Non Conference Opponents Where are they now? 15-16 edition

[slblions08]

A look back at our non conference schedule (minus Antelope Valley)

Home against CS Fullerton (W)
at UC Irvine (L)
at Colorado State (L)
Home against CS Northridge (W)
at Southeast Missouri State (W)
at Oregon State (L)
Home against UC Riverside (W)
at Boise State (L)
at CS Fullerton (W)
home against Jacksonville State (W)

Currently,

Cal State Fullerton
10-19 overall, 3-13 in the Big West conference. This qualifies for last place. They open up playing top overall seed Hawaii. The Big West is currently topped by Hawaii, UC Irvine and Long Beach State

UC Irvine,
13-3, 24-8
The aforementioned 'Zots are second in the league and will have to beat at least Hawaii and Long Beach State to get into the tourney for a second straight year. Of course, UCSB also lurks. The Big West tourney is always a surprise. Did you know Irvine played at #1 Kansas this year? They lost by 20.

Colorado State
8-10, 16-15
This was an odd year for the Rams, but they are basically middle of the pack in the Mountain West. The MWC has not been as effective this year as in years before. San Diego State bounced back from being blown out by San Diego on a battleship at the start of the season to finish top of the conference. By the way, Max Good's UNLV fired their head coach midseason. They recruited Zimmerman a big recruit but he's been kind of a dud.

CSUN
5-11, 10-20
CSUN led by Reggie Theus has been pretty below average as well, although they finished above Fullerton. Nothing noteworthy here.

SE Mizzou State
2-14, 5-24
They qualified for dead last in the OVC. The OVC was won by Belmont, Tennessee Martin was on the path to winning the tourney, but then 8 seeded Austin Peay rolled into the tourney and will probably be the #64 seed for Kansas.

Oregon State
9-9, 18-11
The Beavers led by Gary Payton II finished middle of the road in the Pac 12 tied with USC (who tailed off at the end) and Washington. The Pac-12 tourney will have to decide some things next week, but they still have a puncher's chance as an at large team

UC riverside
5-11, 14-18
Yet again with another Big West bottom feeder. At least if we finished in the Big West, we could be middle of the conference at least. UC Riverside finished tied with CSUN.

Boise State
11-7, 20-11
The Broncos has an impressive victory over Oregon, a semi impressive victory over UC Irvine and a couple close games against Michigan State and Arizona via the early season tournament. they have a puncher's chance at an NCAA at large.

Jacksonville State
4-12, 8-23
They finished one slot over our fellow OVC opponent, SEMO State. Nothing to see here folks.

So there you have it. Only Oregon State is currently a team in the tourney according to Joe Lunardi's bracketology, and they are the last four in, assuming they win a couple games in the Pac-12 tourney. Boise State could make a run but will need to unseat San Diego State and Fresno State above them. Irvine will have to beat two strong contenders.

Compared to previous years schedules including last year, our non conference sched has been pretty weak. of course, it is hard to predict these things in the offseason, but not participating in a real pre-season tournament was pretty much a dud. Winning against bottom feeder local Big West schools is good to keep telling potential recruits that you're better than those programs, but just being in the WCC should do that. It also doesnt help that UC Irvine jumped as a a program pretty dramatically in the past couple of years since Russell Turney decided to say no to us. Our schedule did nothing to really prepare us for the WCC, and its clear none of the teams we played a style that we would see in the WCC, which is why Dunlap always looked wholly unprepared for his opponents in conference play until the second go around/late in the season.

A big key to going .500 in conference play is at least going around .500 the first go around. I know that sounds obvious but these lousy conference starts are really killing any hope or excitement to build around the program and hurting student attendance. Cal State Long Beach every year plays a ridiculously challenging schedule but they at least end up near the top of the Big West and that gets the kids excited and the team more prepared.

In terms of around So Cal, a few years ago it was pretty arguable that LMU was behind USC and UCLA but had beaten them both within a year. Now, LMU has fallen off. I'd rank so cal team as follows:

UCLA
USC
UC Irvine
Pepperdine
Long Beach State
LMU

[lmu2015]

Boise State had a solid season, at the time we played them most were thinking they were a tourney team, and they also started off conference play very well but then had a rough patch losing 4 of 5 ending their hopes of an at large bid. CSU was also thought of to be a tourney quality team, don't exactly know what happened to them. ESPN RPI ranks our non conference SOS at 329 (out of 351 teams). So there really isn't much of a debate on if we had a touch schedule or not. Oregon State, Boise State, Colorado State, and UCI are four quality teams we played on the road, but they are not tournament quality teams. Every other team we played is garbage. Next year I hope our non conference SOS is in the 150-200 range, and hopefully we will be a battle tested .500 team going into conference.

[LIONS90045]

slb - thanks for the research and a good assessment.

Let's hope next season's opponents are better pre-WCC.

As I said before, I'd like us (like you) to be in a decent pre-season tourney.

Plus I'd like us to play USC and/or UCLA regularly.

Thanks again.

[craft]

I agree the schedule was weak.. We did put up a good performance against Boise, OSU, and Colorado State, however which is a plus. Not to go off topic but I'll post two links about the noise GCU is bringing. The coach is an advocate for making his players play against the best of the best in the non-conference schedule and already telling his players that they're going to be a top 25 NCAA team (DIV one). I have to agree with him about the scheduling.

cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2016/03/03/majerle-putting-gcu-basketball-on-division-i-map/

[craft]

www.foxsports.com/college-basketball/story/dan-majerle-leads-grand-canyon-to-startling-success-021816

[lmu2015]

Now if we could just get a student section like that at our games...

[Deleted]

I remember when LMU played GCU a few years ago at the tournament USD hosted. GCU had provide something like five buses for their students to attend. I think part of building a program is to having a energetic and charismatic coach.

[ALioninWinter]

I also was at that USD tournament. I'd never heard of GCU before then. I was impressed. Not only with those bus loads of cheering students but with their ability to reel in a star coach and what he was doing with the program.

Since then I've spent quite a bit of time in Phoenix. I can tell you ASU isn't happy to have the competition in their backyard. I think it's great and I'm pulling for them.

In one more year he is miles ahead of CMD. He doesn't have the academic rigor challenges but he has still done a remarkable job.

[husky]

I first heard about Grand Canyon when Paul Westphal coached them to a NAIA championship back in the mid eighties. I recall the media focus was more on the coach than the school. A couple of years later he was named head coach of the Suns. They are Division 1 now but I expect to see Majerle reunited with the Suns almost any day.

[slblions08]

It sure is amazing how they've built that program in short time. What's more amazing is that the Suns dumped Majerle and Kerr from their basketball operations.

However if the Suns offer him a big contract does he leave the school? Maybe a for profit school can compete with the NBA?

[slblions08]

You guys might have missed it on Friday, but Long Beach State played UC Irvine. It was a great game, contested at a high level. Watching the game was intriguing as there were skilled athletes everywhere, good coaching and just overall good play. It was also depressing to see how LMU has been passed up by these two programs in just a short period. Sure, Long Beach State has always been a little bit better than LMU lately, but in matchups LMU has won them. But if I'm a local kid, those two programs are clearly more enticing right now. Coaching makes a huge difference on this level I think.

By the way, Levin was extremely active and was holding his own against N'Dyaye and the UC Irvine towers inside. He made key plays to help win the game.