Around the WCC: Opening Day Wrap Up

Finally basketball is here again and after an action packed opening day we already have some upsets. UConn took down 14th ranked Michigan State, 25th ranked Florida State lost to South Alabama, and a bunch of people were upset at the wet courts causing a game to be delayed and another to be cancelled.  But in the WCC, things went down just like they were suppose to. Almost all the favorites won and an outmatched San Fran hung around with Stanford the whole game.  The only WCC upset was a young Pepperdine team losing to Cal State Northridge.

Overall the WCC had a fine day with a record of 4-2.



If you are reading this site, you most likely watched the Zags play, what this will cover is the rest of the league.

In the biggest WCC game of the day San Francisco's new team took on Stanford. Stanford was last years NIT Champs and returned 4 starters, many people expected them to run over San Francisco, but the Dons held tough and only lost by 12. Stanford was out rebounded 41-25, paced by Cole Dickerson's 19,  which allowed San Francisco to stick around, but the offense struggled shooting 39% and trying to force shots outside of the offense. "Offensively, we were inept," San Francisco coach Rex Walters said. "Guys were trying to do too much, and we got away from what we wanted to do."

BYU Cougars opened their season against Tennessee State. This game was made much harder than it should've been as the Cougars beat Tennessee State by only 15 (66-81). The Tigers proved to be the more dominant cat on the board out rebounding the Cougars on the offensive board 14-3. Davies had 16 and Haws had 22, as BYU shot 55% on the way to their first win of the season. For a front court anchored by 6-9, 235-pound senior forward Brandon Davies the Cougars should have been much more dominant. We will see whether this was just some early season jitters or whether Mike Hart might be cleaning the boards all day when the Zags face the Cougars.

Pepperdine took on Cal State Northridge and utterly disappointed. Pepperdine led for most of the game, had the higher shooting percentage, out rebounded their opponent, but had 23 turnovers. Its hard to win a game when you don't take care of the ball, and Cal State took advantage of that. Waves fans are expecting a solid season this year, but this start doesn't instill much confidence. The Waves have the opportunity to gain back their pride against a Cal team that some are saying will challenge for the Pac-12 title.

LMU Lions mauled a defenseless against a Pacifica team that is in only it's third year of play. The Lions spread around the minutes and the points in this game with every player seeing at least 10 min of action and every Lion getting on the scoreboard. Very little to be learned from this game as LMU led by 34 at halftime and by 65 at one point in the second half.

Finally San Diego looked like bullies against San Diego Christian. The Christians could have used a few more prayers if they wanted to hold on against San Diego. Early on it looked as though this was going to be a close game as San Diego Christian led 31-30 with 4:12 left in the first half. But the Toreros went on a 14-0 run to close out the half, and never looked back on the way to a 91-58 win. The stat of the game: San Diego owned the boards, out-rebounding the Hawks 53-28.