San Francisco

At the beginning of the year, I was bullish on the WCC possibly getting 4 bids. As of yesterday, Brian’s bracket had 4 teams in the field. Among those is San Francisco. The Dons are no joke, sitting 26th overall in KenPom, smack dab in between Marquette and Wisconsin. They’re not a bracket buster, they’re one of the better teams in the country.

On offense, they’re 58th in efficiency. They’re 40th in effective fg%, shooting 34% from 3 and 55% from 2, 26th in the nation. They’re also a decent offensive rebounding team but a bit weak protecting the ball, 214th in turnover%. They don’t get to the line much and shoot poorly from there. The Dons are 249th in FT%.

San Francisco is 26th in defensive efficiency. They have the best effective defensive fg% in the nation. Teams only shoot 28% from 3, 13th best in the nation. The Dons are also a good at defensive rebounding as well. They’re 57th in defensive rebounding %. This is a good defensive team.

San Francisco has 5 losses on the season. Only 1 of them is “bad”. Grand Canyon is 105th in KenPom and the beat the Dons 49-48 in an ugly game in December. The other 4 losses were against top 35 teams. They have wins over Davidson, Fresno State and BYU. They’ll get 1 more crack at Gonzaga and St. Mary’s.

This is a veteran team. SR. Jamaree Bouyea leads them in scoring. He plays 91% of the minutes and shoots 40% from 3. Yauhen Massalski is one of the best rebounders in the country, averaging 9 boards per game along with scoring 14ppg. He’s also a good shot blocker. Khalil Shabbaz, another senior, averages 12ppg. Sophomore Julian Rishwain shoots 49% from 3 in a limited role.

Brian has them on the 8-9 line which is a tough spot. If they can get a couple of wins over Gonzaga or St. Mary’s and move up a line, they’d be a sneaky good pick for the second weekend. Heck, they might be able to do that as an 8 or 9.