WCC Basketball: San Francisco’s hopes are high after hot start

Are the Dons for real?

The Dons’ defense has been wowing people thus far. Through six games, they are only allowing 53.3 points to their opponents. That’s good for fourth in the country. Ken Pomeroy’s defensive efficiency metric lists San Francisco as the 33rd best defense in the land. They are recording steals on nearly 12% of their opponents’ possessions, per Sports Reference, which is 36th in the nation and is just barely better than Virginia’s steal rate.

But perhaps their most impressive defensive statistic is that they are only allowing an effective field goal percentage of 39.1%. Only Nebraska, Michigan, and Texas Tech are doing a better job of forcing bad shots and keeping the ball out of the net. And that’s basically the defense’s main job, no?

San Francisco’s offense, on the other hand, is a bit more pedestrian. They do crash the boards well, securing 43.7% of available offensive rebounds. Only Kentucky is doing better on the offensive glass so far. But when it comes to scoring, things get slightly bleaker. The Dons may not always score in bunches – they average a respectable 81.5 points, but were held to just 61 in their only real challenge so far, against Harvard.

Their biggest weakness is the free throw line. The Dons don’t get there very often and they can’t seem to hit the shots when they do make it to the line. Their free throw rate is 299th in the country.

Of course, San Francisco’s weak strength of schedule can’t be ignored.

Their toughest non-conference game – a home bout against a tough Arizona State squad – was canceled due to the forest fires in Northern California. As a result, Jeff Sagarin has San Francisco’s schedule thus far pegged at 340th of 353 Division I teams. Their best remaining games in the non-conference will come against a pair of struggling Pac-12 teams in Stanford and Cal. This weak slate is going to make life difficult come March.

As far as league play goes, playing Gonzaga twice is going to bring that strength of schedule number up. And the games they’ll log against Saint Mary’s and BYU won’t hurt, either. But it’s going to take more than just showing up for San Francisco to punch a ticket to the Big Dance.

If the Dons are going to be among the 36 at-large bids, they’ll probably need to split (or sweep) their series against the Gaels and the Cougars. A road win against either of those teams – and an appearance in the WCC Tournament finals – would help things considerably. Stealing a win over the Zags, which is going to be hard for anyone to do this year, would really do wonders for their resume.

It’s been twenty years since San Francisco made it to the Big Dance, but this year’s team is aiming to end the drought. While an at-large bid is still a long-shot, hopes in the Bay Area have to be higher than they’ve been in quite some time.