Basketball Travels to Stockton to Face Pacific Tuesday
Santa Clara at Pacific Game Notes
Facing its third straight non-conference California team, Santa Clara travels to Stockton, Calif. to play Pacific on Tues., Dec. 14 at 7 pm. Both teams are 5-4 and coming off weekend wins. Santa Clara won 67-63 at cross-town rival San Jose State on Dec. 10. Pacific , who starts four seniors, defeated Cal State Stanislaus 89-52 the next night, shooting 60.0 percent.
Santa Clara will return home to host Houston Baptist, 1-7, on Fri., Dec. 17 at 7 pm and then Washington State, 7-1, on Sun., Dec. 19 at 7 pm.
Santa Clara is 6-6 vs. the Tigers dating back to 1999-00. Santa Clara leads the all-time series 87-38. The last six contests resulted in three wins for the Broncos and three wins for the Tigers, with Santa Clara getting the best of UOP in its last meeting (54-53 on Dec. 21, 2009). It was Kerry Keating's first career win vs. UOP in four meetings.
Santa Clara started the 2010-11 season by playing seven games in 15 days. It was the most games a Bronco squad had played since the 2003-04 team played seven games in 14 days. UOP is 2-1 at home this year with wins over William Jessup and CSU S and a 70-60 loss to WCC member Pepperdine.
Listen and Watch
The Pacific game will be broadcast via the Bronco Radio Network on both KDOW 1220 AM and Broncos All-Access on the web at www.SantaClaraBroncos.com with the broadcast beginning at 6:45 pm. Anthony Passarelli is in his fourth season as the Broncos' play-by-play announcer. Coach Kerry Keating can be heard on KDOW 1220 AM on Sunday evenings from 9:10-9:20 pm in his radio spotlight on The Sports Ramble, hosted by Chetan Chaudhari. If you are out of the listening area, KDOW is streamed online live at www.1220kdow.com.
In addition, Santa Clara will showcase each non-televised 2010-11 men's and women's home basketball game this season free of charge via Stretch Internet on www.SantaClaraBroncos.com.
With the help of the WCC, the Santa Clara University athletic department recently made several upgrades to its audio and video components in the Leavey Center and now has the ability to webcast games with a three-camera system. Radio feeds from the games will be integrated into the webcast when available.
Links to the webcast of each men's and women's basketball game can be found on either team's schedule webpage or on http://www.santaclarabroncos.com/livestats. You can also go directly to the Santa Clara Broncos portal on Stretch Internet by clicking http://client.stretchinternet.com/client/santaclara.portal?mode=link#.
Vs.
Santa Clara is looking for its second straight road win and its second straight win over UOP. The Broncos are scoring 72.2 ppg while giving up 75.1 ppg. They are rebounding 34.2 to their opponents 31.1 and shooting 44.4 percent, including 36.8 percent beyond the arc. Pacific is averaging 64.2 ppg while giving up 62.6 ppg. They are shooting 41.1 percent from the field, including 30.8 from beyond the three-point line and rebounding 34.2 boards, giving up 33.2.
Individually, Santa Clara has three players in double figures: Kevin Foster (18.7), Marc Trasolini (11.7) and Evan Roquemore (10.3). Foster leads the WCC and is eighth nationally by making 3.4 threes per game, has a team-leading 3.78 apg and has scored double figures in eight of the nine games this season, adding nine vs. Rice. Trasolini leads the team with 6.6 rpg and .89 bpg. Trasolini collected his fifth career double-double vs. CSU Bakersfield and had a season-high three blocks in the Rice win, hitting a season-high 19 vs. Arizona and vs. Ohio in Las Vegas.
Pacific has two players in double figures: Sam Willard (17.4) and Demetrece Young (11.6). Willard leads the team with 9.9 rpg and Young passes a team-leading 3.7 apg.
WCC Player of the Week: First Time
Kevin Foster was named the WCC Player of the Week on Dec. 9, 2010. It is the first time in his career he has been named WCC Player of the Week. Foster was a huge part of Santa Clara's 67-63 victory over cross-town rival San Jose State on Friday night. Foster scored a team-high 26 points, including hitting 9 of 11 free throws. It was the seventh time in his career that he has posted 25+ points. He played a team-high 35 minutes with a team-high four assists. Playing 31.7 mpg this season, he is averaging 18.7 ppg and leads the WCC in threes made per game, which is also No. 8 nationally. He also is averaging a team-leading 3.8 apg.
More or Less
Santa Clara is 4-0 this year in games decided by five points or less. The Broncos are 1-4 in games decided by 10 points or more.
Under fourth-year head coach Kerry Keating Santa Clara is 10-1 when scoring 80+, but 7-29 when scoring 59 points or less.
Threes
Kevin Foster has had a career-high six threes twice this season: vs. Bethune-Cookman and vs. UC Santa Barbara. He is the first Bronco to hit six or more threes in a game twice in the same year since Kyle Bailey hit six vs. Gonzaga on Jan. 6, 2005 and then another six vs. Pepperdine on Feb. 17, 2005.
Two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash, a Bronco alum, and Mitch Burley both hit eight threes in a game once. Burley's came vs. Nevada-Reno on Dec. 14, 1988 and Nash's came at Gonzaga on Jan. 19, 1995. Nash hit seven threes in a game three times and Steve Ross accomplished the task last for the Broncos, scoring seven threes vs. Gonzaga on Jan. 11, 2002.
Wondering who holds the Leavey Center record: junior Dan Dickau of Gonzaga was nine of 13 from beyond the arc vs. Santa Clara on Feb. 22, 2001. He scored 39 points that day (11 of 18 from the field and 8 of 8 from the free throw line). But Santa Clara won the war that day, coming away with an 84-71 victory as Steve Ross hit 10 of 14 free throws to score 22 for the Broncos.
Starters
Santa Clara had one player start his first career game for the Broncos at San Jose State, another start his first this season and two had pretty lengthy starting streaks snapped when they came off the bench. Evan Roquemore scored 14 points with six rebounds in his first career start. Chris Cunningham collected a season-high four rebonds in his fifth career start and first this season. Both Troy Payne (40 straight) and Marc Trasolini (21 straight) came off the bench for the Broncos with Trasolini adding seven points and six rebounds.
Santa Clara had gone with the same line-up for the eighth straight game vs. Santa Barbara. It was the second time in head coach Kerry Keating's four years at Santa Clara that he has started the same line-up eight straight games. In 2008-09, he started the same line-up nine straight games. From Jan. 17, 2009-Feb. 14, 2009 he started John Bryant, Marc Trasolini, Kevin Foster, James Rahon and Calvin Johnson.
Ben Dowdell has a chance to crack the top 10 this year in career games played. He has played in 99 career ganes and the top 10 begins with Mitch Henke, Brian Jones and Travis Neisen all playing in 117 games. Trasolini has a chance to hit that career list in the next two years and also career starts as he has started 55 of the 71 games he played in. The career starts top 10 list has Jens Gordon at No. 10 with 91 starts.
Conferences
Santa Clara is playing the third of three straight games against California teams, each from a different conference. After splitting games vs. Santa Barbara (L, Big Sky, Dec. 4) and at San Jose State (W, Western Athletic, Dec. 10), they will finish off the trio with a trip to Stockton to take on Pacific (Big West) on Dec. 14 at 7 p.m.
Santa Clara will then host a team from Texas, Houston Baptist (Great West) on Dec. 17 at 7 p.m. before hosting Washington State (Pac-10) on Dec. 19 at 7 p.m. Before breaking for a few days for the holidays, the Broncos will travel south to the Los Angeles area to play its second Big West team of the year, CSU-Northridge on Dec. 22 at 7 p.m.
Side Notes
** Evan Roquemore started his first career game and Chris Cunningham started for the first time this season in the win at San Jose State. Cunningham tied his season-high with four rebounds and Roquemore scored 14 points. Kevin Foster tied a season-high with 26 points. In the first half Santa Clara turned the ball over 13 times, but just five times in the second half.
** In a sign of what the Bronco coaches hope is to come, rookie John McArthur scored a career-high six points with a career-high six rebounds in a career-high 14 minutes vs. UCSB.
** Kevin Foster hit six three-pointers in the first half of the UC Santa Barbara - a career-high - and he finished the game with 25 points. The six threes overall tied a career-high set vs. Buthune-Cookman on Nov. 21, 2010.
* Chris Cunningham, making some nifty post moves, tied a career-high with eight points, making a career-best of 4 of 4, vs. Ohio.
** Marc Trasolini scored 19 points in back-to-back games vs. Arizona and Ohio in Las Vegas. Trasolini has scored 15+ points 17 times in his career. He has scored double digits in five of Santa Clara's nine games this season after leading the team in ppg, rpg and bpg last season.
** Marc Trasolini hadn't blocked a shot in four games heading into the SJSU game when he blocked two. It was the first time since his freshman year he had gone four plus games without a block. He went five games spanning the end of his freshman year (four games: Feb. 21, - March 8) to the second game of his sophomore year (Nov. 16, 2009) when he collected three blocks.
** Evan Roquemore tied the Bronco freshman record when he hit made 10 free throws vs. UNC on Nov. 23. He was a perfect 10 of 10. Then-Bronco freshman Jordan Legge made 10 free throws for the Broncos on Nov. 27, 2001 in Santa Clara's 65-61 win vs. San Jose State.
** SCU and UNC combined for 171 points, but zero blocks on Nov. 23. The last time that happened: in Gonzaga's 80-64 win over the Broncos in Spokane on Feb. 28, 2004.
** In its game with B-C, the bench out-rebounded the starters. Against UNC, led by a pair of Broncos collecting 18 points each, the bench outscored the starters. The starters, paced by Kevin Foster's 19 points and tying a career-high with seven assists, scored 42 points. The bench, led by Cowels and Roquemore, scored 45.
** Robert Smith and Foster both collected six assists and the Broncos had 23 assists in SCU's 75-61 win over Bethune-Cookman on Nov. 21. It was the most assists for the Broncos since they collected 24 assists in an 83-80 win vs. Belmont on Dec. 29, 2008. The most under Keating?: SCU had 29 assists vs. Pepperdine in the Broncos' 101-86 victory on Jan. 21, 2008.
** The Bronco bench collected 16 rebounds vs. Bethune-Cookman while the starters pulled down 13. That's the first time that happened this year.
Blocks
With two blocks at San Jose State, Marc Trasolini passed No. 4 Kurt Rambis (93, 1976-80) and now has 95 career blocks. No. 3 on the career blocks list is Jens Gordon (1985-89) with 133.
Trasolini is working to follow in the footsteps of career blocks leader John Bryant. It's conceivable he could go after Bryant's career record if Trasolini stays on an improving pace his junior and senior years. Bryant's career record is 246 over his four years.
The school record for blocks in a season was set by Bryant in 2009 when he collected 84 swats. Trasolini tied John Bryant's freshman record with 37 blocks in 2009 so has already topped his freshman total and he had one more block than Bryant as a sophomore (50 by Trasolini, 49 by Bryant).
School Records
After breaking Steve Nash's single season record for three-pointers made as a freshman in 2008-09 with 85, it's no surprise Kevin Foster is already climbing up the three point career lists. Foster also owns the record for three-pointers attempted with 232 shot his freshman season.
Foster is No. 6 with 382 three-pointers attempted. His next milestone is down the road: he needs 109 attempts to pass No. 5 Ethan Rohde at 490 (2002-05). Foster has made 138 career threes and is No. 6 on the career list. With three threes at San Jose State, he passed No. 7 Nathan Fast (136, 1996-00) and No. 6 Mitche Burley (137, 1985-89). He needs 28 to pass Brian Jones at No. 5 (165, 1996-01).
The career record for three pointers made is Steve Nash's 263 from 1992-96. The career record for three-pointers attempted is 679 by Kyle Bailey from 2001-05. Foster will have a leg up on the competition, career-wise, as his six games last season will count towards his career totals as well.
Foster has quite a ways to go to reach Kurt Rambis' school record 1,736 points scored (1976-80). But, if he does collect the record, he can thank Southern California's big men for two points scored. The Trojans were whistled for a technical foul in pre-game warm-ups when a player dunked while the officials were out on the floor (against NCAA rules). Foster then shot and made two free throws prior to the start of the game.