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WCC Watch
Jan 11, 2016 21:27:46 GMT -5
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Post by LIONS90045 on Jan 11, 2016 21:27:46 GMT -5
I think we'll beat San Diego My WCC prediction for the Lions is (sadly) 3-15. (3 wins in any case.) I hope I'm too pessimistic ?
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Post by lmu2015 on Jan 11, 2016 22:47:52 GMT -5
I'm down to 7-11, still think they will turn it around and we will be content with the teams performance by the end of the year
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WCC Watch
Jan 12, 2016 22:02:56 GMT -5
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Post by LIONS90045 on Jan 12, 2016 22:02:56 GMT -5
Lmu2015 - I'd like nothing better than for you to be correct. You did call that margin in the Saint Mary's contest.
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Post by ALioninWinter on Jan 16, 2016 18:11:09 GMT -5
The Waves woke up and beat USF by a good margin today. I think they had close to 30 points on FTs! Dons fans came into this week thinking they would challenge for a top 4 spot in the WCC. I suspect there's a bit less air in that balloon right now.
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WCC Watch
Jan 16, 2016 19:29:18 GMT -5
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Post by slblions08 on Jan 16, 2016 19:29:18 GMT -5
Failed to discuss St. Mary's loss to Pepperdine last week and Gonzags losing at home to BYU. Wonder if we're down to a one-bid league.
Right now 4th place is 4-3. I imagine at the end of the year it will be a 10 win team
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Post by lmu2015 on Jan 16, 2016 19:43:02 GMT -5
I still think both St Mary's and Gonzaga should get in, hopefully the committee views these losses as a testament to the strength of the conference and don't hold it against them.
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Post by paperclip on Jan 16, 2016 21:07:12 GMT -5
And Portland** beat BYU today.
The longest win streak in the conference goes to... Santa Clara with 2. Can we beat them tonight and have the best win streak in conference?
**Edit: I was staring at the score and still wrote Pacific. Been working since 6am this morning... with 3 more to go.
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Post by lmu2015 on Jan 16, 2016 21:17:15 GMT -5
Portland beat BYU, they played really well + BYU kind of had a let down after the big win on Thursday. Portland has three very good guards, and when they are hitting their 3s Portland is a very good team. Pepperdine also lit it up from three to get a 30 point lead at USF. Hopefully our Australians stay hot from 3 so we can get a double digit win tonight.
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Post by LIONS90045 on Jan 16, 2016 22:12:47 GMT -5
This season is really unpredictable - at least that's my excuse for bombing in WCC Pick'em. Who would have thought after their pre-season that Portland would be faring so well? But when I took them, they deflated that game. Pepperdine is indeed scitzophrenic (sp?) as perhaps are the Lions. And BYU and Gonzaga, etc.
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Post by lmu2015 on Jan 18, 2016 15:01:44 GMT -5
Interesting to see that after last week every ranking website I check, both ones based off purely statistics (kenpom and espn BPI) as well as media ones like midmajormadness.com, all have the lions as the 5th best team in the WCC. I would have thought Portland would still be ahead of us after beating BYU and how our head to head match up went.
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WCC Watch
Jan 18, 2016 15:17:09 GMT -5
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Post by LIONS90045 on Jan 18, 2016 15:17:09 GMT -5
That is a bit curious Maybe those guys know something we're not seeing quite yet?
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Post by ALioninWinter on Jan 18, 2016 16:28:15 GMT -5
I suspect the answer lies in OOC play. Portland had a fairly weak schedule and didn't fare all that well. Also, the Lions did better in head-to-head competition against 3 common opponents. Portland lost to Boise State by 10. We lost by 1. Portland lost to Colorado State by 16. We lost by 8. Portland beat Fullerton by 5. We beat them by 5 and 12.
That being said, I personally rank the Pilots above the Lions. Not only did they blow us out but they've beaten both Pepperdine and BYU. They live and die by the 3. When their shooters are on, they are a tough out. I suppose one could say that about any team, including the Lions. But at this point, the Portland sharpshooters have had more successful games than we have, particularly in conference play.
If CMD is right and he has the Lions on a steadily improving performance arc, maybe we will catch and exceed the Pilots. Right now, we are only a game behind them. However, until I see more proof on the court, I rank Portland ahead of us.
I also still rank the Dons ahead of us (ever so slightly, but still ahead). I know we won on Thursday, but I watched the game closely and felt it was more a case of USF losing versus LMU winning. Watson played the worst game I've seen him play and there were a lot of dumb Dons' plays late in the game. Unfortunately for the Dons, those plays were very similar to what they did in their Gonzaga game when they had that game won, but still managed to lose. We also might have gotten a bit of an assist from the ref very late in the game. USF had a ridiculously weak OOC but I do give them credit for playing the Zags close and beating Portland, while we were blown out by both.
CMD certainly has an opportunity to show significant improvement in the standings over last year. The entire bottom half of the WCC is really weak this year and I don't see a lot of difference in Teams 6 through 10. Santa Clara has notched a couple of nice wins over Portland and Pepperdine, but they're pretty weak once you get past Brownridge.
For me, the biggest positive from this last weekend's Lions' performance (beside two wins) was that I didn't think any Lion had one of those "out of sight, career nights never to be repeated" experiences. Most of the team played solid games. Brown was particularly dominating against Santa Clara, a guard-dominant team. Humphries made a good number of 3s. Those two were our best performers but I certainly think they can both repeat those performances multiple times throughout the rest of the season.
Going forward, I hope we see more Humphries and Mornar and less Haney until Haney learns to hit 3s in games like he reportedly can in practice. If those two play more and CMD works some plays to consistently spring Humphries for open looks, the Lions might be able to move out of the bottom of the WCC and into the middle of the standings. A non-fouling Jacko would help a lot too! He's a beast when he can play.
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Post by pumpfake on Jan 18, 2016 17:00:22 GMT -5
Nice commentary Winter. Only time will tell. Mornar and Humphries have defintely shot the ball well. I still think the law of averages is working in Haney's favor and we will see him have some nice shooting outings very soon. He has a nice stroke and a number of his misses were just off a fraction. He's been snakebitten but continues to play hard and doesn't hang his head. Also looking for Spiers to continue from distance. Finally, Tuach seems like he is acclimating to D-1 ball of late. Bottom line, I am bullish on the rest of the season if we continue to get contributions from a variety of sources. Follow the hot hand!
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Post by lmu2015 on Jan 18, 2016 17:04:42 GMT -5
I agree with your rankings, I would put Portland 5 and USF 6. Also Humpheries was on west coast convos WCC team of the week, so it is good to see he is getting recognition. Here is what they said:
"Despite holding the second highest offensive rating in conference play (141.9) per KenPom, Humphries has flown under the radar. Coming off the bench for a middle of the pack LMU team doesn't help his case. But a 20 point performance against San Francisco and then a 14 point performance with an offensive rating of 211 against Santa Clara, certainly will."
How trustworthy of a site kenpom is can be debated, but the fact that humpheries is rated that highly on offense, tied together with how good at rebounding he is, should definitely warrant more playing time.
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Post by longtimelionfan on Jan 18, 2016 17:44:13 GMT -5
Very interesting and thoughtful commentary today. I'll add my two cents. I expect that Haney will continue to start for a few reasons. First, as noted above, he continues to play hard and has been contributing on defense, with some rebounding and excellent free throw shooting. Next, I think Dunlap likes having his two seniors - Mornar and Humphries - add scoring and stability off the bench. Finally, remember that Haney is a RS sophomore. Thus, Haney's potential ceiling is both higher and certainly longer than that of either senior. I also think that when, like last week, Mornar and/or Humphries bring three point shooting off the bench it potentially makes it easier on Haney when he re-enters the game. He shouldn't feel the pressure to be THE three point scorer.
I think the most telling statistic of the season (and, 18 games is a large enough sample size) is that LMU is 9-1 when it scores more than 70 points and 0-8 when it doesn't. To me, this means that when LMU can get double digit scoring from someone in addition to Brown and Jacko the defense is good enough that LMU has a good chance to win. More importantly, if LMU gets meaningful scoring from more than three players they are very likely to win. And, this year each of Haney, Mornar, Humphries, Spiers and Tuach are candidates to be material individual game scorers.
If those five can cumulatively score 40 or more on Thursday the Lions have a good chance to beat BYU.
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