In lieu of the brackets being released on Selection Sunday, I thought I’d start a thread in which we rank the Niners 16 victories this season. Please feel free to share your thoughts or changes that you’d make to this list.
#1@Western Kentucky (72-70 on February 22) #2 North Texas (56-43 on March 4) #3@Marshall (77-75 on January 16) #4 Wake Forest (67-65 in Overtime on November 17) #5 Davidson (71-58 on November 12) #6 FIU (75-49 on January 25) #7 Valpo (67-57 on December 16) #8 FAU (70-68 on January 23) #9 Old Dominion (53-47 on January 11) #10 UAB (51-44 on January 2) #11@UNC Wilmington (76-57 on December 7) #12 UTSA (91-84 on February 8) #13 UTEP (68-64 on February 6) #14 Middle Tennessee (68-62 on January 4) #15 USC Upstate (83-47 on November 30) #16 UMES (66-44 on December 19)
i def dont agree with people putting davidson #1. they were down this season. it’s great to beat them but i think beating wake forest is more important for perception and i think their fans are worse. i agree with the op’s list. i might flip the top two victories simply bc of how good our defense was in the north texas game.
I only put the WK game #1 because of how seldom we’ve won in Bowling Green and the manner in which we won. Also, North Texas at that point had already wrapped up the conference championship and #1 seed in Frisco. The North Texas game was a huge win and the defense certainly played very well.
I put them #1 because we beat them somewhat soundly, and it was a rivalry game (only reason it is again is because we’ve sucked the last few years), but it felt good to get that damn monkey off our backs. WKU a close second because we won on the road a 5 vs. 8 game.
Davidson might not have been the biggest win, but to get our program back on track I’d consider it the most important. Exerting dominance over them is step 1 in our return to respectable basketball year in and year out.
What NWA said. Davidson is my #1. We were not playing for the NCAAs this year, we were playing to “get back”, and beating Davidson is key to that. Beating Wake was great because people think beating any ACC team is a big deal, but Wake sucks and their fans almost want to lose to force Manning out. From a basketball perception, I wouldn’t put it that high. The 11 other home wins would be my #2-12 because we need to rebuild our fan base, and going 13-2 at home is huge! WKU (away) would be #13 and NT (away) would be #14.
North Texas was at home. Western Kentucky was the 2nd best team in the conference. I’m not sure that that I agree with you that beating USC Upstate or UMES at home was bigger than winning at Western Kentucky. Winning at Halton is very important though. 13-2 is quite the accomplishment.
Good points. I guess I was remembering our game in Denton a couple of weeks earlier–unfortunately it was a loss. My basic point is Duck Favidson (nod to Lew), then winning at home in general, and Weak Forest was a good home win, but less important than a conference win, but local people think it is more important than it really was.
I gotta put Davidson first followed by the Wake win then the WKU win. Beating Davidson was huge for our program and getting back to the team/program we once were.
We didn’t get to realize the importance of the North Tx and WKU wins. I put them first because those games proved to the entire team that they could beat anyone anywhere, and we may have seen that bear fruit in the tournament.
Davidson next because that was huge to show the guys they could beat anyone on the schedule at the beginning of the season, which we saw carry through to the run of home wins.