Conference Play Predictions

[Queens_NYC]

Current record: 9-4 (8-4 NET record)
KenPom Ranking: #71 (#58 AdjO, #79 AdjD)
NET Ranking: #115 (Q1: 0-2, Q2: 0-1, Q3: 1-0, Q4: 7-1)


Tulane - 12/29
@Temple - 1/1
@Wichita St - 1/5
Houston - 1/8
ECU - 1/11
@SMU - 1/14
@USF - 1/18
Memphis - 1/22
@Houston - 1/28
Tulsa - 2/1
UCF - 2/4
@Tulane - 2/7
USF - 2/11
@ECU - 2/15
@UCF - 2/19
Temple - 2/22
@Memphis - 2/26
SMU - 3/5

After a 7-11 record and 8th place finish in the AAC regular season standings last season, the most immediate goal over the next few months will be to improve on 21/22.

While a NCAA Tournament at-large berth appears out of the question based on the results of non-conference play, qualifying for the NIT with 20+ wins would certainly mark progress in Wes Miller's second season.

With 18 more games to go before league convenes in Fort Worth, what do you predict to be our conference record by the end of the regular season?

 

[sedziobs]

I went with 10-8. I think we go 1-5 against Houston, Memphis, and UCF. That would mean 9-3 against the rest of the conference.

 

[sedziobs]

My general rule of thumb is a .500 record in Q1/2 games with one or two bad losses puts a team squarely on the bubble. So far we are 0-3 in Q1/2 games with a bad loss. With current NET rankings, we only have 7 Q1/2 games left on the schedule. We would have to go 5-2 in those games to get to .500 and maybe take another bad loss. In other words, we probably need to go at least 15-3 in the conference to be in position to make the tournament.

 

[Queens_NYC]

I went with 10-8. I think we go 1-5 against Houston, Memphis, and UCF. That would mean 9-3 against the rest of the conference.

I also voted 10-8, and it appears to be the most common prediction.

I only see 4 "highly likely" losses on the remaining schedule: Houston (home and away), @Memphis and @UCF.

For every other game, I think we have close to a 50/50 shot or better.

It's hard to imagine we'll win more than 50% of those 50/50 games based on what we've seen so far, but if we do turn the corner, finishing with anything better than 10-8 would be pretty encouraging from my POV.

 

[waterhead]

I went with 11-7 and thought about 12-6. I have a little more optimism lately based on what can happen when we need Ody at the 4 and can take JD out in certain situations. Also the new found intensity from DDJ on D which I think will end up trickling down the roster. We have been sharing the ball a bit more lately and making extra passes that we typically did not. I think Wes would have put a lot of emphasis over the break to crash the glass from the wing to get better at rebounding.

Also the new Wes on court and in pressers is more of what I would like to see. Claiming he is "not asking anymore" and seeing him getting livid on the court are good developments. He now has good reasons to take players out rather than letting them play through too many mistakes. Lighting them up in timeouts is a good thing.

I am expecting the recent trend of play to continue and if it gets better we will be in good shape. This team can score...if we can play good D...we can maybe even get to 13-5. Still not good enough to make the tourney but we should find out a lot tonight about what we retained and what new adjustments were made over the break.

 

[Queens_NYC]

I went with 10-8. I think we go 1-5 against Houston, Memphis, and UCF. That would mean 9-3 against the rest of the conference.

I went with 11-7 and thought about 12-6. I have a little more optimism lately based on what can happen when we need Ody at the 4 and can take JD out in certain situations. Also the new found intensity from DDJ on D which I think will end up trickling down the roster. We have been sharing the ball a bit more lately and making extra passes that we typically did not. I think Wes would have put a lot of emphasis over the break to crash the glass from the wing to get better at rebounding.

Also the new Wes on court and in pressers is more of what I would like to see. Claiming he is "not asking anymore" and seeing him getting livid on the court are good developments. He now has good reasons to take players out rather than letting them play through too many mistakes. Lighting them up in timeouts is a good thing.

I am expecting the recent trend of play to continue and if it gets better we will be in good shape. This team can score...if we can play good D...we can maybe even get to 13-5. Still not good enough to make the tourney but we should find out a lot tonight about what we retained and what new adjustments were made over the break.

Some pretty spot-on predictions.

Just about every team (except Houston) had to deal with injury setbacks at some point during the season, but we very likely would've finished 13-5 had Vik and/or Rob not gotten hurt at Tulane.

 

[sedziobs]

UCF underperformed in conference and we swept that series. We did go 9-3 against the rest of the conference as I predicted, but as you said we probably wouldn't have lost to ECU with Vik in the lineup. And if Newman and Phinisee were healthy maybe we sweep Tulane and pull out a win against Memphis or Houston (especially in Houston where we held a late lead).

Overall I'd say we did better than I expected. We improved as the year went on. Our Kenpom ranking only improved six spots, but on Torvik we went from 81 at the start of conference play to 41 now.

We became a better offensive team over the last month and a half. Since the close win at SMU in mid January, we put up at least .97 points per possession in every game. Last year we scored under .92 in 6 of our last 12 games. A lot of that is due to getting better looks at the rim with Ody being more assertive. In mid January we had a 5 game stretch where we shot 38% inside the arc. We ended the season with a 5 game stretch at 59%. Hopefully we can continue to get rim looks as our roster picks up more slashers.