West Coast Conference

They opened it up against Seattle.

A tough Seattle team from the West Coast Conference.

Hawaii had a 16-point lead that slowly diminished and disappeared.

Seattle had the late lead.

Love the roster he's pulled together for year one.

However, the West Coast Conference is not the Big 12.

And guess what? WCC is not even the American.

So I just don't know if the kids that he's got are going to be able to lift them any higher than 10th in year one.

And many of the coaches, when I talked to them yesterday, really the unselfishness of the guys so far has been a big point of emphasis.

Jennifer Mountain, former player and coach in the WCC and now analyst with Rich Burke, called the game last night.

She'll have it again tomorrow night for the women, which we'll talk about in a moment.

And Friday night when Cal Baptist comes to town to take on Justin Joyner's Beavers in game two.

So that brings me to Tyrone Riley IV, a guy that – I've been told that they have really high expectations and hopes for, and he's got massive potential.

He was a 12-point-a-game scorer at San Francisco in the WCC last year.

He's a really good mid-major lead.

He's one of the better ones.

I think what's really hard to come by are elite wings that have NFL – or NFL – that have NBA traits, and Tyrone Riley has that.

And when you go against guys that – you know, are playing wing for Montana or their next game is on Friday against Eastern Washington, another big sky team.

They play Mississippi Valley state five days later, Pepperdine WCC team that hasn't been good in quite some time, you know, teams like that.

I think could struggle against Tyrone Riley, but when they get to play UCLA and USC, who are both top 25 teams in early December, which is what, you know, I think the buildup really is.

Love the roster he's pulled together for year one.

However, the West Coast Conference is not the Big 12.

And guess what? WCC is not even the American.

So I just don't know if the kids that he's got are going to be able to lift them any higher than 10th in year one.

I found myself like when I was scrolling through game totals or like scores updated as they were going.

Every time I saw a WCC team, I immediately stopped and looked at the score before realizing, oh, that's not who I'm paying attention to as much anymore.

I want to find the Pac-12 teams and be searching for that instead to see what kind of what Gonzaga's competition is looking like to begin the season.

So not a lot of exciting games for the Pac-12 really this entire week.

Love the roster he's pulled together for year one.

However, the West Coast Conference is not the Big 12.

And guess what? WCC is not even the American.

So I just don't know if the kids that he's got are going to be able to lift them any higher than 10th in year one.

Yeah, it's a little column A, a little column B, but the first point I think is the most accurate one.

I'm going to be really curious to see how Gonzaga operates on a conference level that is going to be much different than the West Coast Conference.

They're like minus 290 to win the Pac-12, and the Pac-12 is way different.

I mean, we're talking about obviously San Diego State, Colorado State, Boise State, all of these teams that come in, Utah State, with NCAA tournament equity.

It's not going to be like the WCC days where you get to romp on some of these groups every other night.

And so I think the arduous nature of this conference – I think makes Gonzaga who is favored.

I think similarly, almost like what they were in the West coast conference, a little bloated.

So to your point, then I looked elsewhere.