Itās tough to through numbers about win totals without any knowledge of the schedule, which is a blank slate.
Conference season had many games where we held late leads which we couldnāt hold as the shorthanded roster ran out of gas. While the end result of the season all depends on our ability to score efficiently, I would expect the defense to take a big leap with so many players having experience in the system, whether it be in practice or on the court. 9-9 in C-USA is my expectation for next season.
Our non-conference schedule as far as we know is Davidson, Wake at home and JMU on the road. It would be wise to fluff up the schedule with cupcakes this year. Sanchez will need time to tinker with his line-ups, so getting the dregs of the Big South, A-Sun and MEAC into Halton so the confetti guns can get used to working again.
As far as seasons afterwards, I canāt really develop expectations until seeing what next yearās team looks like. This program was very, very broken. Iām sure Iāll still be around in a couple years even if we donāt make the 2021 NCAAās.
Only two of these guys were late additions by Sanchez. The rest was what Price, Fancher, and Gray left us with. During their time here UNCG, Liberty, and Gardner Webb surpassed us.
NA how is the bar being lowered? Virtually everyone here is saying year 3 should be the year we make a big step and year 4 is make or break. That is basically the same as what people said for Major and Price and the reality is the program is far more broke now that it was.
The only thing that could be consider lowering the bar is if we donāt make the NCAA in year 4 or 5 due to CUSA limitations. If we are 22-25 wins and miss the tourney due to the conference and losing in the finals or something, Iām not holding that against Sanchez.
We have people talking about 14 & 15 wins in two more years being good enough. Thatās ridiculous. It doesnāt take that long to turn around a hoops program. And as I said, by the 2020-2021 season, he will have a core of guys in years 2 & 3 of his program.
Letās stop lowering standards. We used to have some pride. 15 wins in year 3 isnāt #GoldStandard. More like #Pyrite
FWIW NWA I mostly agree with you. Bare minimum next season should be .500 record especially against a soft schedule. The following season adds the tough determination of who to schedule. Personally, I expect a veteran team ready for a challenge, so Iād load up on non conference to improve rpi 2.0 (ānetā) which is just a new way to favor the home heavy schedules of the so-called power schools.
Iām just glad to see all this passionate basketball talk after such a dismal season.
I go into every season with high expectations and hopes that the tradition that was
set by Foster, Mullins and Lutz, somehow get retained !
I have no doubts that Hill and Sanchez have us pointed in the right direction and
will right this ship ! The four incoming freshmen have me super psyched !
To jump from RPI/Net ranking ~325 to a tournament team in 2 seasons I would guess is an unmatched meteoric rise. Iāll be happy with being top quarter of conference that season and being a threat in the conference tournament. Therefore Iāll still be around if we arenāt dancing in 2021 because of rationality.
Crean took an IU squad, fresh off a Kelvin Sampson firing amidst allegations and sanctions from 10-21 to 27-9 in two years, in a much much tougher conference.
But look no further than our own history. We are basically in the modern day Sunbelt league.
In 1985-86, Jeff Mullinsā first year taking over for the dreadful Hal Wissel, he went 8-20. The next season? 18-14. The following year? 22-9, NCAA 1st round. Sunbelt champs.
Thatās what I want the program to both aspire to, and to achieve.
Stop lowering the GD bar. This can be done. We hired the supposed top assistant coach in America and are espousing the #GoldStandard and too many of you are sarcastically and cynically trying to act like winning 12 games in year 3 is okay, or even going .500ā¦ Bullshit. 3 good players can turn around an entire hoops program. This isnāt trying to manage an 85 man CFB roster. Stop making excuses and start expecting and demanding excellence. The whipped dog syndrome is way over board here. Shake it off.
Thatād be a nice milestone (beating McKillop) for next season I think although I have to admit I have no idea what the goose Killers have coming back
Thanks 2k. looks like the out-of-conference was mostly hawaii-hilo type teams but we had just enough P5 teams on there to probably keep the strength to schedule of decent quality. We also lost pretty much all those P5 games
Reasonably, weāre not an NCAA team next year. So we need to schedule cupcakes. That should pad the win column as well.
7 new bodies next season is huge. We played most of the season with 7 legit D1 scholarship guys, as we had near constant injuries. Going from a 7 man rotation to a full one should add some wās as well. How many games did we lose by less than 5 points with that same 7 man rotation?
Edit: not to mention, IMO the league is gonna be down next year. Marshall and ODU lose pretty much everything. WKU sand UTSA will be back. Southern Miss is senior heavy this year. UAB will be solid. What Iām saying is we get a lot better while the league in general isnāt getting much better. WKU and UTSA will be better. Pretty much everyone else will decline.
