Non-Con Preview: Pacific Tigers

Missouri announced their entire schedule on Tuesday, August 20th. And if you’ve read this blog in the past, you know SEC previews are coming, but first we wanted to spend a little time looking at the non-conference slate, so here is the announced non-conschedule:

• Nov 4 - Road at Memphis
• Nov 8 - Home vs Howard
• Nov 11 - Home vs Eastern Washington
• Nov 14 - Home vs. Miss. Valley State
• Nov 22 - Home vs Pacific
• Nov 24 - Home vs Arkansas Pine Bluff
• Nov 27 - Home vs Lindenwood
• Dec 3 - Home vs Cal (ACC-SEC Challenge)
• Dec 8 - Home vs Kansas (or kansas, if you prefer)
• Dec 14 - Home vs LIU
• Dec 22 - Neutral vs. Illinois
• Dec 30 - Home vs Alabama State

In the past I’ve gone a bit deeper on these previews than I will here. Think of this series more of a quick-cap than a full-on preview. As the season nears, we’ll have deeper previews, and it’s also easier to preview a team when some games have been played.

With Memphis, Howard, Eastern Washington, and Mississippi Valley State behind us, let’s take a quick look at Pacific.

PACIFIC TIGERS

Last year, after one of the program’s most historically bad seasons, the Pacific Tigers fired their coach. They went 6-26, and 0-18 in the West Coast Conference, and finished 358th in the country per KenPom.com. They somehow beat Cal early in the season, but soon after needed overtime to beat Mississippi Valley State. Then proceeded to not beat a single Division 1 team the rest of the year, culminating with a 102 - 43 loss to a pretty bad Pepperdine team in the West Coast Conference tournament.

Such are the times, Pacific made their move, overhauled their roster, and hired one of the most acclaimed under the radar coaches in the game.

Head Coach | Dave Smart | 1st Season 0-0

Michael C. Johnson-Imagn Images

You have probably never heard of Dave Smart. Very few, outside of a really wonky crew of basketball hoop heads, know who he is.

He’s a 13-time Champion in the U Sports Men’s basketball championship, basically the Canadian NCAA Tournament. Basically, he’s a Canadian John Wooden. By the time he stepped down, his head coaching record was 591 - 48. Or 92.4% win rate. For some context, Coach K’s win rate was 76.6% when he retired, and John Wooden’s was 80.4%. With a minimum of 10 seasons, Mark Few has the highest at 83.3%. So yes, Smart is head and shoulders above his contemporaries, at least in Canada.

In 2023, he took a job to work with Grant McCasland at Texas Tech as a way to break into the US game. Then quickly took the job at Pacific. It’s not a good job, but if anyone can get it to work, it’s Smart.

What about the team now?

Some of the advantages of programs like Pacific is you really can hit the hard reset button and be no worse off for it if you have a coach who mildly knows what they’re doing. And Smart certainly does. Now I don’t know if Pacific are going to be any good or not. BartTorvik.com certainly doesn’t think they’ll be much better than they were. Preseason, his rankings have them rated 321st in the country. But... I don’t hate what Smart did with his roster.

The roster for the Tigers is a relatively short one, with just 12 listed on the online roster. And half the roster has High Major or Mid-Major plus level talent. Perhaps the biggest addition is that of former top 40 recruit Elijah Fisher, a Canadian born guard who averaged over 10 ppg for DePaul last year after transferring from Texas Tech. Another Tech transfer, Lamar Washington was a former top 100 player out of Portland, Oregon in high school, and could pair nicely with Fisher in the backcourt. The two haven’t lived up to their loftier high school rankings but are both talented and lengthy wings.

Smart also added Nevada transfer Jazz Gardner, the son of Jelani Gardner, a former Cal and Pepperdine player most known for bringing down the Todd Bozeman era at Cal due to illegal benefits. The younger was a 4-star prospect out of high school and had an up and down season for the Wolfpack before entering the transfer portal.

Rounding out the transfers are Florida International part-time starter Petar Krivokapic, injury-riddled Washington State and SMU transfer, Jefferson Koulibaly, and two JUCO transfer guards in Seth Jones and Donyae May. Smart also added University of Victoria (Canada) transfer forward Elias Ralph, kept backup center Burke Smith, and signed a couple freshmen.

Pacific will also play Arkansas, although that date hasn’t been announced yet.

Missouri is currently looking at being around a 23-point favorite.