Cal State Northridge keeps winning.......

[CDC84]

The Matadors scored a huge victory on Saturday at UC-Santa Barbara, who is the overwhelming favorite to win the Big West this year. The Thunderdome at UCSB is not an easy place to play in. They're off to a great start in league play.

Believe it or not, Northridge is now 9-3, and actually has a RPI of 59. They're still going to have to win the BW tourney to get into the dance, but I am liking their chances of accomplishing that if they can keep this up.

With so many teams like Montana and UC-Riverside sucking it up game after game, it's good to know, for Gonzaga's sake, that someone is doing well.

[rennis]

With so many teams like Montana and UC-Riverside sucking it up game after game, it's good to know, for Gonzaga's sake, that someone is doing well.

amen! damn Montana...

[hls97]

Good to hear.

Some of the other wins and losses on GU's OOC schedule don't look so good. These include:

* Texas Tech -- thoroughly mediocre team (losses to Centenary and Sam Houston State -- ugh!)

* St. Joe's -- we won, but same as above (losses to Holy Cross and Creighton -- wow!)

* Oklahoma -- better, but losing to Stephen F. Austin is bizarre

* Utah -- while we won by 2 points, they lost to Santa Clara and Washington

[WallaWallaZag]

* Texas Tech -- thoroughly mediocre team (losses to Centenary and Sam Houston State -- ugh!)
* Oklahoma -- better, but losing to Stephen F. Austin is bizarre

Have you seen Stephen F. Austin play??? They're definitely not a bad team this year and there is no shame for OU in losing that one except for the fact it was at home. They only have one loss this year and that was to our buddy red sweater @ TT, which I consider our only "bad" loss (at least SFA had the decency to lose @ TT, unlike us). Speaking of which, yes TT is very very mediocre, but Sam Houston State is also a pretty decent team with only one loss by one point @ the very solid SDSU home court. The interesting fact is that both Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston State are in the same league and same division (West Div of the Southland Conference). Those two should have quite a battle this year that probably no one in America will know about. OK, 'nuff said...sorry for going off topic, but some college hoops junkies might enjoy this post.

[CDC84]

Re:

What has helped Sam Houston State is that unlike most teams in their league, they've had very few road games, and they've faced competition they can beat. Normally teams at their level are running around in buses getting hammered by BCS teams. If you combine the home games with the competition they're facing, and then you add that on to the fact that they can play some ball, it's not surprising that they are 8-1.

In the words of Tom Hudson last night, the Texas Tech loss is the one really regrettable loss thus far for GU. What makes it regrettable was that unlike the other losses, GU played as if they just didn't care in that game.

[zag67]

I would like to agree with CDC about the TT loss. Even though our won/loss would have been the same, the loss would have been to Butler. That would have helped our RPI.
so when you look at the 4 losses, that is the only one so far that looks bad. The others to WSU (#4), Tennessee (#7) and OK (#21) are all against ranked teams. And for Tennessee and OK, Josh and Steven were barely back.