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Message: [QUOTE="Hey Adrien!, post: 4135177, member: 5787"] Good work, [USER=833]@nelsonmuntz[/USER]. Never easy to do. Here's my stab: [B]Projections from [/B][URL='https://the-boneyard.com/threads/athletic-has-uconn-preseason-2-in-big-east.172150/page-3#post-4017241'][B]July 25th:[/B][/URL] [B]#1: Nova #2-#3: UConn, Xavier #4-#6: St. John's, Butler, Seton Hall #7: Providence, #8-#9 Creighton, Georgetown #10: Marquette #11: DePaul[/B] Where I'm at now: [B]TIER ONE #1: Nova[/B] [LIST] [*]There's a huge hole at the 5 spot offensively and defensively, but 1-4 one of the best teams in the nation. Up against a team w/o offensive bigs, I can see Nova beating Baylor today, thus hyping them up a bit, but teams with dominant bigs like UConn, Xavier and Providence will be interesting case studies on how far Villanova can go in the tourney if they can defend the post. [/LIST] [B]TIER TWO - WOULD BE DISAPPOINTMENT IF ANY OF THESE TEAMS MISS THE TOURNEY #2 UConn[/B] [LIST] [*]We would have beaten Michigan State if we had Whaley and we would have beaten West Virginia if we had Sanogo/Martin. When healthy, we go nine deep and have the ability to give opponents very diverse looks. [/LIST] [B]#3 Xavier[/B] [LIST] [*]I'm amazed how well they played without Freemantle. Like UConn, incredibly deep team and can give a lot of diverse looks. With Odom at the point, they can play small w/ Jones/Scruggs getting looks at the 4. Or, they can go all the way to playing Scruggs at the point and two big lineups. Good tournament teams needs multiple scoring weapons and Scruggs, Johnson, Jones, Freemantle and Nunge all provide the team different ways to score. [/LIST] [B]#4 Seton Hall[/B] [LIST] [*]Like UConn and Xavier, Seton Hall has good depth and are BIG. The team's weakness is shooting, so I'm curious how they'll do against teams that stretch them. [/LIST] [B]TIER THREE - POTENTIAL TOURNEY TEAMS # 5 Providence[/B] [LIST] [*]They've exceeded my expectations. Durham has been a heck of a transfer pickup and Noah Horchler has reached another level. Couple that w/ vets Nate Watson and AJ Reeves and you have a complete team. Their weakness: point guard. I'm not a Jared Bynum fan. [/LIST] [B]#6 Creighton[/B] [LIST] [*]Pretty amazing how Greg McDermott has made adjustments with the roster: they don't shoot threes, but move the ball well and are deadly inside. Ryan Hawkins has played out of his mind and Kalkbrenner and O'Connell have made big jumps. These three vets have allowed their great freshman class to develop at their own rate and I've been very impressed w/ Nembhard. Their dominant win against BYU really showed me something. [/LIST] [B]TIER FOUR - NIT CANDIDATES #7 St. John's[/B] [LIST] [*]A fun team to watch, but their frontcourt is not anywhere close to how good I thought they would be. Transfers Joel Soriano (Fordham) and Aaron Wheeler (Purdue) have disappointed. A flawed team, but not anyone any team would want to play against. [/LIST] [B]# 8 Marquette[/B] [LIST] [*]Shaka Smart likes to push the pace and no bad losses so far (Bonnies, Wisconsin, UCLA). To me, I'm still not sure what to think about this team, particularly their offensive capabilities when forced to play halfcourt O. [/LIST] [B]#9 DePaul[/B] [LIST] [*]Not surprised this team is better with Charlie Moore out of the picture. Javon Freeman-Liberty and David Jones have been a super duo while their depth will continue to grow with Jalen Terry back, Ahmaud Bynum (maybe) joining and Javan Johnson building their wing depth in the second semester. A team I am rooting for! [/LIST] [B]TIER FIVE - WORST OF THE CONFERENCE, BUT I DON'T TAKE THEM LIGHTLY #10 Butler[/B] [LIST] [*]Deep, experienced team but lacks the firepower to get out of the Big East basement this year. It's just hard to see a team do much w/ two guards in the backcourt that are bad shooters (Thompson) or inefficient (Harris). [/LIST] [B]#11 Georgetown[/B] [LIST] [*]Aminu Mohammed is a stud and Donald Carey is one of the most balanced and efficient players in the Big East. Dante Harris is an excellent long-term piece too. I'm hoping the '20 and '21 class sticks around, but right now, their frontcourt has almost no offense and while Kaiden Rice is an insane long-range shooter, he's incredibly one-dimensional. [/LIST] [/QUOTE]

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