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Post by rmcalhoun on Aug 5, 2019 21:14:12 GMT -6
Getting out of the middle of the pack, let's think about that a minute. Should mean a decent seed in the MAC. A good seed and good depth in a 3 day, 3 game setting is a fighting chance for that 15 seed in the NCAA tournament. And depth makes a late season collapse a lot less likely. Despite the curse. I know. That's not the thrill we want, not the dream. But...it's not nightmares alternating with sleepless nights either. You did not answer the question is what I stated good enough to get us out of the middle of the pack..
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Post by williamtsherman on Aug 5, 2019 21:28:43 GMT -6
BSU isn't in the middle of the pack. BSU was 11th out of 12.
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Post by 00hmh on Aug 5, 2019 22:15:28 GMT -6
Getting out of the middle of the pack, let's think about that a minute. You did not answer the question is what I stated good enough to get us out of the middle of the pack. Yes. We can improve not only over our dismal state at season's end. But can get to where were at our best. It does take those things you outline and good play by several newcomers to give us that depth we lacked. Surely not a certainty. I just don't think we're so impossibly far away. The MAC is down a little. More wide open. We will not be dominant even in a best case. But above the middle, yes we can be. Right now it's few tea leaves only to read from Costa Rica. We'll know more soon enough. I do have quite a bit of faith that we saw close to the worst case down the stretch last year. These guys are better than that.
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Post by JacksonStreetElite on Aug 6, 2019 7:44:11 GMT -6
BSU isn't in the middle of the pack. BSU was 11th out of 12. Here are the rankings:
1st - totally unrealistic and only thought of by the lunatics mired in the past. 2nd/3rd - maybe if the MAC is in a down year if none of our bench players jam a finger. 4th - we're the king of the world.
5th-11th - middle of the pack. 12th - room for improvement but the unknown players are all awesome so if you doubt we'll return to the middle of the pack next year you're a nincompoop.
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Post by 00hmh on Aug 6, 2019 9:53:56 GMT -6
Here are the rankings:
1st - totally unrealistic and only thought of by the lunatics mired in the past. 2nd/3rd - maybe if the MAC is in a down year if none of our bench players jam a finger. 4th - we're the king of the world.
5th-11th - middle of the pack. 12th - room for improvement but the unknown players are all awesome so if you doubt we'll return to the middle of the pack next year you're a nincompoop.
Last year we clearly had one team head and shoulders above the rest. Slim chances they would not emerge from the MAC tourney. Significantly better team than the rest and aslo deep enough. Their B game enough except a very rare game.
Then we had 3 or 4 about the same talent level. We were in this group, maybe at the top of it earlier and when we had everyone at full strength.
The next group of 5 or 6 was not a giant step down. Not as good and not as consistent. We fell into that group and then had a very poor finish to boot. Overall a pretty tough conference, anybody could beat about anybody, except Buffalo, if at home.
This year I don't right now see a dominant team, probably 3 or 4 in a top group, we should have good chances to be there. Conceivably a team could break out of that group, but just can't see anyone like Buffalo was last year. I expect maybe two more tiers below. Not a ton of separation, top 8 teams. Weaker overall significantly I expect. Especially since we may see a couple of bottom feeders separate below the rest.
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Post by rmcalhoun on Aug 6, 2019 10:00:44 GMT -6
Then we had 3 or 4 about the same talent level. We were in this group, maybe at the top of it earlier and when we had everyone at full strength.
Here is my problem with that we thought on paper we were in this bubble but yet we finished almost in last place... Why? Were we just wrong and over estimated how good we were? Are we still doing it? Is it a coaching fail? What really happened?
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Post by 00hmh on Aug 6, 2019 10:12:22 GMT -6
Here are the rankings: 4th - we're the king of the world.
5th-11th - middle of the pack. 12th - room for improvement but the unknown players are all awesome so if you doubt we'll return to the middle of the pack next year you're a nincompoop.
Your ranking this year has an element of truth in that I don't see us breaking out as dominant team. Surely 4 is king of the world either. More like possible 15 seed from a weaker conference, maybe. Also, best guess to my thinking is that 5-11 should be broken into two groups.
We have too many freshmen who have to play well to be top 3, I think. Our chances have to be based on getting 8 or 9 players to play to their potential or near.
Too much overall talent to be bottom tier. Barring truly horrible injury problems we have enough depth and enough time for freshmen to adjust by the end, and I'd say even 4th place would give us a chance in the MAC tourney. Optimism? Maybe, but after all this is the time of year for a little optimism.a lot
And as for your "interpretation" ratings 4 and down, no surprise to me. Not quite in the nincompoop category but you are buying into a worst case. For those who are so convinced our players are all no talent slugs and our staff are idiots, then I am sure they can imagine the worst. So, if you believe that, a 4th place finish then would be top of the world, true cause to celebrate.
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Post by 00hmh on Aug 6, 2019 10:26:10 GMT -6
Then we had 3 or 4 about the same talent level. We were in this group, maybe at the top of it earlier and when we had everyone at full strength. Here is my problem with that we thought on paper we were in this bubble but yet we finished almost in last place... Why? Were we just wrong and over estimated how good we were? Are we still doing it? Is it a coaching fail? What really happened? Without rehashing a disappointing season in too much detail, the reason is that the whole conference was tough enough to make a series of losses, some quite close easy to happen. Give a little credit to an overall balanced conference with a killer top team. Given what happened to our roster, where we were not nearly at full strength for so much of the season, no surprise we could not win so many of the close games and we lacked depth to survive a truly bad game.
For example, I don't think we were far from Toledo at all early on. They improved a bit perhaps. I don't see how with the adversity we faced and lacking a full roster for staff to work with most of the season we were going to do that. They survived their lack of depth with good shooting, ours went south.
Just compare the rosters at the end of the season, it is easy to see how they separated so far from us.
Having suffered through all that, I am surprised you treat as a norm and are worried this is the same situation.
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Post by sweep on Aug 6, 2019 10:32:33 GMT -6
Then we had 3 or 4 about the same talent level. We were in this group, maybe at the top of it earlier and when we had everyone at full strength. Here is my problem with that we thought on paper we were in this bubble but yet we finished almost in last place... Why? Were we just wrong and over estimated how good we were? Are we still doing it? Is it a coaching fail? What really happened? Mainly because a couple of posters on this forum way over-hyped the skill sets of our transfers and didn't understand our overall roster lacked diverse talent and true position players. This year is even worse. Trying to sell this mess as a "deep bench" is hysterical, realistically there are three and maybe four guys on this roster who aren't even D1 talent.
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Post by rmcalhoun on Aug 6, 2019 10:50:18 GMT -6
Its august Im not worried about anything yet. I am just bored to death and like hearing you guys talk..
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Post by 00hmh on Aug 6, 2019 10:58:38 GMT -6
Why? Were we just wrong...What really happened? Mainly because a couple of posters on this forum way over-hyped... This year is even worse... realistically there are three and maybe four guys on this roster who aren't even D1 talent. 3 or 4? That is silly. Typical halftime half baked denigrating shot from the hip at players. Why downright silly? First because D1 and MAC are 2 different things. If you said we had a couple marginal for MAC I would not quarrel. Every MAC team has that. But I also disagree with you, as do our coaches, and others, on your evaluation of our talent, too.
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Post by rmcalhoun on Aug 6, 2019 11:07:16 GMT -6
Then we had 3 or 4 about the same talent level. We were in this group, maybe at the top of it earlier and when we had everyone at full strength. Here is my problem with that we thought on paper we were in this bubble but yet we finished almost in last place... Why? Were we just wrong and over estimated how good we were? Are we still doing it? Is it a coaching fail? What really happened? Mainly because a couple of posters on this forum way over-hyped the skill sets of our transfers and didn't understand our overall roster lacked diverse talent and true position players. This year is even worse. Trying to sell this mess as a "deep bench" is hysterical, realistically there are three and maybe four guys on this roster who aren't even D1 talent. Sweep what three or four do you think that is. At this point right now I would give you Huggins and Sadly Gunn might be heading that way
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Post by 00hmh on Aug 6, 2019 11:50:34 GMT -6
realistically there are three and maybe four guys on this roster who aren't even D1 talent. Sweep what three or four do you think that is. At this point right now I would give you Huggins and Sadly Gunn might be heading that way Project big men are on a lot of D1 rosters. Not D1 players? Maybe. And often some will transfer when they don't make it. But there are certainly D1 teams where Huggins would be on a roster and many where he would expect to play.
Looked at it with 20-20 hindsight Gunn is both a disappointment in the MAC but also a player you expect to make it on a D1 team somewhere. His size with good HS record against good competition and his Indiana top 20 rating make him extremely likely to end up in D1.
Two things.
1. Lots of D1 players end up not living up to their high hopes. VERY very good players often fail. Some fail miserably. All levels D1. I don't think that means they were not D1 talent.
2. It is also true some good players who could go D1 might well end up in lower tier basketball. I easily could see these two guys choosing that route or JUCO route.
But when you find so many players like these on D1 rosters at and below the MAC level, I it's meaningless and it's pushing it to say they are not D1 talent.
Where halftime finds 2 more who just don't have the talent to play somewhere in D1 I really don't see it. Josh has proved himself. All others had legit D1 offers. Almost all at MAC level.
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Post by realitycheck on Aug 6, 2019 19:11:42 GMT -6
This thread is really just a clone of the regular season threads. I’m not sure I expected a lot going to Costa Rica and we didn’t show much despite winning all three games against blah competition. This was about building some team chemistry with a bunch of new faces and getting some extra practices and prep under our belt.
I read these posts about our depth and athleticism but gang we have a bunch of new guys playing together and consistency is going to be an issue. We will have Luke 1 & 2, Acree, Thomas, Hendricks, Coleman in the mix for rotation time and blending them with our returnees is gonna be a work in progress. The other issue is shooting. The coaches know this and they’re working hard at it and so are the guys but that’s gonna be a work in progress too.
Probably the the best thing we have going is there’s gonna be lots of competition for playing time and that can be a great motivator. Your starters are gonna be Teague, Hazen, Mallers, Ish and KJ. Kroft and Myrine are going to surprise sometimes.
Consistency and shooting. These will be our Achilles.
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Post by lmills72 on Aug 6, 2019 21:39:53 GMT -6
Costa Rican trip or not, there's no way this staff figures out its roster until we're 22-23 games into the season, if even then. That's the way it works with Whitford.
And let's be straight: There are only 3 newcomers - Kroft, Hendricks and Bumbalough. If Coleman, Acree and Thomas didn't build some chemistry with their teammates all of last year, a few days in Costa Rica wasn't going to do the trick.
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