Santa Clara Men's Basketball Making History
Broncos have their best start in more than 50 years
March Madness has arrived early in Santa Clara. The uniersity men’s basketball team has posted a record-breaking 13-2 non-conference record—its best since the team started 21-0 in 1968 and coincidentally made the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournament.
The start also helped elevate the Broncos’ non-conference home winning streak to 17 straight games, which stands as one of the longest in the country.
Back in 1968, Santa Clara opened up their campaign with a 21-0 start. They were led by head coach Dick Garibaldi, who was a member of the 1952 Final Four Team.
In the 1968-1969 season, the Broncos took a trip to the NCAA Tournament and finished with a record of 27-2.
They dropped only one regular season game to cross-town rival San Jose State University. In the tournament, they lost in the round of Elite Eight to UCLA. They returned to the tournament in 1969 and lost again to UCLA in similar fashion.
The Broncos back then were led by Bud Ogden and Dennis Awtrey. They helped the Broncos reach as high as second overall in the AP poll.
The Broncos have reached the NCAA Tournament a total of 11 times. The farthest round they advanced to was the Final Four, where they lost to University of Illinois to place third in the nation.
Now, the team enters conference play in the Western Coast Conference (WCC), a league that has seen rapid improvements and now stands as one of the best in the entire country.
Longtime St. Mary’s College basketball coach Randy Bennett claims that each WCC school’s increased focus on growing their basketball program has led to better competition.
“The league is really good. Programs have made some real efforts, commitment-wise, to coaching staff, coaching salaries, facilities, scheduling, whatever,” Bennett said. “Our league is definitely in a different place than it was five years ago.”
Year after year, Gonzaga University has consistently found themselves atop the West Coast Conference standings and now, the nation’s No. 1 ranked team has seen first-hand the increased competition.
In their first conference game of the year, Gonzaga entered the locker room at half time down by 7 points to the Portland Pilots who went 0-16 in conference play last season. This season is already shaping up into a wild one and could be the year that the league gets three bids to the NCAA tournament.
Given their exceptional performance in their non-conference match ups, Santa Clara has put themselves in a good position to fight for the school’s first postseason appearance since two-time NBA MVP, Steve Nash, attended the school in 1996.
In fact, Santa Clara's record is among the best in the NCAA. According to an NCAA ranking of teams who have the best winning percentage, Santa Clara falls at No. 10 on that list. The schools that finish before them include San Diego State and Auburn who are both undefeated at this point in the season, Gonzaga, and Duke to name a few.
The difference between last year’s Bronco team and the current one is minimal as the underclassmen-led Broncos only graduated one key player in starting center, Josh Martin.
Last year’s team saw two key injuries to their starting guards as KJ Feagin and Matt Hauser went down with season-ending injuries during the pre-season.
Although this hurt the team’s performance last year, the injuries gave additional experience to guards like Tahj Eaddy and Trey Wertz.
Santa Clara’s fourth year head coach, Herb Sendek, mentioned that the underclassmen guards took over the reins of the team and carried a lot of responsibility.
“We certainly asked them to do a great deal of heavy lifting,” Sendek said. “Those guys were asked to do a lot, and they’ve only continued to improve.”
The extra experience for the team’s youth last year has allowed the team to hit full stride early on. Wertz, only a sophomore, leads the team by averaging 12 points per game.
In fact, Santa Clara does not currently have a senior scholarship player on the roster. Barring any transfers in the off-season, the team with the best start since 1968 will return in full force with two seasons worth of games and team chemistry under their belt.
Junior Power Forward and a three year starter, Josip Vrankic, commented about how unique this year’s team is because so many different players have the ability to step up and lead the team to victory.
“The interesting thing about our team this year is that we don’t have a go-to scorer, anyone who plays can potentially be our leading scorer," Vrankic said. "It makes it fun to play and it’s hard to guard.”
The Broncos have seven different players averaging at least eight points per game and consistently have 10 players in their rotation.
In the Broncos’ most recent win against the University of San Diego, Keshawn Justice erupted for a career-high 26 total points. The 80-63 victory against the Toreros, marks the team’s first conference win and pushes their season win total to 14.
The Broncos face a gauntlet of schedule in the next three games as they play road games at the University of San Francisco, St. Mary’s and Gonzaga. All teams having winning records and will test a Bronco team that had the 325th out of 353 hardest schedules in all of college basketball this pre-season, according to CBS Sports.
Regardless, the team ranks 77th in country in NET rankings, a system that ranks teams’ performances in categories such as game results, strength of schedule, margin of victory and so much more.
The NET rankings have Santa Clara ranked just behind Gonzaga, St. Mary’s and BYU.
If the Broncos want to surpass the system’s forecast, they will have to take advantage of their road meetings with Gonzaga and St. Mary’s in the upcoming weeks.
The team will have to go through this upcoming slate of road games without their best rebounder, Guglielmo “Willie” Caruso. Caruso, the WCC West Coast Conference leader in field goal percentage, has been ruled out indefinitely with a leg injury.
Jaden Bediako, a freshman, started in his place against San Diego, but due to early foul trouble, he sat out most of the first half.
With Caruso out for the near future, Santa Clara will rely heavily on a combination of Vrankic, Bediako and Wake Forest transfer, DJ Mitchell, to pick up Caruso’s production.
In a resurgent year for the Santa Clara basketball program, the team will have to prove that their pre-season excellence was not a fluke.
A strong West Coast Conference season for the Broncos could push them into the postseason and gain even more experience to a team that will return every rotational player next year.
The future of Santa Clara basketball is bright. If this year continues to be similar to 1968, the Broncos could continue their commanding campaign. The Broncos will play in their next home game against the University of Pacific on Saturday, Jan. 18 at 6pm.
Contact Kieran Bradford at kbradford@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852.