Yes. When you've got the 45th best team in the country and if bring everyone back calling for a potential national championship is underrating your prospects.
I think three national championships have blinded some folks to how hard they are to win and what kind of team you need to get one.
I'm sure Katz is just an idiot but he's talking about winning the conference. Maybe start with that. That's hardly guaranteed.
There is no guarantee. That's important to concede.
They were 20-10.
They lost two games without their best player.
They lost one game where the ref waived off a basket in OT for their own mistake.
All of their losses, except Louisville, were games they could have won (that's different, than say the 2003 team, which got blown out by VT, for instance). New Mexico and NC State, in particular, are the types of games where a big--any big--would have helped us win.
What's difficult is that we don't know what this team could have done in the post-season, which is usually a good measure of what to expect for the next year. The 2002-03 team went into the post-season with 8 losses (VT and BC being particularly heinous, at the loss at a 17-15 UNC team was also ugly). They got to the conference title game, and then lost to Texas.
The 2003 team was 10-6 in the regular season...I think without injuries or just weirdnesses, this team is somewhere between 11-7 and 13-5. I think they're comparable.
The big difference--Okafor. We don't have him next year, or anyone near his caliber. But I think any production down low turns this team into a dangerous team.
