At this point, what will you consider a successful season? | Page 4 | The Boneyard

At this point, what will you consider a successful season?

5-1 pre-BET/BET finals/Sweet 16..Tournament is all about brackets and matchups. Refs don't impact outcomes quite as much as BE games.

If Solo/AK/Liam can start showing up on the same night shooting wise- and we play with energy and urgency on defense- We could blow up some brackets in the Tournament. Would be great to see our A game at the right time.

Time to walk the walk. No more talking the talk.
 
Bracket Matrix still has UConn as the second 8 seed so the team is long way from Bubble territory. Hopefully guys can re-group & make a push to get a 6 or 7 seed....that should be the realistic goal at this point and then anything can happen in Tourney.

Big game tomorrow night vs Nova, they'll be gunning for us in desperation mode so all better be ready from the tip.
 
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Hi-Low said:
Bracket Matrix still has UConn as the second 8 seed so the team is long way from Bubble territory. Hopefully guys can re-group & make a push to get a 6 or 7 seed....that should be the realistic goal at this point and then anything can happen in Tourney.

Big game tomorrow night vs Nova, they'll be gunning for us in desperation mode so all better be ready from the tip.
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Nova has been terrible on the road, 3-8. They’re very inconsistent but with Dixon and Poplar, yeah never know. These could be the two most inconsistent teams in the BE.

The SH loss basically negated the Creighton win.
 
CL82 said:
Honestly, I'd be happy if we made the NCAA tournament and got out of the first weekend.
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Nothing good to say about the last game. But, I think the good teams we beat, we beat them with a healthy Hassan Diarra. So getting that back is key.
While the 3-Peat hype I could never understand - most of our loses to good teams have been in the 1-4 point range. So as bad as some of our moments have been, we are not that far away. We have won NC’s with PG stars (Walker, Nappier and Newton) and that we lack.

I think Hurley needs to roll the dice on Reed and have him set screens and play in the paint. McNeeley, Ball, Karaban, and Stewart need to discuss with each other what they need from each other to be successful on the court.

What are their sweet spots and how they get open off of each other?

While I thought Hurley made a mistake evaluating Mahaney over Diarra early - contrary to his results in games - I still think Mahaney can be a shooter. He needs to shoot the open shots he passes up and avoid force type shots.
 
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Bouncing back and playing extremely competitively against Villanova and St. John’s and winning at least one of those games, and then doing well in the big east tournament, and then making it to the sweet 16.

And after every single victory, nothing but humility and praise for our opponents.
 
There’s probably 4 or 5 teams I wouldn’t want to line up with the first weekend, Bama, Auburn, Duke, Florida, Houston

Not entirely nervous about playing anyone else. Tennessee has Rick Barnes, Purdue? A&M? Iowa St? Mich St?

Line it up and let’s ride! We’re fine!
 
ValleyGuy said:
There’s probably 4 or 5 teams I wouldn’t want to line up with the first weekend, Bama, Auburn, Duke, Florida, Houston

Not entirely nervous about playing anyone else. Tennessee has Rick Barnes, Purdue? A&M? Iowa St? Mich St?

Line it up and let’s ride! We’re fine!
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I'm nervous about playing Nova tomorrow.
 
The Big East is down to 2 teams in the Top 25 with UConn and Creighton both dropping out. At this point I can't even try to predict how those games will go for UConn.

UConn has Nova, @SJU, Gtown, @PC, Marquette, SHU
Creighton has Gtown, DePaul, @Xavier, @SHU, Butler
 
The standard is winning championships. Big East or NCAA. Thats the standard our coach has built. Anything less is an unsuccessful season.
 
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storrsroars said:
It's the difference between facing Auburn/Duke/Alabama/Florida vs facing Tenn/Houston/Purdue/Texas A&M. Neither group is enticing, but if firing on all cylinders, we could take out a couple in that 2nd group.
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Houston would be a tough game the way UConn handles the ball and pressure. I'm still hopeful of getting to the second weekend but the team needs to get it together.
 
JoeyBuckets said:
The standard is winning championships. Big East or NCAA. Thats the standard our coach has built. Anything less is an unsuccessful season.
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Eh, have to be fair. Go look at Calhoun's run and tell me how many of the teams after his NC's made a dent. Most of them went kerplunk. Dude is a HOF coach.

I hope they finish strong within reason, maybe surprise us. Just don't want anything that that looks like a dysfunctional flame out that tarnishes the recruiting equity he's built with the 2 NC teams. The narratives are already bubbling, let's not feed those to a point they can be used against us in the recruiting wars. Right now I think top kids are willing to come here at a potential discount because they think they are going to have the best chance to win and turn into NBA players. If that starts looking like a mirage, would be bad. One rough season won't hurt much, but you don't want to reduce your room for future error. We need to keep our advantages over the power conference teams any way we can get them, and right now it's being a NBA development and NC factory. Can't lose momentum.
 
Pmac923 said:
And two games we lost bc of refs who decided to swallow whistles. Very odd that we lost both of them but we have some very good wins. They care about who you can beat.
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why do they eat their whistles?
That's the real question
 
Kolumbo said:
The Big East is down to 2 teams in the Top 25 with UConn and Creighton both dropping out. At this point I can't even try to predict how those games will go for UConn.

UConn has Nova, @SJU, Gtown, @PC, Marquette, SHU
Creighton has Gtown, DePaul, @Xavier, @SHU, Butler
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If only 3 NBE teams in the dance - UConn has a ton of hard work in front of them vs what Creighton has and UConn better not lose to Nova
 
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HCCForever said:
Houston would be a tough game the way UConn handles the ball and pressure. I'm still hopeful of getting to the second weekend but the team needs to get it together.
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Marquette, St. John's, Georgetown, and Seton Hall are all top 50 teams in forcing turnovers. Marquette and St. John's are both top 15.

Of the top four seed projections, in order of ranking of forcing TOs:
14. St. John's
18. Iowa St.
42. Texas A&M
44. Houston
124. Texas Tech
135. Purdue
139. Florida
141. Arizona
151. Tennessee
169. Michigan
198(T). Auburn
198(T). Duke
278. Kansas
315. Wisconsin
322. Alabama
331. Kentucky

Bring on the Crimson Tide!
 
BFieldHusky said:
Get to the 2nd round. That's as far as Duke got when defending their B2B, and Florida didn't even make the tournament.

Still think this team can get to the 2nd weekend. A lot of it is matchups. A lot of it is how they finish the season. This kind of loss wakes you up, or finishes you.
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Completely agree as to hoping to at least do as well as prior back-to-back championship defenders. As to the last sentence, you have to figure that Alex is ready to wake up. Samson has at least been around, but he has been what he’s been and hasn’t really been the problem. I think we all feel like Hass can and should wake up, hopefully he can get physically right for the post season. It is good that we have at least some championship pedigree still on the team to wake up.
 
Our team was flawed this year by having smaller point guards. We have been bullied and I think Hurley realizes he made a mistake after going out and getting Mahaney. When we have guys that can be physical other teams won't over play us. Our ball handlers look scared. Even when Newton was playing his worst he never looked scared.

We will be fine but this year was never going to look like last year two years.
 
Just beat Nova and St. John’s #10 and I’ll be happy. The players have to know that this is kind of it so to speak. There can’t be any players saying they took it lightly. So if we lose then one must conclude we aren’t very good.
 
Make the tournament. Do not lose in the opening rounds of the Big East Tournament or the NCAA tournament. Introduce Danny Hurley to the other two freshmen so that he knows both of them actually arrived on campus in September. I don’t think he’s aware.

Get through the portal season with as little damage as possible, despite our best efforts to shoot ourselves in the foot on a nightly basis. Ask Mr and Mrs Spencer if they have a third son hiding at a mid-major somewhere.
 
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Final 4, Big East tournament champions. Not lowering the bar, we should have blue blood expectations.
 
Only three times since the NCAA Men's tournament expanded to 64 teams (1985) has the defending champion failed to qualify for the subsequent tourney:

1987 - Louisville
1989 - Kansas (on probation; otherwise would have qualified based on their record)
2009 - North Carolina

40 years; only two defenders have not qualified based on their season's body of work. Will we make it a trifecta?
 
So much has gone wrong this season, some of it self inflicted and much of it beyond our control with the injuries. A Sweet 16 appearance would be a great finish after a wildly uneven season IMO. With all of its flaws, this team will never be consistent enough to make a run, I’ve accepted that. My hope is to see it all come together for a night with McNeeley, Ball, Karaban etc all hitting at the same time in the 2nd round to take down one of the big boys. If we flame out in the sweet 16 after that, so be it, it will still be a “good” season overall
 
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At this point, I would like the freshman and sophomore group, especially Ross and Stewart, to find some consistency and confidence going into the end of the season to build some positive momentum for next year.
 
? Was what would I consider to be a successful season. Not my expectation.
Sweet sixteen or better would be a successful season to me.
Anything less is a bit of a disappointment.
I enjoy seeing players and the team playing better over time.
So, if they play great and win the BET then only make it to round of 32, there would be satisfaction in that as well.
 
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