WCC Game Preview: Santa Clara vs. LMU

Nov 22, 2013; South Bend, IN, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish center

(11) grabs a rebound over Santa Clara Broncos forward

(44) and guard

(20) in the first half at the Purcell Pavilion. Mandatory Credit: Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports

Santa Clara Broncos (8-8, 1-2) vs. Loyola Marymount Lions (10-5, 2-1)

Date: Saturday, January 4, 2014

Location: Leavey Center, Santa Clara, CA

Time: 3:00 PM PST

TV: CSN Bay Area, TWC SportsNet

Video: theW.tv

LiveStats: http://www.statbroadcast.com/events/statbroadcast.php?gid=scu&theme=santaclara

Last Season: Teams split the two matchups.  The Lions won 84-80 in Los Angeles while the Broncos won 79-56 in Santa Clara.

PROJECTED STARTERS

Santa Clara

Evan Roquemore, 12.1 PPG, 3.8 APG

Brandon Clark, 16.5 PPG, 3.7 APG

Jared Brownridge, 15.1 PPG, 2.7 APG

Jerry Brown, 8.3 PPG, 6.6 RPG

John McArthur, 4.1 PPG

LMU

Anthony Ireland, 18.1 PPG, 5.5 APG

Evan Payne, 14.9 PPG

C.J. Blackwell, 3.3 PPG

Gabe Levin, 12.1 PPG, 8.4 RPG

Alex Osborne, 6.2 PPG, 4.5 RPG

KEYS TO THE GAME

Santa Clara

Roquemore needs at least 5 assists, 2 of them need to be to big men: Two weaknesses for Santa Clara recently are Evan Roquemore’s assist to turnover ratio and its frontcourt scoring.  I have weaved both of them together into one goal. Roquemore needs to be able to dribble penetrate and find big men camped out into the paint.  That is the only way the big men will score (other than an occasional McArthur jumper) because they have no back to the basket post player.

LMU

Get Levin and Dickinson going on offense: Similar to Santa Clara, LMU got a lot of offense out of their perimeter players in their loss to San Francisco on Thursday. Dickinson has scored only 10 points in the last three games.  Levin only had 6 points on 2/7 shooting against San Francisco.  Ireland and Payne have scored a lot from the guard spots, but they need these interior presences to show up if they plan on contending in the WCC.

PREDICTION

Both are 4-year starting point guards, but Anthony Ireland is the much better than Roquemore.  Both teams are relatively young, so leadership from the point guard spot is crucial, and Ireland provides more of it.  I predict a 74-63 victory for the LMU Lions.