Bronco Game Notes

In the second game of the 13th annual Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic, the Broncos host Sacred Heart on Wed., Dec. 18 at 8:15 pm as part of a doubleheader. The Bronco women open the doubleheader with UC Davis at 5:30 pm.  It is the fourth doubleheader the Broncos have been a part of this year.

The Broncos will meet Sacred Heart for the first time in school history.  Sacred Heart is a member of the Northeast Conference and located in Fairfield, Conn.  The Pioneers enter the game on Wednesday with a 2-8 record, including 2-4 in games on the road.  In Sacred Hearts last time out, they lost 84-72 to Fairfield at home. They are led by first-year head coach Anthony Latina.  Latina is just the third head coach in SHU program history, succeeding Dave Bike who retired after 35 seasons at the helm.

Santa Clara is 5-5 this season.  In a record-setting night, the Broncos defeated Radford 75-62 on Monday night.  Evan Roquemore dished out five assists with 12 points, with his second assist breaking the school record for career assists set by Brian Jones in 2001.  Jones had 517 and Roquemore finished the game with 521.  Jared Brownridge scored 21 points, giving him four games in his 10-game college career with 20+ points.  Jerry Brown added 16 points and Nate Kratch grabbed a career-high 10 boards.

John McArthur is listed as day to day, but is expected to play after missing the last four games due to an injury suffered in practice on Dec. 4.  Robert Garrett is listed as day to day with an injury suffered in the win vs. La Sierra on Dec. 14 and is not expected to play.

Online

The Sacred Heart-Santa Clara game will be broadcast live on KDOW 1220 AM.  Anthony Passarelli is in his seventh season as the Broncos' play-by-play announcer.  The game will be live streamed with live stats and can be found on SantaClaraBroncos.com.

Next Up

After hosting week-night games with Radford and Sacred Heart, the Broncos will travel to Las Vegas to play UNLV at 7:30 pm on Dec. 22 in the Orleans Arena, the same site as the WCC Championship in March, as part of the 13th annual Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic.  The Broncos will play either Mississippi State or South Florida the next night. If the Broncos win, they will play at 7:30 pm. on Dec. 23. If they lose, they will play in the 5 pm game the same night.  Both games on Dec. 23 will be televised on the CBS Sports Network.

The Classic field also includes Florida Golf Coast and Florida A & M. 

Us

The Broncos have four players averaging double figures: Jared Brownridge leads SCU with 15.7 ppg, Brandon Clark adds 15.0 ppg, Evan Roquemore 11.3 and Jerry Brown 10.0.  Roquemore leads the team with 4.0 apg.  Clark is second with 3.7 apg and he scored 21+ points in four straight games (San Jose St. - North Dakota St.). Leading the team at the free throw line, he has helped his scoring average by making 40 of 47 free throws (85.1 percent).

Brownridge leads the Broncos in threes made (32) and attempted (70).   He is already tied with Clark at No. 10 on the Bronco freshman list with the 32 makes.  The school record was set by Kevin Foster in 2008-09 when he crushed 85.  Jerry Brown, who has started the last six games, leads the team with 6.6 rpg.  Yannick Atanga is second with 5.5 rpg. 

2013

After spending a hard week during finals, Santa Clara got the rust off its game on Dec. 14 with a 97-61 over La Sierra and then defeated Radford 74-62 on Dec. 16.  Before the Bronco's 60-42 win at Bakersfield on Dec. 5 and their 64-53 loss at Cal Poly on Dec. 7, Santa Clara lost 91-85 in the 47th annual Cable Car Classic to North Dakota State, the eventual champion, on Nov. 29.  The next night, Santa Clara's comeback story wasn't finished successfully vs. Rice.  Taking the lead with 6.7 second left, after being down by as many as 12 in the second half, Santa Clara couldn't stop a slashing Keith Washington from driving to the basket for a bucket and lost 67-66.  Brandon Clark was named to the Cable Car Classic All-Tournament team after scoring 47 points in two games.

The Broncos started the year by defeating Bethesda on Nov. 8, 84-39, and then defeated cross-town rival San Jose State, 89-77, on Nov. 12.  They dropped an 86-73 game at Cal State Fullerton on Nov. 17 and fell 84-69 at Notre Dame on Nov. 22.

Broken

With a dandy dish to Jared Brownridge in the first half, Evan Roquemore broke the Bronco career assists record vs. Radford. Evan Roquemore has 521 career assists, topping Brian Jones from 1996-2001, who had 517.  After missing an assist for the first time in his career at Cal Poly (111 games), Roquemore dished out six vs. La Sierra and then five vs. Radford.  Last season Roquemore set the single season assists record with 196, topping John Woolery (190, 1993-94). 

With five more points, Roquemore will be just the third player in school history to score 1,400+ points and collect 500+ assists.  The other two were Brian Jones (1,722 points, 517 assists, 1996-01) and two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash (1,689 points, 510 assists, 1992-96).  Nash was named the WCC Player of the Year in 1995 and '96 and Jones was a three-time All-WCC First Team honoree.

Roquemore has now scored an assist in 112 of 113 career games.  Looking back, Jones missed an assist in just three games in his career: Dec. 21, 1996 at Pacific, Jan. 22, 1997 at USF; and March 4, 2000 vs. USF.  He only had one game his final three years without an assist (the USF game in 2000).  Nash collected eight games his freshman year with no assists, but the final three years of his career he had at least one assist in every game he played in during his Bronco career.

Bullish

Jared Brownridge proved there was not rust in his game after finals on Dec. 14 vs. La Sierra when he collected seven three pointers on a night where he shot 8 of 15 from the field with a game-high seven assists. The seven threes by Brownridge broke the Bronco freshman record set by Steve Nash back in 1993 (6 vs. CS Stanislaus, 1-5-93).  Brandon Rohe (6, vs. Mississippi State Valley, 12-27-02) and Calvin Johnson (6, vs. Cal Poly, 12-10-05).  It is the most threes hit by a Bronco since WCC record holder Kevin Foster scored nine vs. Air Force on March 18, 2011.

Brownridge has scored 20+ points in four games in his 10-game college career thus far, including six games with 3+ threes made.  Much of his scoring has been beyond the arc as Brownridge has collected 5+ threes three times in his first 10 games as a freshman. Foster accomplished this feat three times in his 33-game rookie season (5 vs. Arizona, Nov. 25, 2008; at Saint Mary's, Jan. 9, 2009; and at LMU, Feb. 14, 2009).  All told, Foster scored seven threes twice, eight threes twice and nine threes once (the school record for a single game). 

Brownridge is No. 22 in the country in threes per game and No. 11 in assist to turnover ratio.  

Numbers

Of those with at least 20 attempts, Jerry Brown is Santa Clara's top field goal percentage shooter at 60.3 percent.  Right behind him is point guard Jalen Richard, who shoots at a 58.3 percent clip.  Richard prefers to shoot inside the arc as he is 12 of 18 inside the three point line (66.6 percent) and 2 of 6 beyond the arc (33.3 percent). 

Julian Clarke and Jared Brownridge are proving to be the Broncos best options from the three point line.  Clarke is 8 of 17 (47.1 percent) and Brownridge is 32 of 70 (45.7 percent).  Clarke scored a career-high 13 points vs. La Sierra.

SCU is also proving to be productive when dishing the ball off as three Broncos collect 3.3+ apg.  Evan Roquemore leads the team with 4.0 apg, Brandon Clark is second at 3.7 apg and Brownridge is third at 3.3 apg.

Andrew!

With John McArthur and Robert Garrett both sidelined with injuries vs. Radford, junior walk-on Andrew Papenfus stepped up to the plate and had a career night.  He made his first three pointer and finished with two rebounds, an assist and a steal in 12 minutes.  All were career highs. 

Records

Already the school record in both career assists and single season assists, Evan Roquemore has a chance to break four more Bronco career records this year.  Entering the Sacred Heart game, No. 3 in free throws made and No. 6 in minutes played.  He is also on pace to break the records for games started (97) and games played (113).  The games started career record was set last year by Kevin Foster (125) and the games played record was broken last year by Raymond Cowels III and Marc Trasolini (137).

With 428 career free throws made, Roquemore needs to make 43 free throws to break the school record of 470 set by Ken Sears in 1951-55.  

The team's lone 1,000+ career point scorer, Roquemore has started the past six games and is averaging 11.3 ppg this year. Roquemore sits at No. 15 with 1,395 career points.  He needs to score 192 points to pass No. 10 Ken Sears (1,586 points, 1951-55) and five points to pass No. 14 Nick Vanos (1,399, 1981-85).  

Last year's Bronco team was the first team in West Coast Conference history to feature four 1,000 point career scorers. Along with Roquemore, the team had seniors Kevin Foster (No. 1, 2,423 points), Marc Trasolini (No. 5, 1,699 points) and Raymond Cowels III (No. 26, 1,090 points).

Roquemore is No. 10 in career starts (97).  He needs to play in four more games to jump in to the top 10 for games played.  He is No. 6 in career minutes played at 3,606.  Foster also holds the record for minutes played with 4,212.