Fair share of many close games? Define many. 10? So that would give us 5 losses. This team is going to D-up like few others.
W-L predictions and post season success are quite often a crap shoot, particularly the latter. There are some years where there is a dominant team or two that you can bank on winning a lot of conference and OOC games. But even those teams that look like should run through the field to at least the E-8 often get derailed along the way. There are a number of teams that look back at last March and are still scratching their heads as to how they lost to VCU and Butler.
What makes predicting UConn's success this season are so many variables.
+ Last year's team which brings back most of the contributors had an unprecedented 11 game post season run the ended with the NC
- It's not like they were some 30-4 team. They lost 9 games, finished tied for 9th in the BE along with 2 other programs.
+ Player improvement over the summer, particularly with the teams likely new team leader, J Lamb.
- Lost team's most important player, and POY candidate, Kemba Walker
+ Team seems to be deeper at most to all positions
- That depth is predominantly young, not to mention made up of some unproven freshmen and a couple of inexperienced sophs
+ Those unproven Freshman are among the best in the nation and 2 of the 3 fill some significant needs.
- Lost their primary go-to-player
+ Might have more winning time options than they did last season.
You could go on and on. It is clear that on paper they are deep and talented, albeit inexperienced with some of that talent and quite experienced as far as success is concerned with most of the returning players.
Before last season began, I suggested that last years team could end up with a better record than the prior season even though they were very young and inexperienced. Part of my logic was that the year prior to that one underachieved grossly and had a worse record than they should have had. Plus I felt there simply weren't that many scary teams out there.
This season is simply a lot tougher predict due to the Kemba factor and the question, "What type of record would last year's team have had if they had played during the regular season at the same level as they did during the post season?" Based on the easy OOC schedule this upcoming season, the lack of any real scary BE team(s), I think this team will have a better regular season record than last year. So I expect them to have less than 9 losses before the BET.
As for the post season, I just don't know. How well this group of talent comes together, particularly defensively, will IMO be the biggest factor. The personnel that I see on the team, makes me believe that this group could turn out to be the best defensive team since the Dream Season and I guess I'd have to include last season's team. If any of you think that last season's team was one of JC's best defensive teams, then take not that most of the key ingredients have returned. Kemba was a better defender than he was often credited for. But I think Boatright has the chance to contribute on that end as much as Kemba did. Chuck during the minutes he was in there did a great job defensively during hte post season, but I think Drummond will be even better. And lastly along with the improvement we'll see from Alex, Tyler, Roscoe, Lamb, Boatright & Giffey in that area, Daniels gives them another long athlete who will give teams fits at trying to create open shots.
Keep in mind that I thought the Sticks-Dyson team had the pieces to be a dangerous on both ends of the floor. At times they were very good defensively, but what looked good on paper turned out to be a disaster on the court.
