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MEDIA DAY PRESEASON POLL
- UC Irvine
- UC Santa Barbara
- Cal State Northridge
- Hawai’i
- Cal State Fullerton
- Long Beach State
- UC Riverside
- UC Davis
- Cal Poly
MEDIA DAY PRESEASON ALL-BIG WEST TEAM
Lamine Diane – Cal State Northridge, SO F
Terrell Gomez – Cal State Northridge, JR G
Max Heidegger – UC Santa Barbara, SR G
Evan Leonard – UC Irvine, SR G
Dikymbe Martin – UC Riverside, SR G
NOTES FROM DAVID. UC Irvine had a spectacular season last year where they won 31 games and advanced to the Round of 32 in the NCAA Tournament. Just two starters are back, but they’ve got several guys who have seen quality minutes in the past that can step up, along some freshmen who should be able to help them out. I don’t think they’ll be as good as they were a year ago, but they should once again be one of the best, if not THE best, in the Big West.
Look out for UC Santa Barbara. They could be better than you think. They had one really bad week in February last year where they lost three games, and two of those inexplicably came against crappy teams. Other than that, they were really good. Four starters are back, and they could be in store for a huge year this year.
Cal State Northridge has four starters back, and two of those guys earned preseason all conference honors. Mark Gottfried enters year two of his era, and I think you’re going to see some major improvements. I agree with the media that they could finish in the top three, and could be very hard to beat.
Cal State Fullerton returns three starters from a team that tied for second, but two of their top scorers and all around players are gone so we could see them take a step back this season.
Hawai’i has three starters back, and a fair amount of depth. It is seemingly always hard to win at Hawai’i no matter how good they are. Having said that, the Warriors oftentimes have just as much difficulty winning away from home.
I thought the voters were a little rough on UC Davis, but only a little. They won just nine D-1 games a year ago, but three starters are back and they did have a pretty good stretch close to the end of the year to indicate that they were at least going in the right direction. I do like Jim Les as a coach, and with the addition of some quality JUCO guys this should be a better team this year.
It’s hard to believe that Dan Monson is about to begin his 13th season at Long Beach State. It’s also somewhat surprising that while he’s had a couple of really good teams, they haven’t been able to remain consistently good. With just two starters back from last year’s team, and nine new players this year, it’s hard to say with any certainty how good The Beach will be this season.
UC Riverside returns four starters, but they win just seven games against D-1 teams last year, so chances are they’ll once again be closer to the bottom than they are to the top.
I expect Cal Poly to repeat as this year’s last place team.