2015-16 C-USA Men's Hoops Preseason Picks

My apologies for interrupting one of the most inane arguments in NN.N’s long history of inane arguments, but…

If we finish 13th without substantial injuries we hired the wrong guy.

We’ll be somewhere in the lower half, I suspect. I dont think we’ll get a lot of wins but would love to be surprised. Its hard to have any expectations with a completely new geoup of guys and an all new staff/first year HC. We’ll take some lumps this year. I just want to see us going in the right direction, playing solid defense and getting better as the year goes on, instead of peaking in November and tail-spinning in February. Bucking that trend will be very welcome by all. 13th is too low, but 9-10 seems about right.

[quote=“919R, post:20, topic:29823”][quote=“s9er, post:15, topic:29823”][quote=“919R, post:13, topic:29823”][quote=“s9er, post:12, topic:29823”]13th is very fair… We have been really bad since our return to the league, on top of that we lost the top 5 players from last years team.

Hopefully the introduction of competent coaching will make a big difference this season and we are better than this. I think we will be, but this is a very reasonable pre-season ranking[/quote]
You think Braxton wasn’t one of our top 5 guys last year?[/quote]

No… He was at best the 3rd best guard on the roster.[/quote]
OK, so who were the OTHER (atleast) 3 guys better than him since we lost the “5” best from the team?[/quote]

Not in any particular order… And I’ll revise to say we lost our 6 biggest contributors from last years team

Henry
Thorne
Dorn
Williams- he took a lot of crap, but had a good Sr year
Woods
Clayton- had a poor year, but was still a big body and rebounded about as efficiently as Thorne did

If Sully had played the whole year, he’d easily be top 5.

[quote=“s9er, post:23, topic:29823”][quote=“919R, post:20, topic:29823”][quote=“s9er, post:15, topic:29823”][quote=“919R, post:13, topic:29823”][quote=“s9er, post:12, topic:29823”]13th is very fair… We have been really bad since our return to the league, on top of that we lost the top 5 players from last years team.

Hopefully the introduction of competent coaching will make a big difference this season and we are better than this. I think we will be, but this is a very reasonable pre-season ranking[/quote]
You think Braxton wasn’t one of our top 5 guys last year?[/quote]

No… He was at best the 3rd best guard on the roster.[/quote]
OK, so who were the OTHER (atleast) 3 guys better than him since we lost the “5” best from the team?[/quote]

Not in any particular order… And I’ll revise to say we lost our 6 biggest contributors from last years team

Henry
Thorne
Dorn
Williams- he took a lot of crap, but had a good Sr year
Woods
Clayton- had a poor year, but was still a big body and rebounded about as efficiently as Thorne did

If Sully had played the whole year, he’d easily be top 5.[/quote]
OK, I will just agree to disagree as I would put Braxton easily into the “middle” of your group.

[quote=“919R, post:24, topic:29823”][quote=“s9er, post:23, topic:29823”][quote=“919R, post:20, topic:29823”][quote=“s9er, post:15, topic:29823”][quote=“919R, post:13, topic:29823”][quote=“s9er, post:12, topic:29823”]13th is very fair… We have been really bad since our return to the league, on top of that we lost the top 5 players from last years team.

Hopefully the introduction of competent coaching will make a big difference this season and we are better than this. I think we will be, but this is a very reasonable pre-season ranking[/quote]
You think Braxton wasn’t one of our top 5 guys last year?[/quote]

No… He was at best the 3rd best guard on the roster.[/quote]
OK, so who were the OTHER (atleast) 3 guys better than him since we lost the “5” best from the team?[/quote]

Not in any particular order… And I’ll revise to say we lost our 6 biggest contributors from last years team

Henry
Thorne
Dorn
Williams- he took a lot of crap, but had a good Sr year
Woods
Clayton- had a poor year, but was still a big body and rebounded about as efficiently as Thorne did

If Sully had played the whole year, he’d easily be top 5.[/quote]
OK, I will just agree to disagree as I would put Braxton easily into the “middle” of your group.[/quote]

PER says otherwise… But that’s what makes opinions great things

I hope Brax really takes that big leap this year. I think he will thrive under Price

[quote=“s9er, post:25, topic:29823”][quote=“919R, post:24, topic:29823”][quote=“s9er, post:23, topic:29823”][quote=“919R, post:20, topic:29823”][quote=“s9er, post:15, topic:29823”][quote=“919R, post:13, topic:29823”][quote=“s9er, post:12, topic:29823”]13th is very fair… We have been really bad since our return to the league, on top of that we lost the top 5 players from last years team.

Hopefully the introduction of competent coaching will make a big difference this season and we are better than this. I think we will be, but this is a very reasonable pre-season ranking[/quote]
You think Braxton wasn’t one of our top 5 guys last year?[/quote]

No… He was at best the 3rd best guard on the roster.[/quote]
OK, so who were the OTHER (atleast) 3 guys better than him since we lost the “5” best from the team?[/quote]

Not in any particular order… And I’ll revise to say we lost our 6 biggest contributors from last years team

Henry
Thorne
Dorn
Williams- he took a lot of crap, but had a good Sr year
Woods
Clayton- had a poor year, but was still a big body and rebounded about as efficiently as Thorne did

If Sully had played the whole year, he’d easily be top 5.[/quote]
OK, I will just agree to disagree as I would put Braxton easily into the “middle” of your group.[/quote]

PER says otherwise… But that’s what makes opinions great things

I hope Brax really takes that big leap this year. I think he will thrive under Price[/quote]Sounds like Braxton won’t be forced into playing a PG role, he’ll be more of himself this year (scorer), which I think will allow play much better.

[quote=“moss2k, post:26, topic:29823”][quote=“s9er, post:25, topic:29823”][quote=“919R, post:24, topic:29823”][quote=“s9er, post:23, topic:29823”][quote=“919R, post:20, topic:29823”][quote=“s9er, post:15, topic:29823”][quote=“919R, post:13, topic:29823”][quote=“s9er, post:12, topic:29823”]13th is very fair… We have been really bad since our return to the league, on top of that we lost the top 5 players from last years team.

Hopefully the introduction of competent coaching will make a big difference this season and we are better than this. I think we will be, but this is a very reasonable pre-season ranking[/quote]
You think Braxton wasn’t one of our top 5 guys last year?[/quote]

No… He was at best the 3rd best guard on the roster.[/quote]
OK, so who were the OTHER (atleast) 3 guys better than him since we lost the “5” best from the team?[/quote]

Not in any particular order… And I’ll revise to say we lost our 6 biggest contributors from last years team

Henry
Thorne
Dorn
Williams- he took a lot of crap, but had a good Sr year
Woods
Clayton- had a poor year, but was still a big body and rebounded about as efficiently as Thorne did

If Sully had played the whole year, he’d easily be top 5.[/quote]
OK, I will just agree to disagree as I would put Braxton easily into the “middle” of your group.[/quote]

PER says otherwise… But that’s what makes opinions great things

I hope Brax really takes that big leap this year. I think he will thrive under Price[/quote]Sounds like Braxton won’t be forced into playing a PG role, he’ll be more of himself this year (scorer), which I think will allow play much better.[/quote]

I agree, I think he will flourish as more of an off guard this year… I’m sure he will play some point, but he’ll be off the ball more

COLLEGE SPORTS MADNESS TOP 144

#51 Old Dominion (C-USA #1)
#62 UAB (C-USA #2)
#81 LA Tech (C-USA #3)
#100 Middle Tennessee (C-USA #4)
#104 UTEP (C-USA #5)

Collegesportsmadness.com: Top 144 Previews

we will show them. just watch.

No way we finish in the bottom 2. I think this team will surprise. I am really eager to see what coach Price brings to the table. The fact that this team was put together so quickly from all over the place makes me feel like this is a new start.

I agree. I think we might be looking at these predictions later and laughing at how wrong they were about our team. I am strangely optimistic about this team for some reason. Haven’t been this excited about our team since probably '05.

C-USA coaches picks, including preseason all-conference team.

2015-16 C-USA PRESEASON POLL (#) first-place votes

  1. UAB (11)
  2. Old Dominion (3)
  3. Middle Tennessee
  4. UTEP
  5. Louisiana Tech
  6. WKU
  7. Rice
  8. North Texas
  9. Marshall
  10. FIU
    11. CHARLOTTE
  11. Florida Atlantic
  12. UTSA
  13. Southern Miss

2015-16 C-USA MEN’S BASKETBALL PRESEASON ALL-CONFERENCE TEAM
Student-Athlete | School | Class | Pos. | Hometown
Adrian Diaz | FIU | Senior | F | Miami, Fla.
Alex Hamilton | Louisiana Tech | Senior | G | Chipley, Fla.
Erik McCree | Louisiana Tech | Junior | F | Orlando, Fla.
Ryan Taylor | Marshall | Junior | F | Indianapolis, Ind.
Reggie Upshaw Jr. | Middle Tennessee | Junior | F | Chattanooga, Tenn.
Trey Freeman | Old Dominion | Senior | G | Virginia Beach, Va.
Marcus Jackson | Rice | Junior | G | Acton, Calif.
Robert Brown | UAB | Senior | G | Clermont, Fla.
William Lee | UAB | Sophomore | F | Plantersville, Ala.
Earvin Morris | UTEP | Senior | G | Memphis, Tenn.

Conferenceusa.com: UAB Men’s Basketball Voted C-USA Preseason Favorite

C-USA per CBS Sports 1-351 rankings:

[b]256. Charlotte: Mark Price comes into town for his first head job, and it'll be interesting to see how this experiment goes. The expectations will be low this year after losing most of the talent from last year's team.[/b]

53 ODU
71 UAB
94 UTEP
99 Middle Tennessee
137 WKU
153 LA Tech
179 Rice
230 Florida Atlantic
242 Marshall
248 North Texas
251 FIU
256 CHARLOTTE
268 Southern Miss
288 UTSA

CBSSports.com: [font=verdana][size=1em]CBS Sports 2015-16 ranking of every college basketball team, from 1-351[/size][/font]

[font=verdana][size=1em]FWIW, didn’t see any C-USA hoopsters among their top 100 players list.[/size][/font]

From the Big O, which may be the only media outlet that thinks C-USA can be a multi-bid league this season.

Charlotteobserver.com: Conference USA basketball preview