Bay Area men's and Women's Basketball Schedules for 2006-07

St. Mary's takes care of business in the NIT

The Gaels did something no other St. Mary's team had done since the 1959 season, win in the post season. The NIT might not be as big as it was back in 1959 and it is not the NCAA's, but head coach Randy Bennett will take it.

St. Mary's led this one for the jump. Forward Diamond Simpson barely missed a tip smash off a Mill's missed jumper, but the ball bounced high into the air and back down through the rim.

It was the start of a 7-0 game opening run and the Gaels would never trail in the game. St. Mary's would lead by as much as 17 in the first quarter before Washington St. made a game of it.

Mill's had his "A" working against Washington St.. He was 5 of 9 from three point land and 8 of 15 from the field overall. "this is a new challenge for us, it's exciting" said Mills speaking on the Gaels next game and their sweet shooting, high scoring guard Stephen Curry.

That will be a match up made for TV and anybody who claims to be a basketball fan. The NIT hit it big with this one. You still have teams like Georgetown, Florida, Kentucky and Notre Dame still in the NIT which looks better this year then it has in a very long time.

Washington St. was able to whittle the Gaels lead down to 4 (57-53) with just over six minutes left in the game, but big man Omar Samhan picked this time to step up his game.

Samhan scored the next five points of the game to give the Gaels a 64-53 cushion and the game was never again in doubt. Samhan finished with 11pts.

Now that coach Bennett has a tourney win under his belt, he would like to get a couple more before the year is over. Two more wins and it is off to New York City and the NIT semi's in Madison Square Garden

Teams gear up for a run at a NCAA Championship

It is money time in college basketball. Freshmen are no longer freshmen and each loss drops you down two or three notches in the "what have you done for me lately" world of sports.

The Washington Huskies came out of nowhere to clinch at least a share of the men's Pac 10 regular season title with their 83-78 win over a cooling Arizona team that had strung together seven straight wins in the middle of the Pac 10 season to get back in the race.

The Wildcats chances of making the NCAA Tourney, owners of the nation's longest current streak of making the Big Dance (25-years), has been put in serious doubt after losing to Cal for their 4th loss in a row.

Washington is now 22-7, 13-4 in the Pac 10. UCLA is right behind them at 11-5 in the Pac 10. The Huskies have never won a pac 10 title. They did win league when it was just the Pac 8 and the last time they shared a title was in 1985 when Chris Welp and Detlef Schrempf led the way.

Today it is the tandem of big man Joe Brockman and freshmen point guard Isaiah Thomas. Both had 19pts as Washington came from 10-back in the second half to win 83-78.

Head Coach Lorenzo Romar has bucked the slow it down trend in the Pac 10 and they try their best to push the ball up the court. It has worked as many thought it would be UCLA sitting atop the Pac 10 right now.

The Bruins kept their title hopes alive with a 85-76 win at home against Washington two weeks ago.

Pauley Pavilion has been a house of horror's for U-Dub. The loss to UCLA dropped the Huskies’ record at Pauley Pavilion to 1-22 since the 1986-87 season. Washington is just 3-43 all-time at Pauley.

UCLA will now have to win the Pac 10 Tourney to have any shot at a #1 seed out in the west. Is there any team out west that deserves a #1 seed.

Washington ?, even if they run the table and also win the Pac 10 tourney I do not think they have the credential's out of conference to get a #1 seed.

Arizona St. seems a little soft to get a top seed and Gonzaga has played well, but they do not have the look of a top seed either. Do not be surprised to see Oklahoma head out west as the top seed if they win out.

Gonzaga has some good wins this year. Two wins over Tennessee, and one each against Oklahoma St. and Maryland show the Zags can play with teams from anywhere.

Matt Bouldin has begun to take over the team lead, but a trip to the Sweet 16 and beyond will depend on Josh Heytvelt and point guard Jeremy Pargo playing up to their abilities game in and game out.

Conference tourney's will play a huge roll in who makes it into the Big Dance and who gets left out in the cold.

Take a team like Georgetown out of the Big East. They have the talent to play with anybody and for a time the Hoya's had the look of a possible Final Four team.

Then the Big East hit and the Hoya's find themselves heading into the Big East Tourney needing to make the finals to get a look for the NCAA selection committee.

More then a few teams heart dropped when the Hoya's breathed some life into their hopes with a 56-54 win over #10 Villanova. Georgetown in now 15-12, but just 6-10 in the Big East.

You should have to have a .500 record or better in conference play to get into the Big dance, unless you win a conference tourney and get the automatic bid that comes with it.

If the Hoya's ran the table and won the Big East Tourney, who would they bump out. The Niagara's (23-7), Charleston (23-7), George Mason's (20-9) and Portland St.'s (21-9) of the world are all in second place in conference's were only the tourney winner's could get into the dance.

If they do not win the post season tourney, it might be the NIT or bust for them.

Teams get down to business after holiday hoop season  

The fun has just begun as teams around the bay area get ready for the meat and potatoes part of their season.

 League play.  

St. Mary’s is off and running at 12-1 after dealing with a month long road trip in which they went 7-1 beating 2008 NCAA Tourney teams Southern Illinois, Oregon and Kent St. along the way.  

The Gaels seem to have their best chance of winning the regular season WCC title after watching Gonzaga stumble last week, losing three in a row and four out of five after starting the season 7-0.  

Has Gonzaga fallen back to the pack? Losses to Arizona and UCONN are understandable, but their losses to Portland St. (at home) and at Utah raised a few eyebrows.  

The folks over in Moraga sure took notice, but everybody on St. Mary’s team knows that Gonzaga will still have to be beaten on the court if the Gaels want to win the WCC this year.  

San Diego, last year’s conference tourney champ, has got off to a good start, but their chances to compete for a title took a turn for the worse Dec. 7 when all-conference point guard Brandon Johnson ruptured his Achilles' tendon in the first half of the game against San Diego State.

In the Pac 10 Cal and Stanford have gotten off to good starts, but they have not played anybody. That will end during the opening weekend of Pac 10 play when the Arizona schools come calling.  

This year it is Arizona St. that comes in as the ranked team. Stanford will be the first to try and deal with All American James Harden, the 6’7 swingman that is lighting up the nation right now.   The Cardinal has been led by three seniors, Anthony Goods, Lawrence Hill and Mitch Johnson.

These three have been through a lot at Stanford and their experience has them at 10-0 on the eve of Pac 10 play.   Stanford schedule might not look impressive, but they have beat NCAA hopefuls (9-4) Air Force, (8-3) Northwestern, (10-4) Texas Tech and (7-5) Colorado this season.

 The Cal Bears head in to Pac 10 play 11-2 after beating Portland to win the Golden bear Classic in Berkeley. The Bears two losses were at the hands of Florida St. and Missouri.

After hosting the Arizona schools, Cal will play five of their next seven away from Haas Pavilion. It could be the biggest stretch of the season for the Bears who will have to play Washington St., Stanford and both LA schools in that period.  

Santa Clara, USF and San Jose St. have had up and down starts to their season. Santa Clara is being led by center John Bryant, a senior. He is averaging 19pts and 12-rebounds a game.   USF is being led by swingman Dior Lowhorn who scores 20.3pts a night.

Freshmen (Skyline, Oakland) Kwame Vaughn has been a nice addition, scoring 11.3pts a contest. The Dons do not have much of an inside presence and besides Lowhorn, no consistent offensive punch in their lineup.  

San Jose St. has retooled with a lot of Bay Area talent and it is starting to show off. Head coach George Nessman has done a good job of keeping some of the talent in the bay area home in the bay.  

Coach Nessman went away from filling up the Spartans roster with JC transfers and going after high school seniors. His two best players are transfers, but guard Adrian Oliver and swingman Tim Pierce are transfers from D1 schools.  

Oliver (Washington) and Pierce (Arizona) are transplants from the Pac 10 and they have fit right in at San Jose St. Oliver is scoring 20pts a game while Pierce chips in with 17 a night.  

Former Castlemont (Oakland) star Chris Oakes transferred in from Pepperdine and he is leading the team in rebounds, pulling down 9.3 a night.   The Spartans are 6-4 heading into WAC play and they will host Louisiana Tech and New Mexico St. over the weekend.  

Both teams come into the weekend with 6-7 records and San Jose St. will get a chance to see if they belong in the top half of the WAC basketball race over the weekend. 

St. Mary's continues to shine away from home

The St. Mary's Gaels picked a good year to become road warriors. The Gaels one in the midst of a month long road trip that started with a loss at UTEP. Since then the Gaels have reeled off five wins in a row.

The latest came at the expense of a Oregon team that is struggling.

The Gaels got a 22pts night out of point guard Patti Mills, 16pts and 18-rebounds from forward diamond Simpson and a double, double from center Omar Shaman (15pts, 12-rebounds).

St. Mary's led by as much as 12 in the second half before the Ducks made a game of it.

TaJuan Porter led the way for Oregon with 16pts. The Ducks fell to 4-6 after the loss to St. Mary's.

With each win on the road, St. Mary's puts themselves in position to get a decent seed in the NCAA Tourney. Provided they have a good showing in the WCC this year.

Wins in December are nice, but you money is made during your league season. A game at Southern Illinois is up next for St. Mary's Dec. 20th in Indy.

The Gaels have been getting production from different players every game. It has not been a stand back and watch Mills go to work group. Samhan scores 15pts a game, Simpson (12.6) and guard Carlin Hughes (9pts) are providing support for Mills who leads the team at an even 20pts a night.

St. Mary's shows they are for real  

It might have just been Kent St, which does not raise many eye brows when it comes to the world of big time college basketball, but to St. Mary's beating Kent St. was a chance to show they are for real.  

The Gaels improved to 6-1 after knocking off Kent St. 75-69 in Ohio. It was just the kind of game that the Gaels needed to have on the resume when it comes time to hand out NCAA Tournament seeds in March.  

Point guard Patti Mills led the way with 26pts and three assists. Mills was 8 of 17 from the field and six for six from the free throw line.  

St. Mary's jumped out to as much as a 12pt lead midway through the first half before Kent St. answered back to tie the game up at 30 by half time.  

St. Mary's did not pull away the rest of the game. A three by Mills made it a 52-49 with just over nine minutes left giving the Gaels a lead they would  not relinquish.

  Next up for St. Mary's is the meat part of their non conference schedule. A date with San Diego St. will be followed up with games at Oregon and Southern Illinois.  

Beating all three teams would give the Gaels some lee-way into getting invited to the Big Dance if they were to falter in during WCC conference play.  

St. Mary's has four more games left in their season long eight game road trip, but only three of those games are at the other teams home court.  

St. Mary's will play at Oregon and Pacific, but their games against San Diego St. will be in Anaheim and the Southern Illinois game will be in Indianapolis. The Gaels return home to host the Shamrock Office Solutions Classic Dec. 27th taking on San Jose St.  

That will start a run of seven out of nine games being played at home. A game at Cal St. Bakersfield Jan. 2nd and USF Jan. 11th will be the only time St. MAry's ventures out of Moraga to play a game until what should be their first real league tests of the season.  

The Gaels will play at San Diego before heading up to Spokane to take on the mighty Zags of Gonzaga who once again have the look of WCC champion's

High expectations for Bay Area college hoop scene

You can't just jump to the NCAA Tournament and to get there St. Mary's will have to play better then they have played before away from home.

Seven of their first ten games are away from McKeon Pavilion and they play 13 of their 22 regular season games away from home. The stretch between Nov. 27th when they play UTEP and Dec. 20 (S. Illinois) will go a long ways towards what kind of seed, if any, the Gaels get in the post season.

After UTEP, St. Mary's travels to Kent St., San Diego St., Oregon before their game at S. Illinois. They will host what's look to be an improved San Jose St. squad on their return home Dec. 27th.

Each one of those team have NCAA Tourney aspirations of their own and beating St. mary's will be a notch on their belt as well.

Before the Gaels hit the road they will host Fresno St. at 11pm Nov. 18th as part of a 24 hours of college hoops on ESPN2.

The Cal women return most of a squad that came within a last second shot of making it to the Sweet 16 last season. Has it already been four years since the best freshmen class in the history of the women's program at Cal hit the scene.

Yes it has.

There have been many ups and downs over the past four years. The Bears were supposed to go far in the NCAA's the last few years, but because of the injury bug, there have been little in the way tournament success in Berkeley.

The Bears will start off the 2008-09 season with the same problems. Center's Devanei Hampton and Rama N’diaye have missed practice time due to knee injuries.

Hampton, the 2007 PAC 10 player of the year, has never been able to play a whole year due to knee trouble, but when she got a chance to play a long stretch in 2007, she showed everybody that she can be a force on the court.

Same with point guard Alexis Gray-Larson. She, along with Devanei, came out of Oakland Tech after winning back to back D1 state championships their last two years in high school.

Alexis has battled her own injury problems. The absence of Cal's stars has given players such as Ashley Walker a chance to play. Walker,a 6'1" post player has made the most of her chances.

Walker returns as the Bears leading scorer from a year ago. Ashley averaged just over 15pts a game last season and she will be counted on to provided scoring, especially if Hampton were to miss a lot of time.

If the Lady Bears can stay healthy the sky's the limit for them.

Until somebody beats them, the Stanford women's teams in still the one to beat. Stanford rode the hot shooting of departed guard Candise Wiggins all the way to the NCAA Finals were they lost to Tennessee.

The Cardinal got a boost when center Jayne Appel was able to play pain free in Stanford's first game of the season, a 123-39 win over Chico St. Appel scored 15pts and pulled down eight rebounds, but more importantly felt zero discomfort in her right knee.

Freshmen Nnemkadi Ogwumike and 6-5 Sarah Boothe will add depth to an already strong line up that has stanford as high as second in the polls on the eve of the 2008-09 season.

How sweet it is

Stanford will face Texas, a 75-72 winner over Miami in the sweet 16. This is Stanford's first trip to the Sweet 16 since 2001. They were the third Pac 10 team to make the round of 16.

That is not bad considering how the tourney started for the Pac 10. Oregon, Arizona and USC quickly found themselves out of the Dance, but UCLA got tested in their second round win over Texas A&M.

Washington St. also made their way through to the Sweet 16, beating Winthrop and Notre Dame along the way.

They completely took the Irish out of their game, holding All American Luke Harangody to just 10pts on 3 of 17 shooting from the field in their 61-41 victory.

WSU only gave up 40pts in their first round win over Winthrop and they enter the round of 16 with the best scoring defense in the 2008 tourney. Their reward is a North Carolina squad that has topped the century mark in both their wins so far.

The Tarheels smoked Mt. St. Mary's 113-74 before blasting Arkansas 108-77 to reach the round of 16. It should be quite a march up and it will be interesting to see if Washington St. can slow down Tarheels point guard Ty Lawson and the rest of North Carolina.

Davidson rose from the dead, overcoming a 17pt, second half hole to upset second seeded Georgetown 74-70 in a second round stunner Sunday. Stephen Curry scored 25 of his 30pts in the second half to lead the way.

Davidson had not won a NCAA tourney game since 1968 before overcoming and 11pts deficit in their first round win over Gonzaga. Curry went for 40 in that one.

Davidson has put the C back in Cinderella in this NCAA Tournament. 13 of the 16 teams still left are from the power conferences. Western Kentucky and Xavier have made the mid majors proud by making the Sweet 16.

Xavier has played like the third seed they got coming into the Big Dance. Many people were surprised by the high seed, but they are believers now after wins over Georgia and Purdue has the squad from the Atlantic 10 in the round of 16.

The A-10 has as many teams left as the mighty ACC. One. The Big East and Pac 10 have three teams remaining, while the Big 12 and Big 10 have two teams left. The mid majors hold one quarter of the remaining spots in the dance.

Not bad

The East Region played out just as the teams were seeded. #1 North Carolina and #4 Washington St. play in one game while 3rd seeded Louisville and 4th seeded Tennessee hook up next week.

Tennessee outlasted Butlers upset bid, winning 76-71 in the second round. Louisville has had little problem so far beating Boise St. 79-61 in the first round before handling Oklahoma 78-48 in the second round.

Put on your dancing shoes

Dreams became reality over the weekend as teams all over the country got into the Big Dance that is the NCAA D1 basketball championships. San Diego served notice with a win at Kentucky two months ago, but who knew they would win the WCC Tourney and earn the automatic bid that comes with it.

They beat St. Mary's for a second time to reach the finals before making a lot of bubble teams really sweat by knocking of Gonzaga in the finals.

There has never been three WCC teams at the same dance before.

The Zags are in, but what about St. Mary's. San Diego beat St. Mary's in San Diego and the committee will take that into account.

Ranked teams such as Drake got the auto bid by winning their tourney's.

Rider, Winthrop, Davidson and George Mason all took care of business in their tourneys as well which could help out schools like defending champion Florida.

Is St. Mary's better then Florida. The Gaels better hope that the selection committee thinks so.Both are now on the bubble. Not making the WCC finals changed St. Mary's chances from a slam dunk to a one and one from the free throw line.

St. Mary's was up 17 in the game, but they could not close out San Diego on the Torres home court. The WCC just signed an agreement to have the tourney hosted in Las Vegas.

The leagues coaches have been lobbing for a neutral court for years and they got their wish. A year too late for St. Mary's.

The Gaels loss means a low seed for the Gaels if the NCAA's are in their future this year.

Big Night for Golden and the Gaels

Story by Pota Johnson

What better time to have a career night then in front of a sold out, raucous crowd with a nation watching on ESPN. That is what fifth year senior Todd Golden did helping St. Mary's stay in the rankings at #25.

This is the third time the Gaels have been ranked this season, the last two saw St. Mary's lose at S. Illinois and at Texas.

Now with their rankings on the line a third home win victory in their last four games against the WCC power Zags showed St. Mary's is NCAA caliber.

Right now.

"After we lost to San Diego last Monday, people started doubting how good we really were and wondering if our record was just a smoke screen," shooting guard Golden said. "But we had faith in our team. We realized (San Diego) was a tough team and that we didn't play our best.

The Gaels are in a three way tie with San Diego and Gonzaga in the WCC with 6-1 records.

A loss to Gonzaga would have put St. Mary's in 3rd place. Rematches loom with both Gonzaga and San Diego and getting a second seed in the WCC Tourney means a two round bye.

Invited as a walk on out of high school five years ago, Golden picked a good time to have one of his best games as a Gael. He was a perfect 6 for 6 from three point land, scoring 19pts.

He helped jump start the Gaels in the first half with a couple of three's when St. Mary's seemed stunned by the Zags opening game rush. "I noticed they were sagging off of my a little, helping on Patty. I just stepped up and took the shots and they fell." said Golden after the game.

St. Mary's needed them. Both Patrick Mills and forward Diamond Simpson got off to slow starts. Mills finished the game with 23pts, but he was 13 of 18 from free throw line.

Mills shot just 5 of 15 from the field, but he put St. Mary's on his back at the end of the game and in overtime by constantly driving to the basket and drawing fouls.

Gonzaga was led by Jr. guard Jeremy Pargo who had an outstanding game with 27 points and nine assists. It was Pargo who helped force overtime.

With St. Mary's up two and just seconds left in the game Pargo drove the length of the court drawing the defense before dropping the ball off to a wide open Abdullahi Kuso who dunked the ball home.

St. Mary's Tron Smith got the ball with five seconds left, but he could not get a shot off.

Pargo's teammate Austin Daye had 15 points before he fouled out with 3:32 left in overtime. Forward Abdullahi Kuso had a dbl-dbl with 11 points and 12 rebounds before fouling out.

St. Mary's shot a total of 42 free throws for the game making only 26 of them. That was still more then Gonzaga shot.

St. Mary's next game will be this Friday at home against USF at 7:05 PM.

St. Mary's outlasts Pepperdine at home

It is what it is, and that would be a win. Was it pretty, well no, but looking at the bigger picture St. Mary's won to stay unbeaten in the WCC and improve to 15-2 overall.

Diamond Simpson led the team in scoring and rebounding (17, 14), but it was the play of guard Tron Smith and the clutch shooting of point guard Todd Golden that finally put the Gaels over the top.

The Waves were blind sided two days before the game against St. Mary's when their former coach,Vance Walberg quit the team. Eric Bridgeland took over and all most led the team to a win in his first game as head coach.

The Waves got as close as 68-65 with two minutes left in the game before knocked down two straight three's to push the Gaels lead to 74-65.

Despite the gaudy record the Gaels still have a lot to prove. Their win at Fresno St. showed they can beat a decent team in a hostile situation. Against the Waves, St. Mary's showed they can beat a team when they do not play at their best.

Their leading scorer, Patrick Mills was held to 10 points, five under his average, but he did go 4 of 9 from the field. All nine Gaels players who hit the court against Pepperdine scored at least one point.

Gonzaga hits another power back east

The Zags made their annual trip back east and beat two more teams. This time Gonzaga went back east the ranked team looking not to get upset. A 70-68 overtime win over St. Joseph's was followed up by a 85-82 win over UCONN.

Jeremy Pargo scored eight of his 23 points in the last five minutes of the game helping the Zags improve to 7-1 after holding off UCONN. Gonzaga leads what looks like an improved WCC in 2007.

St. Mary's is 6-0 after beating Seton Hall at home Saturday night. The Gaels have not left home yet and games at San Diego St. and ranked Southern Illinois await them next week.

Santa Clara is the surprise of the conference right now. The Bronco's have started the season 5-1 despite not having played a home game. They play their first seven on the road before Pacific comes calling Dec. 12th.

It will mark the home debut of their new coach. Santa Clara is being led by big John Bryant. The center leads the team in scoring (22.0) and rebounds (9) a game.

St. Mary's 4-0 after beating #11 Oregon

Patty Mills, as he is called set a freshmen scoring record against Oregon. He hit 10 of his 20 shots from the field and 13 of 14 from the free throw line.

The 6' guard handled the pressure well finishing the game with just one turnover. Mills electrified the crowd and he lived up to the hype for one night.

"Firstly, being a freshman coming from Australia, I've never been part of an atmosphere like this before," Mills said. "To win that, it's unbelievable and it's just a great start to the season."

A season is not made out of one victory and the Gaels want to make the big dance at the end of the year. If they keep playing like this it could be in the works.

St. Mary's played with the lead the whole game. In the second half Oregon could only get as close as six points

The Gaels have made the most of their season opening six game home stand starting 4-0. Nicholls St. (11/24) and Seton Hall(12/1) come through Moraga before the Gaels hit the road, playing at #11 S. Illinois.

This has the making's of a special NCAA basketball season

It could be official. There might not be anymore soft games at the beginning of the season for the tradition powers. There was a time when #20Kentucky could put Gardner-Webb on the schedule and the Wildcats walk-on's could not wait because that was one of their few chances to get in the game.

Not anymore. Gardner-Webb, 9-21 last year did not just beat mighty Kentucky at Rupp Arena no less, they blew them out 84-68. Gardner-Webb advanced in the 2K Sports College Hoops Classic in Lexington, Kentucky to play the winner of UConn v. Buffalo.

Michigan St. has stumbled out of the blocks in 2007-08, losing to D2 Grand Valley St. in double overtime in their season opening game. The Spartans backed that up by squeezing past another D2 squad, Michigan Tech, 61-55.

Those two game were just exhibition games, but still the Spartans are the 8th ranked team in the nation.

The parity in college basketball right now is at a all time high. There are no excuses for teams any more. Either you are good or you are not. You used to be able to say that Kentucky would beat Gardner-Webb nine out of ten times they played.

It seems like that number is seven or eight times they played now a days. There could be a record number of teams in the top five and or number #1 this season. It might be a good idea to lay low for a little while and not have that high ranking bulls eye on your back early in the season.

What am I saying. It is always good to be ranked, but you had better keep your head up and play hard every game because you can lose to anybody in this already wild and wacky season.

                          Stanford loses big man to suspension

Stanford will have to due without their best players, center Brook Lopez after the seven footer was suspended indefinitely for missing classes this term. This came just two weeks after Lopez was declared academically ineligible for the Cardinal's first nine men's basketball games because of his grades.

The Cardinal can not afford to lose Brook for a extended period of time. The Cardinal return their starting five from last year's squad that went 18-3, 10-8 in the Pac 10 before losing to Louisville in the first round of the NCAA Tourney.

The Cardinal are hoping that Brook is eligible to return to action when Stanford hosts Santa Clara Dec. 19th. Brook was third on the team in scoring (12pts) and second in rebounding (5.8) per game as a freshmen last year for Stanford.

St. Mary's picked second in the WCC

Once again every team was picked to play second fiddle to Gonzaga at the annual WCC media day luncheon. The St. Mary's Gaels were picked to place second to the Zags in 2007-08.

The Gaels return forward Diamond Simpson, now a Jr. as well as guards Wayne Hunter, Ian O'Leary and Todd Golden from a team that went 17-15, 8-6 in the WCC a year ago to finish third behind Gonzaga and Santa Clara.

The Gaels extended the contract of head coach Randy Bennett through the year 2013. Randy has turned around a team that went 2-27 the year before he took over to a team that competes for a berth in the post season every year.

The Gaels play three ranked teams before opening up their league schedule with three home games in a row. #10 Oregon comes to Moraga for a game Nov.20th. St. Mary's plays at #14 S. Illinois Dec11th and at #11 Texas Jan. 5th.

USF will have a new look in 2007-08 after losing their leading scorer Antonio Kellogg. They added Dior Lowhorn, a transfer from Texas Tech who should take on a scoring role for the team.

Santa Clara will look to match their 21-10 record from a year ago. The Bronco's were left out of the NCAA and NIT tourney's in the 15th and final season of coaching by Dick Davey.

The powers to be wanted somebody else to lead the Bronco's and out went Davey and in came Kerry Keating who had assisted at UCLA and Seton Hall.

Big Man John Bryant and point guard Brody Angley are Santa Clara's top to returning players and this will be a work in progress for Keating. Santa Clara will have to be on the ball early.

Seven of their first nine games in 2007-08 are on the road. Nov. 17 they are at Nevada and Nov. 19th Utah. Dec. 12th Pacific will make a visit to Santa Clara.

Inside SportsNFLNBANCAAHigh School SportsFutbolBaseballUp Coming Events

1st String Magazine All Rights Reserved 2005