MBB Newsletter: Lopes Moving Up, Bad Home Losses, Power Rankings
The preseason favorites continue to move up the rankings; WAC teams have had some bad home losses; And the weekly power rankings
It’s not unprecedented for a men’s basketball team in the Western Athletic Conference to move up in the NET rankings. In 2022-23, Sam Houston started at 7 in the first NET rankings of the season. And the Bearkats remained in the top-50 the majority of the season. Utah Valley, with its 28 wins, finished in the top-60 of the NET in 2022-23, as well.
It’s kind of interesting those accomplishments are somewhat of an afterthought in 2023-24 with what the GCU men’s basketball team has done thus far.
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Here is our show from four days ago.
Okay, now back to those preseason favorites. GCU had a monster week. First, the win over then-No. 25 San Diego State at GCU Arena on Tuesday. Second, the road win at Liberty on Saturday.
Two Quad I wins in a span of five days. Huge.
Gabe McGlothan earned WAC Player of the Week honors. Tyon Grant-Foster and Ray Harrison were dynamic. Collin Moore played some of his best basketball.
And the Lopes currently sit at 38 in the NET rankings as of Tuesday morning. GCU is one of a handful of teams with three or more Quad I wins at this time.
Those wins have come against San Francisco, San Diego State and Liberty. GCU has one last opportunity for a Quad II win on its non-conference slate when Louisiana Tech comes to town on Dec. 30 to finish off non-conference play.
Along with the NET rankings, GCU also received votes in the AP Top-25 poll as well as the Coaches Poll.
And per KenPom, the Lopes are expected to win every game the rest of the season.
31-1 is the prediction, as of now, per KenPom.
We still have three months left in the 2023-24 regular season. So, could an upset happen? It is always a possibility.
However, as of right now, GCU is living up to its billing as the preseason favorite to win the Western Athletic Conference.
Too Many Bad Home Losses
A 10-point lead with nine minutes to go that ends in a 63-62 loss…at home…to a sub-300 KenPom team.
A pair of losses to sub-200 KenPom teams in a place you call home.
Another home loss to a sub-200 KenPom team by one of the teams that could possibly challenge GCU for a league title.
Do you see it, yet?
Home losses are killer, especially in this day and age of the WAC Resume Seeding System.
How bad?
Glad you asked. Let’s use Utah Tech, for instance. After beating Utah Valley in St. George and California Baptist in Riverside, the Trailblazers are sitting in second place in the Resume Seeding System standings.
And the Trailblazers had a chance to make both of those wins look legit.
However, Utah Tech scored just two points over the final nine minutes on Saturday at Burns Arena, allowing the Idaho Vandals to come back and eventually leave St. George with a 63-62 win.
How much did that loss cost the Trailblazers? .82 points…dropping them from the 2-seed to the 4-seed.
In three home losses to Prairie View A&M, SFA and Northern Arizona, ACU lost 1.28 points. That is the difference between a 9-seed and a 4-seed.
Do you see how important winning home games are? That, and not losing to opponents who are ranked lower than you.
Seattle U lost .69 points for losing at Climate Pledge Arena to Northern Arizona. Instead of being the 7-seed as of Tuesday, the Redhawks could be in the 5th spot.
This section talks about home losses. However, the other thing to consider is staying with in that 2-game limit of scheduling non-Division I opponents.
Tarleton will automatically take a tumble after Tuesday night when it loses .50 points due to playing its third non-Division I opponent. That will move the Texans from three to four. Depending on what CBU does at Oregon on Tuesday, it could move the Texans out of the top-4.
Yes, it is early. But like SFA saw in 2022-23, bad home losses hurt in March.
Weekly Power Rankings
Here are the weekly power rankings.
GCU is clearly ahead of everyone else in the WAC. The Lopes have lived up to the hype, thus far. The big question will be: when the starters get in foul trouble, can the bench step up enough to keep the winning ways going? Bryce Drew’s starters are getting a lot of minutes early on. And the bench isn’t contributing a ton. Just something to keep an eye on moving forward.
Tarleton only has one game this week before hosting Jacksonville State on Monday.
UT Arlington only had one game last week against UNT Dallas.
Utah Tech beat both Utah Valley and CBU. And this graphic was put together before the loss on Monday night at CSU Northridge. People are high on the Trailblazers. And I am not sure exactly why. Love Jon Judkins and his team. But, they beat a Utah Valley team that is much different than the 28-win squad a year ago. And CBU is still trying to figure out its identity. Good wins, nonetheless. But, the Trailblazers have shown a real struggle with inconsistency.
The rest of the WAC is pretty self explanatory. Lots of inconsistency in 2023-24.
What has happened to SFA since its dominating win over Drake during Feast Week? ACU has a veteran squad but hasn’t quite put things together.
UTRGV finally got a Division I win this weekend at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. SUU was competitive at Utah…but did the T-Birds catch the Utes looking ahead? We need to see more consistency out of Rob Jeter’s team.
It’s early. But, right now, it is GCU’s world and we are all living in it. Like someone mentioned: “the way it looks right now, everyone else is playing for second place.”