While I see the logic behind what you are saying, I have to disagree. Coming off of a 10 win season, itās pretty hard for us to demand a tougher schedule. Everyone complained last year about our easy schedule and we still drowned. Granted, there were many issues last season could not have been predicted.
I think this seasonās schedule is exactly what this young team needs. It has balance. While I would have liked to have seen a Marquee game at TWC or even Halton, they scheduled smart this year.
Now, next season I see as a must for higher caliber teams. The whole idea is to progress back to where we were 10 years ago and even surpass it. We donāt get things done the fancy way, toss money at someone and say, āWe paid you like a BCS now coach like one (a la ECU).ā Slow and steady wins the race.
The culture change will start with these new recruits. We are getting it done on the trail. Next will come the wins, with the wins comes the hype, and with the hype comes elite teams in Halton.
And it all happens just in time for that 2013 football season, a name change to commemorate the new Niner Traditions, and a Big East inviteā¦in a perfect world.
[quote=āHXC Niner, post:21, topic:25580ā]I think this seasonās schedule is exactly what this young team needs.[/quote] I think this is logical if we had a young team, but Iām not sure youād call this team āyoungā given the number of juniors and seniors. Are you assuming the young guys will be playing most of the minutes? Starting out the season, Iād guess the starting lineup would be either Briscoe-Green-Barnett-Sherrill-Braswell (Jr-Sr-Sr-Jr-Jr) or Briscoe-Mayfield-Barnett-Sherrill-Braswell (Jr-So-Sr-Jr-Jr) with two of those guys having transfer years. Maybe Nickerson or Mayfield plays over Barnett and/or Henry plays pg with Briscoe over at sg? But I bet that doesnāt happen until after OOC is over. I donāt think our team is younger than the typical college team.
That said, I think itās interesting that GMadness thinks adding those teams to the schedule only results in 3 more losses (well, except for Wake, but playing them would only hurt our rpi) and that itās easy to add them after last year. Why would those teams agree to play us? We were rpi-killers last year (2-14 conference, 10-20 overall against a weak schedule). If we start making some noise, we might have a shot at better schedules.
I see what you mean with the upper class men that we have. I think that coming off of a 10 win season no oneās starting spot should be safe. Also, when Major came in, he brought in a whole new brand of basketball. We went from an offensive mindset to a defensive mindset and it was extremely apparent that not everyone on the team was happy with that change. So everyone is still pretty ānewā to the system. I think last season we saw a lot of switching back to the old ways just because the current players skill sets matched the old style better. I feel like this whole process is on a learning curve. I can also see a coach preferring the players that he brought in over players that were already here. By young I guess I mean as a team rather than the specific individual players. That being said, I think the schedule is pretty spot on for us. I will expect more next year.
We had 7 scholly players running Majors system last year, we have no clue what he can or will do with 10-12 capable players like he has this year, Iām sure there will be a lot of new things that he tries out, and Iām glad he has a few cupcake games to do it with. We also should have had Oregon St in Halton this year but for whatever reason they decided not to do to it. That would have been 4 BCS teams on the schedule, pretty similiar to games in years past. Unfortunatly none of the 4 are big names, so it doesnāt look as good.
Negative, and thatās a poor reflection on this site when I look at some of these teams on here.
For example Houston made their list and went 4-12 in CUSA last year, lost in the first round of the conf tourny, and lost every double digit scorer they had. They return 2 starters and their newcomers are your typical JUCO and a few mid level freshman. By comparison went 8-8 in CUSA, and won a couple games in the tourny, return likley the best big man in CUSA and a couple other starters, and add 4 transfers with D1 expereince.
Thatās just 1 example of many I could point out, that no person who actually did the research could justify ranking our team us behind that team.
Negative, and thatās a poor reflection on this site when I look at some of these teams on here.
For example Houston made their list and went 4-12 in CUSA last year, lost in the first round of the conf tourny, and lost every double digit scorer they had. They return 2 starters and their newcomers are your typical JUCO and a few mid level freshman. By comparison went 8-8 in CUSA, and won a couple games in the tourny, return likley the best big man in CUSA and a couple other starters, and add 4 transfers with D1 expereince.
Thatās just 1 example of many I could point out, that no person who actually did the research could justify ranking our team us behind that team.[/quote]
Donāt worry man. Thereās still 65 spots to go.
I noticed you didnāt dispute anything I said or try to defend that ridiculous nonsense. I guess for these 3rd tier websites they still rely heavily on the past history. Whereās UNCC? If a team as bad as Houston with their new 2nd year coach and 2 returning starters can get on this sorry list it actually wouldnāt shock me to see you in the top 25. Whatās it say if you arenāt.