With the AAC having no teams even getting a single Top 25 vote in this week's polls, it appears as though our path to the NCAA won't be easy this season. If the conference doesn't start to rise up soon, we may be looking at 1-2 teams max getting into the tournament. These next 10 games or so will really test us, because not only is the close to the OOC difficult, the early league games are really tough as well. If we can get through these next 6 weeks in decent shape, the February schedule sets up a little easier and will provide a decent chance to build some solid momentum heading into March.
In recent years, our conference was so good that it would drag our strength of schedule higher and higher as the season went on, which helped build our case for March Madness. The apparent weakness of the AAC could work against our strength of schedule this year. Bottom line, our youth and maturity is such that we're probably not quite ready for this difficult stretch of games that we face, but we really need to avoid a total letdown and come out of this stretch of 10-12 games at least a little above .500 (7-8 wins out of 12), or better. If we're solid thru this stretch, that February schedule gives us a chance to finish really strong as the team comes together and jells.
In recent years, our conference was so good that it would drag our strength of schedule higher and higher as the season went on, which helped build our case for March Madness. The apparent weakness of the AAC could work against our strength of schedule this year. Bottom line, our youth and maturity is such that we're probably not quite ready for this difficult stretch of games that we face, but we really need to avoid a total letdown and come out of this stretch of 10-12 games at least a little above .500 (7-8 wins out of 12), or better. If we're solid thru this stretch, that February schedule gives us a chance to finish really strong as the team comes together and jells.
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