I got into a discussion at work about this. Gonzaga is the #1 team in the country. 23-O is damn impressive, but that conference they are in WCC... is it better or worse than the AAC and is Gonzaga in your opinion a better team than The cats? We have 1 common opponent Iowa state who they beat by 2 at home I think...
I give them credit for beefing up there non conference schedule..florida, Tennesee, arizona, and washington...i get this vibe that beyond Duke they are the media darling. i wonder if the cats were 22-0 right now if we would be number 1..thoughts?

(02-04-2017 10:21 AM)UCBcat83 Wrote:  I got into a discussion at work about this. Gonzaga is the #1 team in the country. 23-O is damn impressive, but that conference they are in WCC... is it better or worse than the AAC and is Gonzaga in your opinion a better team than The cats? We have 1 common opponent Iowa state who they beat by 2 at home I think...
I give them credit for beefing up there non conference schedule..florida, Tennesee, arizona, and washington...i get this vibe that beyond Duke they are the media darling. i wonder if the cats were 22-0 right now if we would be number 1..thoughts?

hell yeah! dont forget we wouldve beaten butler and duke if that was the case.

While the American has some terrible teams in South Florida and Tulane the conference still has 5 teams in the top 100 rpi while the West Coast only has 3. If we were undefeated with wins over Duke and Butler I think we would be close to the top.

Just my opinion is that we have the talent to make a long run and beat anyone. However we need to start putting complete games together; we have been struggling too much in games against teams very inferior to us.

Gonzaga gets respect now because they have made tournament runs in the recent past.

The AAC is a better conference than the WCC. Both have two legitimately good tournament teams, though Gonzaga is the only real National Title contender right now. The rest of the WCC is just a lot weaker than the AAC, but Gonzaga has been one of the 4 best teams in the country (and number 1 is fair by multiple measures). Resume their Arizona win is better than anything UC has and they had some good games in the nonconference, but what makes Gonzaga so impressive is they perform like a top 5 team in basically all objective measures.

They are number 1 in kenpom adjusted efficiency (7 on offense, 4 on defense) and number 2 in Sagarin. They are an excellent basketball team. If I had to rank the 4 best teams right now I'd go 1. Gonzaga 2. Louisville 3. Villanova 4. Arizona (this doesn't jive with the computer numbers but Arizona is playing excellent right now). I think there are 11 real national title contenders (wouldn't be shocked if any of them won) which are the four previously mentioned plus Virginia, Kansas, Kentucky, West Virgina, Baylor, North Carolina and Duke. I think there are 10 or so more real final four contenders and that list includes UC.

Just took a peak at the kenpom. We are still one of the only top 25 teams with an adjusted off higher than 40th. Still feel like this team has not peaked offensively. A lot of that is FT shooting I would think. We do tend to still have some scoring draughts as well. We have times when guys make shots and we look unstoppable and other times when key guys- Evans, Caupain, Washington put stuff up that doesnt even draw iron. Weird team offensively even though the potential is definitely there.

Comparing our conference to Gonzagas right now doesn't mean much, they've both been awful. Historically the AAC has the much better teams, just compare past NC and Final 4's. The second best team in the WCC lost to UT - Arlington

While Gonzaga deserves the #1 ranking, I think they will be far from the best team in the tourney. I still will pick against a final 4 for them. I haven't watched them enough to be honest, but it is interesting how many transfers they got, that were having success at their old schools. I do think the 7 footers give them an advantage against so much of their schedule, but when teams get to the elite 8, they will play teams used to dealing with big men. But in the end it's much harder to win 4 or 5 games in a row, when you are used to playing 5 games all season... and that goes for us too.

(02-04-2017 11:49 AM)bearcatmark Wrote:  The AAC is a better conference than the WCC. Both have two legitimately good tournament teams, though Gonzaga is the only real National Title contender right now. The rest of the WCC is just a lot weaker than the AAC, but Gonzaga has been one of the 4 best teams in the country (and number 1 is fair by multiple measures). Resume their Arizona win is better than anything UC has and they had some good games in the nonconference, but what makes Gonzaga so impressive is they perform like a top 5 team in basically all objective measures.

They are number 1 in kenpom adjusted efficiency (7 on offense, 4 on defense) and number 2 in Sagarin. They are an excellent basketball team. If I had to rank the 4 best teams right now I'd go 1. Gonzaga 2. Louisville 3. Villanova 4. Arizona (this doesn't jive with the computer numbers but Arizona is playing excellent right now). I think there are 11 real national title contenders (wouldn't be shocked if any of them won) which are the four previously mentioned plus Virginia, Kansas, Kentucky, West Virgina, Baylor, North Carolina and Duke. I think there are 10 or so more real final four contenders and that list includes UC.

still think top 4? after that 3 pt bomb fest