STF Conference Reports: The Big West

Excuse me STF, but it's been four weeks since my last update. And in those four weeks, the Big West has taken it's lumps. Between a December 22nd to forget and some early upsets in conference play, the Big West has been thrown into chaos and the prospect of getting an at-large bid has totally gone out the window, not that there really was much hope anyway.

First things first, in my last update I mentioned that December 22nd would be a big day for the Big West. UCSB took on North Carolina, UC-Irvine got Texas A&M, Northridge had Washington, Cal Poly went to USC, Fullerton hosted Wright State and Pacific made the short trip to Fresno State. Could one of these teams pull an upset, or at least keep things close and bring a little pride to the conference?

Ummm...yeah...not exactly. The conference went 0-7 that day and lost by an average of 19 points. Fullerton was the only team to keep their score closer than 14 points losing by only four to the Raiders in front of a pathetic 543 fans. What home court advantage? Even the one game on the schedule that day that should've gone the Big West's way, UC Riverside versus Cal State Bakersfield (probably a future Big West squad that is in their first year of D1 basketball), turned out to be a stinker. The Roadrunners of Bakersfield came in and picked up their second victory of the season in front of, and I'm not kidding - this is their actual reported attendance, 206 rabid Highlanders fans.

Why do I love this league again? Oh yeah, conference season. Now let's get into that quagmire...

Team of the Month: Cal State Northridge
I was fully prepared to put UC Santa Barbara here despite their 35 point loss to North Carolina provided that they took care of business in the first two conference games against Long Beach State (check) and Cal State Northridge (uh-oh). But the Matadors once again took away the Gaucho's thunder stealing the game and the team of the month.

It was tournament quality intensity at UCSB's Thunderdome on Saturday night. Both teams battled back and forth in the first half and thanks to 17 points from Chris Devine, the Gauchos took a 43-37 lead to the locker room. They extended their lead to 12 at the 11:35 mark of the second half but the Matador's Deon Tresvant took over the game scoring 23 points in the second half to finish with 31 on the night, giving the Matadors an 88-84 surprise victory.

As I mentioned last month, the Matadors were picked to finish sixth in the Big West but they have already knocked off the #1 and #2 preseason picks - they beat #2 Cal Poly 80-59 on Thursday night. This is a very deep, very balanced and very talented team that didn't play that poorly at either Gonzaga or Washington. They are going to be a very tough out the rest of the season, they have a lot of weapons.

Player of the Month: Alex Harris (UC Santa Barbara)
Quite honestly, Harris wins this one by default. No individual player other than Fullerton's Josh Akognon and Harris have put together consistent numbers this season. Pacific's Steffan Johnson is a player to watch as is Long Beach State's Donovan Morris, but for pure individual talent, it doesn't get any better than Harris. He is the cheese to the Gaucho's macaroni now that UCSB's troubling lack of depth has been exposed. His play was the only thing that kept the Gauchos in the Northridge game during the final ten minutes. Problem is, he has scored below his average in three of his last four games and at times looks lost. In fact, during the Matadors game when I wasn't thinking clearly, I leaned over to my wife after a particularly ugly play and asked her "who is #12 and why is he out there?" Well, #12 is Harris, and if he doesn't start dominating the way he can, his Gauchos are going to be hurting big time.


Team With the Worst Month: Cal Poly
This is the team that was picked to finish second in the Big West this year? Since my last update, the Mustangs have gone 2-4 losing to heavyweights like Portland State (eh, 9-7 so far) and Southern Utah (bad, 4-11). And losing that conference opener to Northridge exposed that this is a very overrated team. They don't have any players averaging in double digits and preseason all-conference pick Dawin Whiten is, at best, an average Big West player. His 8.1 points, 1.9 rebounds and 1.7 assists just isn't going to cut it.

Games To Watch:
1/10 - Cal Poly @ Fullerton
1/10 - UC Davis @ Northridge
1/12 - UCSB @ Fullerton
1/12 - Pacific @ Northridge
1/17 - Fullerton @ Pacific
1/19 - UCSB @ Cal Poly