (Saint Mary’s, San Francisco and Santa Clara), in Provo against BYU, and in the Jenny Craig Pavilion against San Diego.
• Saint Mary’s has an unfavorable (4/6) home/road balance ahead, but two of the road games are against nearby rivals San Francisco and Santa Clara. The Gaels’ main peril begins right now with four games in southern California and Provo. If Saint Mary’s comes off that journey intact, it will be well positioned to entertain BYU and Gonzaga at home.

Rex Walters and USF have a real chance to make some noise in the coming weeks. (Getty)

• San Francisco also has a chance to do some damage against the leaders by entertaining Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s at home, but will be at risk on the road against BYU and San Diego.
• BYU is up against the wall no matter how you slice it because of its inability to win a single conference game on the road. The Cougars will certainly battle Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga tough at home, but its chances against the Gaels and Toreros on the road don’t look good based on performance to date.

Power Rankings

1. Gonzaga (18-3, 8-1)
2. Saint Mary’s (16-5, 6-2)
3. San Francisco (13-8, 6-3)
4. BYU (13-9, 5-4)
5. Pepperdine (12-10, 5-5)
6. Portland (12-9, 4-5)
7. San Diego (12-10, 3-6)
8. Santa Clara (10-12, 3-6)
9. Loyola Marymount (11-11, 3-7)
10. Pacific (11-8, 2-6)

Read the rest of this entry »