[quote="MCNPA" post=400616][quote="fordham96" post=400612][quote="MCNPA" post=400609][quote="lawmanfan" post=400605][quote="MCNPA" post=400593][quote="fordham96" post=400590]The fact is they are picked where almost every objective person thinks they will finish. They have no pre -season All BE players. That doesn't mean they have to finish there. I get that. And I think there is room to move up.
But almost everyone said that the 3 worst teams coming in on paper were Georgetown, DePaul and SJU. All 3 finished at/near the bottom of the BE from previous year and all 3 have roster turnovers with no 5 star recruits coming to make a huge impact. Or in SJU case also lost arguably it's best returning player off a mediocre/bad team.
I always hope for the best. But my expectations go up next year. That is why I want recruiting to pick up.[/quote]
I still think we are being under-ranked this year. We beat Arizona, wvu, Creighton almost twice and were really coming on at the end. We did that without Heron for the most part as he wasn’t a big contributor. Not only that, I think we probably kept playing him a bit too long and probably lost a few because of it as we played better when he went out. Not knocking Heron, he was injured. We also had only Dunn in the backcourt for the most part because Greg Williams had back problems the first half of season. .
We lose Lj who was talented but I think Champagnie can slide into his role a bit this year. That said; we are a lot deeper everywhere else. We have a ton more backcourt talent and depth that are more ready to play Mike Anderson:’s style. We have added front-court talent and depth and talent as well which we had none of last year:
I don’t think we will run into the same problems as last year where several of our starters aren’t ready to Play cma’s system. I also think Posh will have a big impact as a guard for us as we didn’t have a player like him last year. Dunn shares some of his strengths, but Posh can score and distribute more. Toro in the middle is big for us as is Moore who should add some skill up front over guys like Spears and Steere who were not cut out for this level.
I think we finish somewhere in the 4-7th range if we are looking at tiers. I think we have very good coach, style and the depth to finally play how we want to.[/quote]
I agree with this analysis on paper but it requires a fair amount of projection and assumption. If it works out (which I think it may and hope it does) then SJU can be somewhere in the middle of the conference - which could be anywhere from 5-8, it should be a pretty narrow range in terms of w/l. If it doesn't, then 9th is the right spot. Could be 10th if Leitao (who is awful) manages not to make too much less of the talent he has.
That's also the answer to usguard - rankings do not always equal production, and even if the players can play, some coaches manage to make lemons out of lemonade while others make lemonade out of lemons. I expect SJU to finish ahead of DePaul.[/quote]
It’s less of a bold presumption than the rankings propelling. UConn to a top tier program when they haven’t been able to finish higher than 5th in the AAC. I think CMA at the helm with our depth is going to cause problems. All of these are projections and assumptions.[/quote]
Come on. UCONN's talent level is significantly better than SJU and no objective person thinks otherwise. And their recruiting class was much better. They were better than SJU last year. And don't give me conference strength. UCONN would not have lost twice to a depleted Georgetown team let alone gone 5-13 in BE. They are better on paper. I mean seriously on paper you think SJU should be picked higher than UCONN?[/quote]
I saw UConn play several times last year. We would have beaten them. They certainly have more talent this year overall but not the coaching nor any real prior results. You missed my point . My point was that these rankings are based on predictions and assumptions and I was just responding to lawman with a counterpoint. UConn has to prove it just like we do. On paper they’re good talent-wise. Last year on paper Arizona, Creighton, WVU were also much better and more talented than us. Styles change things as does coaching and depth.
Our slide in Big East play had less to do with talent and more to do with our team not being on the same page and injuries: I don’t see those same shortfalls this year. I don’t care about talent on paper. There a more to it than that.[/quote]
Simple question, would you rather have UCONNs roster coming into this season or SJUs?
If you give any other answer besides UCONN you're lying.