Predictions for Conference Play

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What will our AAC record be?

  • 17-1 or 18-0

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 16-2

    Votes: 2 9.1%

  • 15-3

    Votes: 5 22.7%

  • 14-4

    Votes: 9 40.9%

  • 13-5

    Votes: 5 22.7%

  • 12-6

    Votes: 1 4.5%

  • 11-7

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 10-8 or worse

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    22
Q

Queens_NYC

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 8, 2017
Messages
1,655
Wed. 1/2 - vs. Tulane
Sat. 1/5 - @ECU
Thurs. 1/10 - @Tulsa
Sat. 1/12 - vs. UConn
Tues. 1/15 - vs. USF
Sat. 1/19 - @Wichita State
Thurs. 1/24 - vs. Tulsa
Sun. 1/27 - @Temple
Sat. 2/2 - SMU
Thurs. 2/7 - @Memphis
Sun. 2/10 - @Houston
Sun. 2/17 - Wichita State
Thurs. 2/21 - UCF
Sun. 2/24 - @UConn
Wed. 2/27 - @SMU
Sat. 3/2 - Memphis
Thurs. 3/7 - @UCF
Sun. 3/10 - Houston

What do you think our record will be and where in the AAC standings do you think we will finish?
 
My thoughts...

Wed. 1/2 - vs. Tulane blowout win
Sat. 1/5 - @ECU double digit win
Thurs. 1/10 - @Tulsa Need to win these types of games to have a shot at winning the league... I say close win
Sat. 1/12 - vs. UConn double digit win
Tues. 1/15 - vs. USF double digit win
Sat. 1/19 - @Wichita State close win, I think our experience prevails
Thurs. 1/24 - vs. Tulsa they played us tough at home last season... i think we win by 8-10 points
Sun. 1/27 - @Temple I think this is a better Temple team than year's past... LOSS
Sat. 2/2 - SMU similar to Tulsa at home... 8-10 point win
Thurs. 2/7 - @Memphis I think Memphis is starting to find a groove at home... LOSS
Sun. 2/10 - @Houston The clearest LOSS on the schedule... Houston will be too tough to beat in their new arena
Sun. 2/17 - Wichita State double digit win
Thurs. 2/21 - UCF Hard to predict since UCF could easily be hit with injuries again by this point... 6-8 point win
Sun. 2/24 - @UConn We've played well here over the past few years... close win
Wed. 2/27 - @SMU Blew out a weakened SMU in Moody last season, and I still like our chances... close win
Sat. 3/2 - Memphis Double digit win
Thurs. 3/7 - @UCF Again, a big wildcard game, but I think we win close ala @Wichita State last season
Sun. 3/10 - Houston Both teams come in with 3 losses, we pull it out in front of a raucous crowd to win the league

15-3, AAC Champs
 
Win - Wed. 1/2 - vs. Tulane
Win - Sat. 1/5 - @ECU
Loss - Thurs. 1/10 - @Tulsa
Win - Sat. 1/12 - vs. UConn
Win - Tues. 1/15 - vs. USF
Win - Sat. 1/19 - @Wichita State
Win - Thurs. 1/24 - vs. Tulsa
Win - Sun. 1/27 - @Temple
Win - Sat. 2/2 - SMU
Win - Thurs. 2/7 - @Memphis
Loss - Sun. 2/10 - @Houston
Win - Sun. 2/17 - Wichita State
Win - Thurs. 2/21 - UCF
Win - Sun. 2/24 - @UConn
Loss - Wed. 2/27 - @SMU
Win - Sat. 3/2 - Memphis
Loss - Thurs. 3/7 - @UCF
Win - Sun. 3/10 - Houston
 
I did 14-4.

my rationale is we won't go better than 7-2 on the road, between SMU/UCF/UConn/Houston/Memphis/Temple. To be honest I expect a 6-3 road record, and a 8-1 home record.

This is just spitballing, but 25-6, going into the conference tourney, would be a 4-6 seed or so. I like having the wiggle room of going 13-5 and not being on the bubble in all probability.
 
I think @tulsa will be a blood bath and first to reach 50 wins.

The bright side is: I think jarron will be the best player on the floor all season. That helps a ton.
 
kskenyon4 said:
I did 14-4.

my rationale is we won't go better than 7-2 on the road, between SMU/UCF/UConn/Houston/Memphis/Temple. To be honest I expect a 6-3 road record, and a 8-1 home record.

This is just spitballing, but 25-6, going into the conference tourney, would be a 4-6 seed or so. I like having the wiggle room of going 13-5 and not being on the bubble in all probability.
Click to expand...

Yeah, at 13-5 I think we are safely in. At 12-6, it's possible we could be sweating an early conference tournament loss (although still probably safe). Although our computer numbers are strong, my only concern is that our best OOC wins were against teams that will likely fall on the wrong side of the bubble. But I think when the regular season is done, we will be somewhere around a 6 or 7 seed. My prediction is we go to the conference championship game against Houston with a record of 27-6 (14-4). That's 2-3 wins better than I would have predicted at the beginning of the year.
 
Helicopter said:
I think we go 16-2. We lose @Temple and @Houston.
Click to expand...

Would love 16-2 but think more like 14-4. There aren't any really good teams in the conference (beside Houston), but there are some that can beat us if we don't play well (on the road). I don't think anyone can beat us at home beside Houston.
 
We all knew this year was going to be a down year compared to last year, especially after the OSU game. Then we started to play really well and knock off a bunch of wins. We were doing better than expected. We weren't beating teams worth bragging about (besides the impressive 30 point win over UCLA), but from an eye test standpoint you can tell this team has a chance to beat any team besides maybe the top 5 to 10 teams in the country. When this team is at its best it looks about as good as last year, I just think the floor is a lot lower this year. Our ceiling is high but we can also lose to anyone on the road as well as we don't have enough talent to bail us out like we did the past two years. All-in-all we will be ok. Saturday sucked, but our year is not over yet.
 
GarradJ21 said:
We all knew this year was going to be a down year compared to last year, especially after the OSU game. Then we started to play really well and knock off a bunch of wins. We were doing better than expected. We weren't beating teams worth bragging about (besides the impressive 30 point win over UCLA), but from an eye test standpoint you can tell this team has a chance to beat any team besides maybe the top 5 to 10 teams in the country. When this team is at its best it looks about as good as last year, I just think the floor is a lot lower this year. Our ceiling is high but we can also lose to anyone on the road as well as we don't have enough talent to bail us out like we did the past two years. All-in-all we will be ok. Saturday sucked, but our year is not over yet.
Click to expand...

Thursday's game @Tulsa will tell us a lot about how the rest of the season will look. Tulsa is solid but also very average in many respects and it marks the type of game we need to win if we want to have legitimate tournament prospects yet alone compete for the regular season conference title.
 
I was traveling and didn't get to see the game. Sounds like one of those games the other team made shots and we couldn't hit our deep ball (and FT's).

It's a shame that had to come against a team ranked so low. We are still better than we looked early on but maybe not quite as good as we were starting to hope. We have to find a way to win when shots aren't falling from deep. We gave up 70 points. In the past we have just dug deep on defense and won a rock fight.

Our 3 point shooting is very suspect after our top two guys. If one or both of them aren't hitting...look out. I am not sure we can win this league with the supporting shooters shooting under 25% for the year because I don't think Jenifer and Cumberland can maintain their %. Our D has some work to do to catch up to last year. I can see us losing 5+ conference games now. If we can hold it to 5 I think that would be okay for us.
 
waterhead said:
I was traveling and didn't get to see the game. Sounds like one of those games the other team made shots and we couldn't hit our deep ball (and FT's).

It's a shame that had to come against a team ranked so low. We are still better than we looked early on but maybe not quite as good as we were starting to hope. We have to find a way to win when shots aren't falling from deep. We gave up 70 points. In the past we have just dug deep on defense and won a rock fight.

Our 3 point shooting is very suspect after our top two guys. If one or both of them aren't hitting...look out. I am not sure we can win this league with the supporting shooters shooting under 25% for the year because I don't think Jenifer and Cumberland can maintain their %. Our D has some work to do to catch up to last year. I can see us losing 5+ conference games now. If we can hold it to 5 I think that would be okay for us.
Click to expand...

In all seriousness they had guys shooting bananas against us. Some cat was 0/22 and sank like a 3 and a long 2 in his only attempts. I think a lot of the threes went over Broome when he was in. Maybe that's confirmation bias.

The areas in which we struggled and were inexcusable were turnovers and FTs. Despite the rosy boxscore it was a bad game for Brooks. He saw significant usage because it was a mismatch (ECU is small) and it killed us that he didn't show up in key areas. I checked the box score and he is only credited with 2 TO but it felt more like 5 or 6. All the same when he gets a rebound or low touch he drops the ball below his waist and gets stripped/blocked/horrible shot. The few times he keeps it high he makes it or gets fouled. It is just a really bad habit he has.
 
Helicopter said:
In all seriousness they had guys shooting bananas against us. Some cat was 0/22 and sank like a 3 and a long 2 in his only attempts. I think a lot of the threes went over Broome when he was in. Maybe that's confirmation bias.

The areas in which we struggled and were inexcusable were turnovers and FTs. Despite the rosy boxscore it was a bad game for Brooks. He saw significant usage because it was a mismatch (ECU is small) and it killed us that he didn't show up in key areas. I checked the box score and he is only credited with 2 TO but it felt more like 5 or 6. All the same when he gets a rebound or low touch he drops the ball below his waist and gets stripped/blocked/horrible shot. The few times he keeps it high he makes it or gets fouled. It is just a really bad habit he has.
Click to expand...

Jarron too. I mean he scored but his turnovers were awful. A couple of them looked like it was his first time playing basketball. He gets a pass though from Cronin. I guess rightfully so.
 
GarradJ21 said:
Jarron too. I mean he scored but his turnovers were awful. A couple of them looked like it was his first time playing basketball. He gets a pass though from Cronin. I guess rightfully so.
Click to expand...

Truth. If I were Jarron I would work on nothing but my handle in the off-season. Only way he sticks in the NBS is if he plays 1/2 with the ball. A premium position that absolutely requires elite ball-handling.
 
I haven't really changed my opinion of this team MUCH after the loss. I still see the upside but obviously we are the type of team that can be ripe for an upset or two. I am not sure if that is due to a mentality or a lack of scoring dimensions (go to paint scoring or additional 3 point options) or both. What I won't do is assume we will lose all the road games because we lost to ECU. I will assume it's just one of those games that can creep up on you.

When looking at history in the T-rank site...our offense efficiency is as good as it's been under any Cronin team (even if that may drop a bit). Maybe that is due to a schedule that is worse than we thought so far IDK. The defense right now isn't quite up to where we need it but I think the potential is there to get back up to the top 15 or so. This ECU game should be something Cronin can use for defensive intensity.

It's just all going to come down to how we respond. Do we have the guys who can group the team together and come out focused every night?
 
A lot has been said about Jenifer assist to turnover ratio but I am starting to wonder if that is going to be a primary focus of his to a point he becomes ultra conservative chasing an NCAA record. We need him to push the boundaries a bit to find a happy medium. I don't mind if his ratio comes down a bit or the ortg suffers if we can get more team production out of it.

If he is going to be on the court for 30 minutes I think his usage is going to have to go up a bit especially when bad Cane shows up. He can still be smart and focus on ball security at the same time pushing the envelop. With his 3% I would think he can start using a pump fake to drive a bit more to keep the defense switching and get the bigs easy drop offs or kick outs to Cumberland.

With the confidence he has built up he should be able to get a little more aggressive without seeing too much detriment to his efficiency numbers.
 
waterhead said:
A lot has been said about Jenifer assist to turnover ratio but I am starting to wonder if that is going to be a primary focus of his to a point he becomes ultra conservative chasing an NCAA record. We need him to push the boundaries a bit to find a happy medium. I don't mind if his ratio comes down a bit or the ortg suffers if we can get more team production out of it.

If he is going to be on the court for 30 minutes I think his usage is going to have to go up a bit especially when bad Cane shows up. He can still be smart and focus on ball security at the same time pushing the envelop. With his 3% I would think he can start using a pump fake to drive a bit more to keep the defense switching and get the bigs easy drop offs or kick outs to Cumberland.

With the confidence he has built up he should be able to get a little more aggressive without seeing too much detriment to his efficiency numbers.
Click to expand...

You bring up a point I’ve been concerned about and I’ve seen in games. I think Jenifer is giving up potentially make some plays in order to not potentially turn the ball over. Going to pay close attention moving forward. I honestly don’t remember a lot of play making from Jenifer this year. Wondering how he is getting the assists.
 

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