Loyola Marymount win

I actually fell asleep in the 1st half and woke up at the end to see they had won. I guess that's what I get for watching the game from my bed with all the lights off. I DVR'd it, so I'm good to watch it tonight.

Set the record for 3's. Oh, this team is fun to watch this year. It's good we have had some time to slowly draw Baxter in and not have to dump him in all at once.



What the deal with an injury to Dalton Nixon? I see rumblings over on CougarBoard that Pope was asking for prayers for him, but it seemed that individuals could not confirm whether it was a knee or ankle. I didn't see anything in the media reports yet this morning saying anything specific.

When's the last time that the WCC had 7 of 10 teams with winning records with only 3 games remaining in the regular season? The WCC has been a lot tougher this year.

And a realistic chance that *SIX* WCC teams finish with 20+ regular-season wins...

EM_Puma wrote:

Set the record for 3's. Oh, this team is fun to watch this year. It's good we have had some time to slowly draw Baxter in and not have to dump him in all at once.



What the deal with an injury to Dalton Nixon? I see rumblings over on CougarBoard that Pope was asking for prayers for him, but it seemed that individuals could not confirm whether it was a knee or ankle. I didn't see anything in the media reports yet this morning saying anything specific.

Baxter looks completely lost out there. Looks like a true freshman playing his first minutes. More playing time will help but if I'm Pope there's no way I'm playing him in the tournament at this point.



Nixon got hurt on a dunk attempt. He was fouled from behind (nothing vicious) and his leg rammed into the hoop post padding and bent at an odd angle. He popped right up and shot (missed) his FT and then was immediately substituted out. It looked really bad, but he did get up right away.

EM_Puma wrote:

When's the last time that the WCC had 7 of 10 teams with winning records with only 3 games remaining in the regular season? The WCC has been a lot tougher this year.

I agree that the WCC feels tougher. But don't look just at number of wins for how good a program is (I've said this a few times before).



Here is a look at the conference standings that inclues the NET ranking. My first cutoff for a quality team is a NET of 135 because that means they are a Quadrant 2 team no matter want (the rules for which quadrant you fall in difer based on whether the game was home/neutral/away). That cutoff does include all 7 teams that have a winning record. However, my second cutoff for what I would actually consider quality teams is a NET of 75. That means you area Q1 no matter what and a Q2 at home. In this scenario there are 3 teams (guess who?).


WCC Standings 2020-02-14.PNG

Another way to view the conference is to compare it to other conferences and how they fared in their non-conference games.


Conf Net Rankings 2020-02-14.PNG

I think the WCC is trending in the right direction. The teams are tougher. LMU last year had 20+ wins for the first time in a long run. They got hit with injuries this year. Pacific is right there with SMC and BYU. If they had better non conference wins, there would be more chatter about them. USF is moving in the right direction too. Will be tough to beat Pacific and USF next year. The conference is improving.



But I agree, more WCC teams need to get into quad 2. I think they are at least moving in that direction.



Was a fun game last night. I hope Nixon is okay. Baxter did look lost out there. I think he should have gotten more PT, though, especially in the last 4 minutes. He got a block in the final min.



Toolson got T-ed up for jawing with a ref. I think it's the same red I have seen him arguing with in the past. Love his passion for the game, but he needs to watch that.



Barcello was lights out from three. And LMU kept leaving him open. We did a great job getting the ball to him from Childs, out to the perimeter and over to Barcello. Had LMU turning circles. We move the ball like that and shoot like that and we're tough to beat.

Gunk wrote:

Barcello was lights out from three. And LMU kept leaving him open. We did a great job getting the ball to him from Childs, out to the perimeter and over to Barcello. Had LMU turning circles. We move the ball like that and shoot like that and we're tough to beat.

When you have six players that hit a 3 in a game, dang, it gets really hard to defend.



Now, I want to see this happen against a really good team.



For the season, against Div 1 competition, BYU is hitting an average of 11.5 out of 24.7 3-pt shots per game for 42%. Against the teams they played in the Net top 50 you can see they're hitting below their average. That's my fear. Get to NCAA's and we were 3-4 against this level of teams and didn't hit our average. We averaged only 7.8 of 23.2 for 34% :

Several of those games where without Yoeli. He improves getting open looks.

EM_Puma wrote:

Barcello was lights out from three. And LMU kept leaving him open. We did a great job getting the ball to him from Childs, out to the perimeter and over to Barcello. Had LMU turning circles. We move the ball like that and shoot like that and we're tough to beat.

When you have six players that hit a 3 in a game, dang, it gets really hard to defend.



Now, I want to see this happen against a really good team.



For the season, against Div 1 competition, BYU is hitting an average of 11.5 out of 24.7 3-pt shots per game for 42%. Against the teams they played in the Net top 50 you can see they're hitting below their average. That's my fear. Get to NCAA's and we were 3-4 against this level of teams and didn't hit our average. We averaged only 7.8 of 23.2 for 34% :

Would like to see that too.



You would expect better defense and more contested shots against Net top 50 teams.

scott715 wrote:

Several of those games where without Yoeli. He improves getting open looks.

Great point, because actually 5 of the 7 was minus Yoeli Childs. That somewhat indicates a trend and one that is good, because with him in the game, we're definitely a more powerful team.