Men's basketball goes down to the wire

By Jack Ferdon

With wins in five of their last six games and a strong showing against the mighty Gonzaga, the men's basketball team seems poised to put an embarrassing 1-8 start behind them and make a run in the West Coast Conference.

But don't tell that to Dick Davey.

When it was suggested that Santa Clara might be the second best team in the conference right now, the Broncos' head coach dismissed the notion without a second of thought.

"Who told you that?" Davey said. "Have you seen Pepperdine play? Have you seen USF play?"

Okay. So maybe Bronco fans shouldn't make too much out of the team's performance in that awesome 83-81 loss at Gonzaga. And maybe the WCC isn't as weak as it seems. But the Broncos are not as nauseatingly bad as they appeared to be back before Christmas, which is in itself reason for excitement.

The year started off with two exhibition games. In the first, the Olympic Club's AAU team took the Broncos to overtime. In the second, a Ukrainian team that had only five uniforms � their sixth man wore a black tee shirt with a number nine made out of masking tape � laid a thorough, 20-point beating on the Broncos. And that team had itself lost by 20 to Loyola Marymount the week before.

Then came the 1-8 start, the low points of which were a 88-41 thrashing at Ohio State and a 78-71 loss to Belmont College at the Stanford Invitational. Both were disheartening losses, one because of the margin of victory, the other because of the school being played.

Asked to describe how it felt to lose in such a manner, Davey said, "Lousy. You schedule each game in the hope that it will help your team, but that game just really hurt our confidence."

The Broncos finally snapped out of it with a deft handling of Division II Chico State at the Leavey Center. This was followed by three more home victories, including one over a very strong UC Santa Barbara team.

The Broncos carried this momentum into the Gonzaga game. This year's Zags, with Dan Dickau's shooting and the frontcourt play of Zack Gourde, Cory Violette and Ronny Turiaf, are probably the best since the 1999 squad that advanced to the Elite Eight. But Santa Clara was up to the task. The Broncos out-rebounded the Zags 41-33 and forward Steve Ross had one the best games in the NCAA this year. The forward from British Columbia knocked down seven of14 3-pointers in a 38-point, nine-rebound masterpiece. He spearheaded the Broncos' furious second half comeback in which the Broncos fought back from 10 down and went head-to-head with Dickau � one of the best players in the country � in the final minutes. But the Zags' guard hit one too many clutch shots and Santa Clara lost by a basket.

The Broncos weren't satisfied with a close loss to the No. 14 team in the nation.

"The object of every game is to get (a grade of) A," Davey said. "We got a B."

"Everyone wanted to win," forward Jason Westphal said. "We knew we could win. But we just let it get away from us."

Santa Clara continued its strong play Sunday with an 84-73 win over Portland. The game saw sophomore Kyle Bailey deliver his best performance of the year as he notched 18 points, nine boards, and six assists. The point guard was plagued by turnovers and poor shooting during the 1-8 start.

"Everyone was really depressed (by the start)," Westphal said. "Kyle was really affected by it. But he's playing better now that we're winning."