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Playing its final game of the year 2013, Santa Clara will travel to Portland on Mon., Dec. 30 for a 3 pm vs. the Pilots on TheW.tv. Santa Clara returns home next week to host Pepperdine on Thurs., Jan. 2 at 7 pm and LMU on Sat., Jan. 4 at 3 pm.
Santa Clara is 7-7 this season, including 0-1 in West Coast Conference play. In its WCC opener on Dec. 28, the Broncos lost 74-60 at No. 24 Gonzaga with Brandon Clark topping all scorers with 22 points. Yannick Atanga led the Broncos with nine rebounds. It is the earliest the West Coast Conference has ever opened league play with the addition of its 10th team this year, the University of Pacific. With the five Bronco seniors graduating in June of 2013, they took with them 13,455 minutes played, 6,188 points scored, 2,149 rebounds, 705 assists and 492 steals..
Portland is 8-5 and 0-1 in the WCC. San Francisco's Chris Adam's hit an off-balance three pointer with less than a second left to send the game to overtime and the Dons held on to win 87-81 over host-Portland on Dec. 28 in the two team's WCC opener.
TheW.tv
The Portland-Santa Clara game will be broadcast on TheW.tv network with Roxy Bernstein and Kris Johnson making the call. It will also be broadcast live as part of the Bronco Radio Network on SantaClaraBroncos.com. Anthony Passarelli is in his seventh season as the Broncos' play-by-play announcer.
Us vs. Them
The Broncos lead the all-time series with Portland 57-30 and have won the last two after losing four straight. Last season the Broncos swept the season series for the first time since 2007 and the 17th time overall. Santa Clara owns a 23-20 record in games played in Portland. SCU had lost five straight at the Chiles Center, but came away with a 75-63 victory in their last meeting in the Rose City on Feb. 23, 2013. In the victory a trio of seniors, Kevin Foster (20), Marc Trasolini (17) and Raymond Cowels III (17), scored 54 of SCU's 75 points and Yannick Atagna was a rebounding machine with a career-high 16 boards.
Evan Roquemore matched career-highs with 11 FTM and 12 FTA vs. UOP (2/29/12) ... Robert Garrett has made all four of his field goal attempts in four career games vs. UOP ... Brandon Clark had a career-best three steals vs. Portland (2/29/12) ... Yannick Atanga collected 13 rebounds vs. UOP (1/31/13) and then established a new career-high with 16 boards at UOP (2/23/13).
Broncos
The Broncos have three players averaging double figures: Brandon Clark, Jared Brownridge and Evan Roquemore. Clark leads the team with 16.3 ppg, which is No. 7 in the WCC. He is second on the team with 3.50 apg. During a four-game span this season (Nov. 12 - 29), Clark scored 21+ points in each game; and he was the fourth Bronco player since 2007-08 to accomplish this feat. Prior to this season he hadn't scored 20 points in a single game. This season he has scored 20+ six times, including a career-high 32 points vs. North Dakota State on Nov. 29. Scoring 30 points vs. Sacred Heart, he is the 13th Bronco in school history to have multiple 30+ point games in a single season. Leading the team at the free throw line, he has helped his scoring average by making 58 of 70 free throws (82.9 percent).
Brownridge is second with 14.5 ppg as the No. 2 scoring freshman in the West Coast Conference. Brownridge leads the Broncos in threes made (39) and attempted (87), shooting 44.8 percent. He is averaging 2.8 threes per game, which is No. 3 in the WCC. He broke Steve Nash's freshman school record vs. La Sierra when he knocked down seven threes. He is already No. 10 on the Bronco freshman list with 39 makes. The school record was set by Kevin Foster in 2008-09 when he crushed 85.
Roquemore scores 11.3 ppg and leads the team with 3.8 apg. Already the school record holder for a single season with assists (2012-13), he now owns the career school record for assists with 535.
Jerry Brown, a graduate transfer from Fresno State, leads the team with 6.7 rpg and is fourth with 9.0 ppg. He scored the Broncos lone double-double this season (16 pts., 10 reb., Nov. 12, 2013). Brown is working on a Master's in Communication as he redshirted his sophomore year at Fresno. He came off the bench the first four games this season and has started the last 10 contests and has averaged 7.0 rpg during that span. He has scored 665 career points with 453 rebounds, including 126 points and 94 rebounds with the Broncos during the first 14 games.
Make It
Evan Roquemore enters the Portland game with 535 career assists, a Bronco school record, and that total is No. 10 all-time on the WCC list. He needs 20 assists to pass former Zag John Stockton at No. 9 on the WCC list (554, 1980-84). Roquemore broke the Bronco career assists record vs. Radford on Dec. 16 with a dandy dish to Jared Brownridge in the first half, topping Brian Jones (517, 1996-2001). Last season Roquemore set the single season assists record with 196, topping John Woolery (190, 1993-94).
Roquemore is 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 scored an assist in 116 of 117 career games. Looking back, Jones missed an assist in just three games (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 (USF, 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.
Boards
Yannick Atanga appears to enjoy playing against the Portland Pilots as he had 13 rebounds in the team's first match-up last year and a career-high 16 in the second. Atanga is No. 6 with 77 career blocks. He needs 17 blocks to pass No. 5 Kurt Rambis (93, 1976-80). Robert Garrett is No. 8 with 68 career blocks.
Atanga has 15 blocks this year to lead the team, including at least a single block in 11 of 14 games. Jerry Brown is second on the team with 12 blocks and Nate Kratch follows behind with 10, including four vs. Cal Poly.
After leading the league in rebounds last year, Atanga is No. 2 on the team in rebounds this year with 5.4 rpg and has collected 10+ boards in 11 career games.
Atanga, a native of Yaounde, Cameroon, spent time playing this past summer with the Cameroon National Team in China as part of a four-nation tournament. Playing basketball since he was 12 years old and now sporting a 7'4 wing span, Atanga dreams one day of working for the United Nations as a peacekeeper in Africa.
More
Since missing four games with an injury, John McArthur has started two of the past four games. He has scored 23 points and 23 rebounds in those four games. He tied a career-high with 12 rebounds vs. Sacred Heart and added a season-high nine points vs. South Florida. He needs one more rebound to score 300 in his career.
After making no threes last season, he has already collected three this season (3 of 9). He was 0-1 his sophomore year and 1 of 5 his freshman year. His three at Notre Dame on Nov. 22 was his first three since he hit one at Gonzaga Feb. 17, 2011. It stands as the lone three he has made in WCC play during his career.
More To Come
Already the school record holder in both career and single season assists, Evan Roquemore has a chance to break four more Bronco career records this year. Entering the Portland game, he is No. 3 in free throws (436) made and No. 4 in minutes played (3,740). He started his 100th career game vs. South Florida and is on pace to break that record and also the games played record (117). The games started career record was set last year by Kevin Foster (125) along with the minutes played record (4,212). The games played record was broken last year by Raymond Cowels III and Marc Trasolini (137).
With 436 career free throws made, Roquemore needs to make 35 to break the school record of 470 set by Ken Sears in 1951-55.
The team's lone 1,000+ career point scorer, Roquemore missed the first four games with a back injury. Roquemore sits at No. 13 with 1,440 career points. He needs to score 147 points to pass No. 10 Ken Sears (1,586 points, 1951-55) and seven points to pass No. 12 Mike Stewart (1,446, 1970-73).
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).
Shooter
Jared Brownridge has started all 14 games this season and seems to be picking up were Kevin Foster left off last season at the two spot. Brownridge has scored 20+ points in five games in his 14-game college career thus far, including seven games with 3+ threes made and 10 double figure games. Much of his scoring has been beyond the arc as Brownridge has collected 5+ threes three times. 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).
