You don’t make definitive opinions on a team by Feast Week, but the MTE spectacle of wall-to-wall games with real implications will no doubt inform your theories better than sub-200 buy games at multiple levels of Division I. Now that the tryptophan is out of our system and hopefully the festivities’ leftovers are out of our collective fridges, we can start giving some measured takes about where exactly some of these teams are.

However, the upper echelon teams out west don’t have much time to look back as the heart of the nonconference slate arrives in the next couple of weeks. Here are some takeaways from a week that showed both some highs and lows for the Mountain West and the West Coast conferences.

Gonzaga’s ceiling may rest on its freshman point guard

The first two days of the Players Era Festival had the entire country giving a double-take towards a Gonzaga team entering the season ranked outside of the top 20 of the preseason rankings and questions on whether this was even a second-weekend caliber team.

The Bulldogs were the more explosive, athletic group in their first two games against Alabama and Maryland, vaulting the ceiling for the team to national title contender heading into their prize game against Michigan. Then that ceiling quickly collapsed by a 101-61 loss. It was so lopsided that it's hard to tell just how much of that game is transferable for either team the rest of the season.

It’s clear, however, that the Gonzaga offense still has plenty of questions that need to be answered, namely, scoring from the backcourt. The Bulldogs couldn’t find points elsewhere when Graham Ike and Braden Huff were held to a combined 7 for 26 shooting from the field. 

The biggest knock on Ryan Nembhard last season was that he would facilitate too frequently and not hunt out his own shot. That has been a continued problem with new point guards Mario Saint-Supéry and Braeden Smith, who are combining for 9.1 field goal attempts per game, barely exceeding Nembhard’s 8.5 shots in 35.1 minutes per game.

For Gonzaga to break past their high floor expectations as an elite defense that will punish decent to good teams over 40 minutes and truly become a Final Four caliber squad, they need Saint-Supéry to take a leap by March and become a real scoring piece to match his more than capable ability to facilitate the offense.

Inconsistent perimeter shooting was the biggest concern for the Spanish guard coming over from ACB, but his outside shot has actually been ahead of his finishing in these first eight games. Perhaps it’s an adjustment period, considering the crafty guard was heralded for his ability to score at the rim and his ability to get downhill, as scouts discussed his potential to play at the NBA level.

What is concerning for the Bulldogs is that the minutes pecking order still seems to be in flux after their trip to Vegas. Against high-caliber teams, Saint-Supéry has claimed 70% of the backcourt minutes with Smith taking roughly 30%. But throughout the season so far, that split is closer to 55% to 45%, suggesting a committee approach that the numbers don't seem to warrant.

Perhaps these season-long numbers are reflective of the Bulldogs bringing Saint-Supéry along gradually and maybe in Las Vegas they were cautious with minutes while playing three games in three days. But at this point, it's hard to argue that for Gonzaga to have their best chance to maximize their ceiling, getting the freshman guard as fine-tuned and seasoned as possible is a necessity.

NET rankings set expectations for a struggling Mountain West Conference

The MTEs provided an opportunity for Boise State and San Diego State to take advantage of high-major opponents and improve their resumes after sustaining early non-conference losses. However, Mauii and Las Vegas didn’t secure any massive wins that would bring either team closer to a sound case for an at-large bid.

The Broncos sustained two tough losses to USC and NC State that saw Leon Rice’s team leading or tied with their opponents in the second half. To make matters worse, the two losses slid them into a matchup against Chaminade, making their highest quality win headed into December a three-point win over Wichita State, who are ranked 97th in the NET.

San Diego State did secure a win in the Players Era Festival, but the victory came against a free-falling Oregon team that was placed 195th in the initial NET rankings. To make matters worse, they were another victim of a 40-point loss to Michigan in Sin City and were soundly put away in the second half against Baylor, losing 91-81.

To compound the lackluster results, the aforementioned NET rankings confirm that the Mountain West is working from behind to earn a second bid in the NCAA tournament. Utah State is the lone team in the top 50 of the rankings and just three teams can be found in the top 75.

The lack of marquee non-conference games on the schedule before conference action makes the chances of multiple bids slimmer, considering the cannibalistic nature of conference play. San Diego State gets a crack at Arizona on December 20th and Boise State will need to win at least one of their matchups against Butler and Saint Mary’s over the next two weeks if they want any hope of a non-auto bid.

The Mountain West hasn’t been a single-bid league since 2016-2017.

Gaels look vulnerable against Vanderbilt

The Bahamas was the first true test for Randy Bennett’s team, which had not played a top-100 KenPom team until their game against Wichita State last week. The Gaels looked mostly themselves in their win against the Shockers and then in their eleven-point win against Virginia Tech. But Saint Mary’s ran into a buzzsaw to close out the trip, losing 96-71 against a surprisingly great Vanderbilt team.

There were two concerning trends in their games in the Battle 4 Atlantis. One, the three-point shooting didn’t fully travel off the mainland, with the Gaels going 15 for 54 (27.8%) over their three games. However, a bigger concern would be their assist-to-turnover ratio. The team finished with more turnovers than assists in every game of the tournament.

Sophomore point guard Joshua Dent averaged 3 assists to 3.6 assists and went 0 for 11 from behind the arc last week. Transfer guard Tony Duckett had struggled to integrate into his new home throughout the nonconference slate and went from 13 minutes per game prior to the Bahamas to just 2.3 minutes per game against the higher-level competition.

Mikey Lewis continues to be a sniper from the perimeter, averaging 51% on the season and shooting a respectable 37.5% during the Thanksgiving trip. But his ability to score at the rim and get downhill continues to be a concern after shooting 38% from two-point over the last three games and he was just 2 for 7 against the two power conference teams.

The best result from the tournament and this season is that Paulius Marauskus has proven to be a capable lead scorer. He averaged 21 points and was able to get to the line for 28 free throw attempts during those three matchups.

Games to watch

  • Gonzaga vs. Kentucky, December 5th, 4 pm PT / 7 pm ET, ESPN2
  • Boise State at Butler, December 6th, 11 am PT / 2 pm ET, TRU TV
  • San Francisco vs. Mississippi State, December 7th, 1 pm PT / 4 pm ET, SEC Network