After seeing how well the NBA’s “bubble” was able to keep COVID-19 from becoming a problem for the league’s teams in Orlando, the West Coast Conference is considering something similar for its men’s and women’s basketball teams, with a similar setup possible in Las Vegas. The conference holds its postseason tournament at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas each year, and given how many college courses are given online, the idea of a bubble might make sense. The WCC depends heavily on the revenue that basketball brings in, both as a conference as as individual institutions, so the season literally must go on for these universities. Let’s take a look at how we expect the season to go from a college football betting perspective.
NCAA News: Basketball Preview — The West Coast Conference
Predicted Order of Finish
- Gonzaga
- BYU
- San Francisco
- St. Mary’s (CA)
- Pepperdine
- Pacific
- Loyola Marymount
- Santa Clara
- San Diego
- Portland
Gonzaga rolled all the way to the national championship game in 2017, and head coach Mark Few has put together one of the elite programs in the nation in eastern Washington. It is possible that the Bulldogs could win that elusive title this year. The recruiting has improved at Gonzaga as well, with FEw bringing in two top-15 classes in the nation each of the past two years, and Jalen Suggs comes in as the program’s best recruit ever. On offense, the team led the nation in adjusted offensive efficiency, according to KenPom ratings, two years in a row. The team has also been built for speed, with even the big men demonstrating a lot of agility, and with a legion of sharpshooters. Gonzaga ranked #2 in the nation last year in transition shot percentage, which means that the team likes to shoot early and often.
BYU saw their NCAA tournament hopes dashed with the COVID-19 outbreak last spring, as they had a team that could also have gone deep into the NCAA tournament. Instead, five seniors graduated without a March Madness chance, and T.J. Haws and Yoeli Childs should prosper in the NBA. BYU led the nation in shooting from downtown (41.9% on the season). The five graduating seniors knocked down 226 three-balls (at a 41.2% clip). Connor Harding and Alex Barcello return for the Cougars, and they each shot better than 45% from behind the arc. So the Cougars will be able to fill the bucket up once again.
San Francisco had a new head coach last year in Todd Golden, but the renaissance of Dons basketball did not slow down. Golden’s team extended the school streak of seasons with at least 20 wins to four. One tactic that Golden brought in was the innovative use of the one-and-one free throw bonus, fouling opponents with poor free throw percentages early in order to end their possession early. There were times when this backfired and the opposition made their free throws. Another trend was reducing mid-range jumpers, which are notoriously inefficient, while forcing opponents to take those shots. The team’s two main ballhandlers, Khalil Shabazz and Jamaree Bouyea, took 83% of their shots from downtown or right at the rim, and their refusal to settle for mid-range jumpers helps the team significantly.
St. Mary’s has never fallen below #67 in KenPom’s yearly final rankings. In the last 13 years, St. Mary’s has never come above #100 in the nation’s college basketball budgets. That means that this is a school that does a lot more with a lot less. The offense is patient and relies on ball movement, and the defense stands up in a conservative scheme. There was a time when the Gaels took some deserved heat for scheduling too many tomato cans, but they have fixed that problem, adding more tough games to the non-conference slate.
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