[quote="NCJohnnie" post=299604]Mike Zaun wrote: t's interesting to compare this team to the 14-15 Lavin team. On paper we honestly had a chance to win the Big East that year. We had ridiculous depth, plenty of bigs, and plenty of guards. The problem was that our offense wasn't really that potent and we relied on Harrison too much. We had pretty good defense under Lavin but offense was usually an issue. These Mullin teams have been ok defensively, but there seems to be more talent offensively. We have more Harrison level guards who can really score instead of relying on 1 main guard. Now we have 3. Part of what gives me reservation going into this season with so much hype is the fact that going into the 14-15 season there was the same amount of hype. And that was after Lavin already proved he could win here. Mullin has yet to even have a .500 year or better. If we really breakout in a big way, I think many Mullin critics like myself will concede that maybe he's not the worst coach, he just didn't have the players until now. If we somehow make the Sweet 16 and then still don't get any major recruits for 2019 though, we will be rebuilding again. By the way, glad to hear student season tickets are sold out for the first time in I think 10+ yrs! That's what we will need big time.
If you are going to compare any Lavin team to this one it would be his first team that he inherited from Norm. That team had depth and clutch players like DJ and Hardy. If not for Kennedy's injury, they might have won a few games in the tournament. The 14-15 team was anything but deep, they basically played a six man rotation with Branch coming off bench to join Jordan, Greene, Harrison, Pointer & Obekpa (plus both Obekpa & Jordan missed a few games for various reasons). There was no way that team was winning the BE, they finished 6 gams behind Nova. In my view this year's team should be no worse than top 4 in BE regular season and could easily see them winning a game or two in NCAAs. We'll see.[/quote]
The yeae before had the deep roster. Rysheed as a freshmen plus Jakarr, Sanchez, and Gods gift up front. That was the biggest disappointment during lavins time.