Standings (through games of 1/23/10)

1. Gonzaga                       5-0 (16-3)
2. Saint Mary’s                 4-1 (17-3)
3. Portland                       3-2 (12-7)
4. Pepperdine                   3-2 (7-14)
5. San Francisco               2-3 (7-13)
6. Loyola Marymount       1-4 (10-11)
7. Santa Clara                  1-4 (9-13)
8. San Diego                    1-4 (8-13)

Who Wants Fourth Place?

All things considered, it’s not a bad spot to be in: satisfaction of finishing in the top half of conference play, first-round bye in the WCC tournament, hope for next season. Yet, the various contenders for the spot keep falling all over themselves to pass it up. Pepperdine holds the spot this week, San Francisco had it last week and who knows what next week will bring?

Among fourth-place hopefuls, Loyola Marymount at 10-11 holds the most wins for the season and boasts that upset of Notre Dame in South Bend back in December. But the Lions fell hard on their trip to the Pacific Northwest last week, suffering a scorching 79-39 loss at Portland, but bouncing back to play better against Gonzaga, eventually losing 85-69 after being tied at the half. Lions coach Max Good can rightly point to injuries that have cost his team the services of Edgar Garibay, Jarred DuBois, Ashley Hamilton, Drew Viney and Larry Davis at various times this season (Garibay is done for the year), but still questions remain: can the Lions overcome crosstown rival Pepperdine, who beat them for the 12^th straight year in Malibu two weeks ago; can they do better against the Zags and Pilots on their home court; how will they handle Saint Mary’s high-powered offense? Only by answering those with some wins can LMU hope to finish in the top four, and they get a chance this week with games at home against San Diego on Thursday, Saint Mary’s on Saturday and Pepperdine on Feb. 6.

Pepperdine and USF are at least as hard to figure as LMU, and both had a tough time last week. The Waves also lost both games in the Northwest, giving Gonzaga something to worry about with a 55-point second half behind Keion Bell’s outrageous 37 points in a 91-84 loss, then falling meekly to Portland 80-64 when Bell had “only” 21. Bell’s average for the week was 29 PPG but his team still suffered two losses and fell from a tie for first to fourth. USF had only one game, a rivalry contest against fellow Bay Area Jesuit institution Santa Clara, and lost 66-65 after closing hard in the final minutes and having the ball trailing by one point in the final seconds. The inbounds pass went right through the hands of sophomore guard Rashad Green, however, and with it the Dons’ chance for a victory. USF’s next two home games don’t get any easier, as they face Portland on Thursday and Gonzaga on Saturday.

Santa Clara’s victory over USF was its first in conference play, and it shares the cellar with San Diego, which fell 71-56 at Saint Mary’s, succumbing to an early display of Gael offense that bolted them into a 23-5 lead after 12 minutes. Santa Clara faces the Portland-Gonzaga onslaught at home along with USF this week, and San Diego’s hopes of moving out of last place hinge on success on the road against LMU on Thursday and Pepperdine on Saturday.

What all the turmoil in the 4-8 spots underlines is the predictability of the top three positions, with nine-time conference champ Gonzaga entrenched at 5-0, wannabe usurper Saint Mary’s one game behind at 4-1 and recovering Portland in third at 3-2 (same conference mark as Pepperdine, which is listed in fourth because of a poorer overall record). The Zags don’t seem to be in trouble with this week’s road games to the Bay Area, while Saint Mary’s will give Pepperdine (Thursday) and LMU (Saturday) a shot at them by travelling south to Malibu and Los Angeles. Portland will hope to continue bouncing back from losses to the Zags and Gaels as it accompanies Gonzaga on the Bay Area trip.

Michael Vernetti is the RTC correspondent for the WCC.

Standings (through games of 1/16/10)

1. Gonzaga                       3-0 (14-3)
2. Pepperdine                   3-0 (6-12)
3. Saint Mary’s                 3-1 (16-3)
4. San Francisco               2-2 (7-12)
5. Portland                       1-2 (10-7)
6. San Diego                    1-3 (8-12)
7. Loyola Marymount       1-2 (10-9)
8. Santa Clara                  0-4 (8-13)

Conference: Week Two

After two weeks of conference play the WCC can claim at least two major surprises along with a host of expected results. The biggest surprise has to be seeing Pepperdine tied with Gonzaga atop the standings with a perfect 3-0 mark, the first time the Waves have been in that position since 2002. In that year, Pepperdine and Gonzaga tied for the conference championship at 13-1.

Surprise no. 2, although not as big, is Santa Clara’s inability to win any of its first four games, which included two at home. The Broncos were picked to finish as high as third by some media outlets, but now find themselves looking up from the bottom without having played two of the conference’s strongest teams, Gonzaga or Portland. With four games coming against those two, plus Saint Mary’s in Moraga, Kerry Keating’s squad will have to scramble to get out of the basement.

Pepperdine achieved the top spot by extending its hex over Loyola Marymount 79-75 in Malibu to start conference play on Jan. 9, squeaking by Santa Clara 61-60 on sophomore guard Lorne Jackson’s steal of a Robert Smith layup attempt at the buzzer, and pulling away from San Francisco 83-68 on the strength of a 24-9 run in the last seven minutes. All three wins came at home, and the Waves will be sorely tested this week with away games against Gonzaga and Portland. Still, Tom Asbury’s troops cannot be disregarded despite their many struggles in the pre-conference, where they went 3-12 including an embarrassing 67-65 loss to lowly Cal Baptist. Pepperdine is an extremely young team and has shown signs of coming together at just the right time.

How young is Pepperdine? Gonzaga coach Mark Few, the league’s master propagandist, has induced the national media to incessantly note that the Zags started the season with ten new players, while omitting the fact that two of its key contributors, Matt Bouldin and Steven Gray, are four-and-three-year veterans, respectively, and redshirt sophomore center Robert Sacre has been in the program for three years. Only 20-year-old European veteran Elias Harris, nominally a freshman, is a truly new face among players that Few has counted on most heavily.  Asbury, on the other hand, starts three sophomores (Jackson, Keion Bell and Taylor Darby), and two juniors, (Mychel Thompson and Jonathan Dupre, a junior college transfer). All five scored in double figures against USF, with Darby notching a double-double (15/12) and Bell just missing a triple-double with 18 points, nine assists and eight rebounds. It is a talented five , but they will be strong underdogs in Spokane Thursday night against the battle-tested Zags, who breezed through a daunting three-game road trip in Portland, Moraga (Saint Mary’s) and San Diego to take a lot of the early air out of upset balloons. Nevertheless, any game against undefeated co-leaders counts as a showdown, and Asbury’s pups will be pumped to throw a major scare into the Zags.

Of the predicted Gonzaga challengers, Saint Mary’s fared pretty well in the first two weeks of the conference season, and Portland slightly less well. The Gaels underwent a bad stretch at the end of the first half against Gonzaga on Jan. 14, letting a close 36-33 game deteriorate into a 45-33 halftime deficit by not scoring in the last four minutes. They would spend the entire second half trying to overcome that 12-point margin, outscoring the Zags 49-44 and coming to within 84-80 with just under a minute left and the ball in their hands. A three-point attempt by freshman Aussie Jorden Page rimmed out, however, and Gonzaga ran out the clock at the free throw line for its 89-82 win. The Gaels averted disaster two nights later by struggling to a 77-72 win over Portland.

Portland came even closer against the Zags than the Gaels on Jan. 9, mounting a furious comeback that culminated with sharpshooting guard Jared Stohl trying a desperation three-pointer at the buzzer to force overtime. Stohl took a pass on the sideline going away from the basket, under close guard, somehow turned his body 180° and launched a prayer that seemed laser-guided to the basket. It somehow missed and the Pilots were denied a chance to pull out a win in overtime. As close as those games were, however, Gonzaga prevailed in both in hostile environments, and made it three-in-a-row with a routine dismantling of San Diego at the Jenny Craig Pavilion, 68-50. Portland was counting on the season-opening encounter with Gonzaga on its home court to put a new leader atop the conference, but instead finds itself 1-2 with losses to the league’s two top teams.

The Zags get to go home for the next two games, the Jan. 21 encounter with Pepperdine, and a tussle with Loyola two days later. LMU has stumbled in conference play so far, losing its opener to Pepperdine and the next contest to San Francisco 70-67, before righting itself for a convincing 81-70 win over Santa Clara on the 16^th. Like Asbury, LMU’s Max Good has a rather untested, up-and-down team to take into the raucous environs of Gonzaga’s McCarthey Athletic Center, where the Zags are 67-4 since it opened in 2004. The Lions will try to focus on their 87-85 upset of Notre Dame in South Bend on Dec. 12 and summon the magic that downed the Fighting Irish.

Saint Mary’s (2-1) and Portland (1-1), both with one loss in the WCC and needing a win to stay close to high-flying Gonzaga, square off on the Gaels’ intimate playground in Moraga tonight at 7 p.m. Pacific. Saint Mary’s needs to rebound from a deflating 89-82 home loss to the Zags Thursday night, while Portland needs to prove it can win consecutive tough games on the road after its 63-54 victory over San Diego the same night. This is a crucial early-season clash in the WCC, and RTC Live will once again be there to provide commentary and analysis on all of the action.

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Elias Harris Introduces Himself to America/RTC Live.  Gonzaga 89, St. Mary’s 82.  We really hope you stayed up for this WCC tilt between the two titans of this league tonight.  If you didn’t, you missed what someone less of a wordsmith than RTC might call a ‘coming-out party.’  Gonzaga’s Elias Harris not only had a career-high night in terms of scoring (31/13), but he also spent seemingly half of the game hanging from the McKeon Pavilion rims after throwing down a beyond-athletic dunk.  Maybe it was the soft rims at the Moraga school, but each time Harris was doing chin-ups on their hoops, we thought the entire place might come down with him.  St. Mary’s had the raucous crowd, the early three-pointers from Matt Dellavedova and Mickey McConnell, the late power game from Omar Samhan, and a four-point deficit with under a minute to go (plus the ball).  But what the Gaels didn’t have at all tonight (and was clearly a concern of Randy Bennett’s after the game) was the ability to defend the Zags.  GU shot a scorching 60% from the field and was +8 on the offensive glass, which means that Gonzaga’s percentage of scoring possessions was off the charts at over 71% for the game.  You’re simply not going to be in a realistic position to win many games when you’re getting stops only three of every ten defensive trips. It’s a testament to how well Omar Samhan played in the second half (26 of his 31 came after the break) that SMC had a chance to win within the final few minutes.  Gonzaga leaves Moraga with a 2-0 WCC record, but those two wins already represent what are likely its two toughest road games this season (@ Portland being the other).  Even if Gonzaga drops two games the rest of the way, St. Mary’s would have to lose only one other game AND beat Gonzaga in Spokane to tie them for the regular season title.  Good luck with that.  As for Harris, he wasn’t a very highly recruited player coming from Germany, but he’s proving that once again Mark Few and his staff have a keen eye for talent somewhat off the beaten path.  Tonight he appeared to be the Zags’ best player, and his 15/8 on 59% shooting this year puts him in elite company among freshmen this season.

Pac-10 Wrap. Rather than do an individual breakdown of each game in this crazy conference, since eight teams played tonight we’ll just do a wrapup paragraph tonight.  The lesson in this year’s Pac-10: pick who you think will win the game… then pick the other team — there’s your winner.  The Arizonas visited the Oregons tonight, and if you had Oregon getting destroyed (76-57) for the second straight game at home while Oregon State snuck past Arizona on a Lathen Wallace three with 1.1 seconds remaining, give yourself a pat on the back.  In Washington, we had the NorCal teams visiting tonight, and if you had Stanford getting destroyed by UW  (coming off three straight losses) and Cal winning a road game (!!!) at Wazzu, give yourself a full-on hug.  Jerome Randle had a career-high 39 points, outdoing conference scoring leader Klay Thompson (18/6) in Pullman, while Quincy Pondexter dropped 27/10 on the Cardinal in Seattle.  The Pac-10 standings now have Cal at 3-1, six teams with two losses, and three teams with three.  Can we just set each team at 9-9 for the regular season and get on to the Pac-10 Tournament?

Other Games of National Interest.

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It’s already time for the first Gonzaga vs. St. Mary’s game that will establish conference supremacy in the WCC.  For the past several seasons, SMC has set its sights squarely on the Zags with the knowledge that breaking through in the WCC would be the first step toward consistent national recognition for the tiny school from Moraga, California.  The Gaels have gotten close, finishing second in the league (behind the Zags) in five of the last six seasons, including twice (2005 and 2008) where they finished a mere one game behind Gonzaga in the regular season standings.  Last year was thought to be the year, as SMC held a working margin in the first half of the Spokane game when superstar Patty Mills went down with a wrist injury, effectively ending the team’s hopes to catch the Zags last season.  There’s a similar buzz this year, though, even without the mercurial Mills running the show.  With center Omar Samhan coming into his own as a dominant big man (21/11/3 blks), and three-point bombers Matthew Dellavedova (13/3/4 assts; 42% 3FG) and Mickey McConnell (13/2/6 assts; 53% 3FG) torching the nets if left open, Gonzaga’s defense — its worst since 2006-07 — is going to have its hands full tonight.  The Zags are not the nine-time defending WCC regular season champs for nothing, though, and they have been known to step up in big road games a time or two under Mark Few’s direction.  There will be a lot of pressure on Robert Sacre and Elias Harris to handle Samhan inside, but if they’re up to the task and Matt Bouldin (15/5/4 assts) gets his stroke going again (he averaged 17.3 PPG in three games against SMC last year), then we could be looking at another close one.  The combined scoring of the last four games between these two teams in Moraga results in Gonzaga +1, as they have split the last four, all relatively close games.  Join us tonight for another great one!

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How did the Upset Weekend impact our poll this week?  Since so many teams lost, there wasn’t all that much relative movement.  Analysis after the jump…

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A little Friday night college hoops, anyone?  RTC Live will be visiting a historic old gym tonight in an effort to see all the crumbling old beauties before they disappear when we’ll be at the University of San Francisco’s War Memorial Gymnasium for a WCC battle between St. Mary’s and San Francisco.  Why is it historic?  Well, for you young’uns out there, USF may not be relevant these days, but in the mid-50s with a couple of players by the names of Bill Russell and KC Jones, they were pretty much ridiculous.  The Dons won the 1955 and 1956 NCAA titles including  a streak of 55 consecutive victories over that span.  Nowadays, things have changed, and USF has been relegated to a mid-major program with its ups and downs, but they’re usually good for an upset or two each year when a big-name comes to town and St. Mary’s just might fit the bill.  SMC comes into tonight’s game at 13-2 (vs. 5-10 for USF), and Randy Bennett’s team is once again eyeing the WCC championship that starts and ends in Spokane.  The Gaels can’t afford to drop games like this if they want to have a shot at the regular season championship.  The two players to watch are Omar Samhan (21/11/3 blks) of St. Mary’s, one of the most efficient players in America, and Dior Lowhorn (19/6) of San Francisco, the two-time defending conference scoring leader and two-time first-team all-conference performer in the WCC.  We hope you find some time tonight to join  us for a little hoops action from the middle of San Francisco. 

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

Final Pre-Conference Standings (through games of 1/4)

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

Table Set for Early Drama

With several key conference match-ups scheduled in the first two weeks of play, the WCC race could be either very interesting or very boring within a short period. Because of an unusually front-loaded schedule, Gonzaga goes on the road against three conference foes considered most likely to upset them – Portland, Saint Mary’s and San Diego – within a one-week period (Jan. 9-16). If one or more of those teams stops the Zags, the race could be worth watching; if the Zags run the table, it’ll be all over but the shouting.

In the early conference season, the curtain-opening game between Gonzaga and Portland at Portland this Saturday (Jan. 9) looked like one of the most intriguing WCC contests in recent years. Portland’s stumbles against West Virginia, Portland State, Idaho, Washington and Nevada, however, have taken some of the luster off that game. For their part, the Zags won respect and frequent flyer miles with their final two OOC games, an 83-69 win over Oklahoma at home on New Year’s Eve followed by an 85-83 overtime win over Illinois in Chicago barely 48 hours later. The Zags will have a full week to recharge before making the reasonably sort trip to Portland to stare down the Pilots, who must summon all their early-season moxie (wins over Oregon, UCLA and Minnesota) to have a chance.

After Portland, Gonzaga travels to the snake pit known as McKeon Pavilion for a Thursday-night (Jan. 14) barn-burner against Saint Mary’s in Moraga, then continues south to take on San Diego in the Jenny Craig Pavilion on Saturday. It will be quite a week for the Zags, but they have proven impervious to tough travels to tough venues, and all their opponents must bring their A-games to have a chance for victory. A 3-0 Gonzaga squad with its tough road games behind it (except for a potentially intriguing Feb. 18 game against Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles) will not be a pretty sight for WCC teams to behold.

Saint Mary’s stands a good chance of facing Gonzaga with a 2-0 conference mark, as the Gaels open on the road Friday night (Jan. 8) against San Francisco, which has struggled in the pre-conference slate, and then at up-and-down Santa Clara on Sunday afternoon. Saint Mary’s had established McKeon Pavilion as one WCC stop Gonzaga didn’t want to make with consecutive victories there in ’07 and ’08 before stumbling there last year without injured star Patty Mills.  With an NCAA berth hinging on a victory over Gonzaga at some point this year, Saint Mary’s will bring all its Aussie chants, Samhan juju and Randy Bennett strategy to the showdown.

Another Friday night game of interest pits San Diego at Santa Clara, with a possible fourth-place conference finish and first-game WCC tournament bye at stake. San Diego has been difficult to figure out this year, compiling a 7-9 record that includes encouraging wins over Stanford, Oklahoma and Houston, and puzzling losses to Fresno State, Pacific and UC-Riverside. San Diego split its last two OOC games, hanging with a tough Mississippi State team on New Year’s Eve before losing 77-68, then bouncing back to beat Florida A&M 74-64 three days later. The win over Florida A&M was accomplished without 6-2 senior guard De’Jon Jackson and 6-8 freshman forward Chris Manressa in uniform, and their status is uncertain for the Santa Clara game.

Loyola Marymount, one of the hottest teams in the WCC with a six-game winning streak that includes a road win over Notre Dame, will have something to say about that fourth-place spot in the WCC standings as well. The Lions open Friday night against perennial saddle burr Pepperdine in Malibu with a lot at stake: Beach Brat Bragging Rights over the Waves, who have a multi-year home winning streak against them, and a shot at a 3-0 conference record by week two. After Pepperdine, the Lions host San Francisco and Santa Clara, both beatable, in the following weekend’s play. LMU’s moment of truth could come the weekend after that (Jan. 21-23), when they travel to Portland and Gonzaga.

1. The inaugural Skip Prosser Classic was a great idea and although emotionally draining, a great game too.  Mike DeCourcy reflects on Sunday night’s Wake Forest-Xavier tilt.
2. This is wonderful and all regarding the success of Eric Reveno at Portland, but do you get the sense that this article should have been written a month ago (you know, after the nice run in the 76 Classic and before the Pilots lost games to Portland State, Idaho and Nevada)?
3. Seth Davis’ mailbag includes even more stock reports, including those of Pitt, Vandy and much discussion of some of the others discussed earlier this week.  Great banter, as always.
4. Hoops historians, do you know who Travis Grant is?  He scored over 4,000 points and won three national championships at Kentucky State, but he isn’t in any Hall of Fame at any level of the sport (actually, he is in one HOF as of last two months ago).   Fanhouse has a good read on the player nicknamed the “Machine Gun.“
5. Gary Parrish is doing a weekly article counting down the top ten NCAA Tournament games of the last decade.  We remember this tenth choice very well.  Let’s just say that the Ron Lewis three at the end of regulation was a dagger through our wallet that we felt for at least a month after that fateful shot.  Which game will be #1?  Arizona-Illinois?  Kansas-Memphis?  West Virginia-Louisville?  Arizona-Gonzaga?  We could go on and on…

Atlantic 10 – Joe Dzuback of Villanova by the Numbers (READ MORE)

St. Louis’ pair, Willie Reed and Kwamain Mitchell, along with Xavier’s Jordan Crawford, epitomize the notion of the “Go-to” guy — they combine lots of minutes (well maybe not so much for Mitchell…) with high usage (possessions and shot taking) and efficiency (ORtgs greater than their team). These guys consume a lot of possessions, but they make their teams better in the process.  (…)

Big East – Rob Dauster of Ballin is a Habit (READ MORE)

Born Ready wasn’t quite born ready, but 11 games into the season, its pretty clear that Stephenson is going to be a player in this league. Stephenson has averaged 12.5 ppg and 2.4 apg, but more than the numbers he has put up, it has been what he hasn’t done that has been most important – this kid is not a distraction. Yes, he does have his outbursts (his reaction at the end of the Gonzaga game and his yapping at Chris Mack in the Xavier game come to mind), but what 19 year old doesn’t? Cincy has struggled a bit early in the season as they haven’t quite lived up to some of the lofty expectations, but none of that has been Lance’s fault. He makes smart plays, he makes unselfish plays, and, most importantly, he simply makes plays.  (…)

Pac-10 – Ryan ZumMallen of LBPostSports (READ MORE)

Boy, that was a rough non-conference season, huh? Everybody and their mom jumped on the Pac-10 for underachieving, and there is certainly some merit to that. The teams that were expected to compete for Top 10 spots sometimes looked like they shouldn’t be ranked at all. As a whole, the conference won very few quality games and for the most part waltzed through laughably easy opponents. Then, of course, there were the downright embarrassing losses that began to pile up one after another.  (…)

Big 12 – Patrick Sellars  (READ MORE)

Derrick Roland. I feel terrible for this kid who broke his leg against Washington ending a season in which the Aggies were probably headed for the NCAA Tournament. Now the Aggies are left without their star player and they’re in trouble of missing the Tournament if they can’t find someone to pick up the slack left by Roland.  (…)

Mountain West – Andrew Murawa  (READ MORE)

Hobson takes home his third NOTW award from this space with his performance against Texas Tech detailed above.  He has been simply amazing at times this year, an incredibly versatile force who can grab a strong rebound at one end of the floor, weave his way up court and either find an open Lobo for an easy finish, complete the play himself with either a gliding finger-roll or a pull-up three or settle back in to run the half court offense.  If you haven’t had a chance to see Hobson yet this season, look him up when you get a chance, as all but one Lobo game the rest of the season will be televised somewhere, mostly on The MTN.  (…)

WAC – Sam Wasson of bleedCrimson.net and Travis Mason-Bushman of Vandal Nation (READ MORE)

The WAC begins conference play this weekend and the league has made a switch to a Saturday/Monday schedule from a Thursday/Saturday schedule in years past.  The breakout non-conference season for the WAC never materialized. The good news is the league finished 73-43 in non-conference play.  The bad news is the league was 0-7 against BCS teams, 7-9 against the West Coast Conference, 5-7 against the Big West and just 4-12 against the Mountain West, the league the WAC most likes to compare itself to due to the fact that MWC is made up of former WAC teams.  (…)

WCC – Michael Vernetti  (READ MORE)

Although several WCC teams have games remaining before conference play begins next Friday (Jan. 8), a few general observations appear to be safe. First, Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga have erased any doubts about their continued stranglehold on the top two positions. Gonzaga could finish its pre-conference schedule at 11-3 or 10-4 depending on its game on the road against Illinois on Jan. 2, but the Zags have made it perfectly clear they are up to the challenge of competing for a 10^th straight WCC Championship.  (…)