Realistic Expectations This Season | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Realistic Expectations This Season

This is pretty hard to say. Obviously the tournament is the goal, but nobody has any idea what Hurley can do with this level of talent. We have no idea if he can squeeze the juice out of it or if his forte is getting the best out of lesser talent.

He's never had a team like this so it will be interesting to see how he does.
 
Ceiling:
3rd place finish in the BE
BE tourney runner up
Sweet 16

Floor:
5th or 6th place finish in the BE
second round loss in BE tourney (5th seed has first round bye)
9 or 10 seed in ncaa tourney
first round ncaa tourney loss
 
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Make the tournament. I'll hope we win some games after but nobody on this team has postseason experience so it's a big question mark
 
GetTheFacts said:
What is everyone's prediction for this upcoming season? Looking through their roster, this has to be the best assembly of talent on the men's side since 2014. As a recreational bettor, 80/1 to win it all seems...off, but curious to hear what other people think.
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Realistic? The last couple times we were favored we fell on our faces while the last two times no one expected much we won the whole thing. A title is as possible this season and any. I want #5!!!
 
jleves said:
This is pretty hard to say. Obviously the tournament is the goal, but nobody has any idea what Hurley can do with this level of talent. We have no idea if he can squeeze the juice out of it or if his forte is getting the best out of lesser talent.

He's never had a team like this so it will be interesting to see how he does.
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Interesting angle. I’d say JC‘s strength was the latter, but he was no slouch at the former.

I’d be happy with the same from Hurley, but I think he can be expected to absolutely lose his mind at a few points this season because he’s so intense and he may go into overdrive with this many toys. It will be fun to watch. A good problem to have for a change—as long as we see it that way. There will be bumps in the road and our fanbase can be vicious when our expectations are raised; most interesting may be seeing how thick his skin is.
 
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8893 said:
Making it back to the NCAAs has to be the bare minimum realistic expectation; I'd like to see us make it to the second weekend just to have the experience to build on for 2021-22.

I don't think it is realistic to expect us to go from a multi-year absence to running the table.
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The Dream Season team went from winning the NIT the prior year to making it to the Final 4. So its definitely possible. This team has the right mix of talent, experience, and depth to make a deep run.
 
On one hand I want to be realistic: finish over .500 in conference play, make the Sweet 16, etc.

On the other hand, college basketball has been a disaster for years and there haven't been great teams in a long time. The parity is unreal these days; any team can win it all, including us.
 
MuchoDogYears said:
The Dream Season team went from winning the NIT the prior year to making it to the Final 4. So its definitely possible. This team has the right mix of talent, experience, and depth to make a deep run.
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I was there then. Winning the NIT was no small accomplishment. No player on this team has ever played in a single post-season game.
 
Would like to see how practice goes first... If ok and no major injuries during the season.. Elite 8 as a launching pad..
 
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Best case scenario for me is a 4 seed in the tournament, sweet sixteen maybe elite 8. Realistically i think should definitely be a tournament team with a single digit and at least win a game. I’d be slightly disappointed with the realistic scenario I think.
 
I think there's much more talent on this roster than UConn has had in a while. I know, not exactly a hot take.

My biggest concern with this season is the inexperience of the roster. Not as much in actually playing NCAA basketball (7 players back and Cole and Martin have 2 D1 seasons under their belts), but with everyone playing with each other.

The team has 6 new players who haven't played with the team yet - Cole, Martin, Jackson, Brown, Sanogo and Springs (who at least got to practice for a year with the team).

Bouknight has played 1 season (26 minutes per game (mpg) in 28 games)
Gaffney has played 1 season (19 mpg in 31 games)
Akok has played 1 season (cut short but still 28 mpg in 25 games)

Polley, Carlton and Whaley are seniors and Adams is a junior. No worries about any experience playing together with those guys.

Add to all this that Polley and Akok are coming off major injuries. They should be fine but will it take them a while to get back to normal?

So my main concern is with chemistry and how everything meshes. If everything goes well this team is going to be really good. But we may see some growing pains along the way until everyone gets comfortable in their roles and they learn to play with each other.
 
I doubt we're going into any game this year where the other team has somebody better than Bouknight, that's a pretty great place to start. We have serious depth and talent, it's all going to be about establishing the roles and figuring out how to close games out. The tournament and I don't put a ceiling on them.
 
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Just making the Dance would have me dancing
This team will get better as the year progresses
There will be bumps in the road but I see too much talent to foresee any collapse
 
Optimistic but realistic: Top 3-4 finish in Big East, win atleast 2 games in the NCAA tournament.
In our first year back in BE: win atleast one each vs old rivals PC, SHU, and Nova (projected top 5) and sweep both Gtown and SJU (bottom 3).
 
I think it's going to take time for these guys to jell. Lots of new faces, guys coming off injuries, no fans, etc.

Making the tourney is a successful season.
 
Dabutlerdidit said:
For me as a fan, the minimum goal is ncaa tourney, stretch goal would be elite 8+. Sweet 16 seems like it could be within reach
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I think a team with as much talent as we have want to have a goal of playing the second weekend.
 
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WE have a really high bar this year, I don't think we have a limit to our potential but with transfers and not really knowing other teams right now I have no idea which matchups would be our biggest headaches that take us out of our game.
 
MuchoDogYears said:
The Dream Season team went from winning the NIT the prior year to making it to the Final 4. So its definitely possible. This team has the right mix of talent, experience, and depth to make a deep run.
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It's not just that you got the FF wrong or that you missed the year in-between. It's that the year in-between was so disappointing that if there was a Boneyard then, I swear half the posters would be saying that JC wasn't the guy.
 
Waquoit said:
It's not just that you got the FF wrong or that you missed the year in-between. It's that the year in-between was so disappointing that if there was a Boneyard then, I swear half the posters would be saying that JC wasn't the guy.
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I done wrong. :rolleyes:

BUT they did go to the semi-finals of the NIT in 88-89 and had a 18-13 record.

The next season was the Dream Season. Which underscores my point that a team can go from “ok” to great in one season.

So not sorry.
 
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Y'all are going to hate me for saying this but I think our biggest question mark this year is can Bouk live up to the insane amount of hype he's getting. To be clear, I'm on that train and he deserves the hype. But if at the end of this season we look back and say man we really missed and that didn't have anything to do with injuries it will be because Bouk didn't live up to the hype. Kid has a ton of potential but he's going from being just another player on an average team that both showed a ton of promise down the stretch to being mentioned as a possible All American and Lottery pick this year. Again I think it's deserved and most likely Bouk is a star this year but would it really be all that unlikely for a hyped up Sophomore to not reach his full potential as he grows into this being "his team." If we are being fair and honest I think there is as good a chance of him being back next year after a good but not great Sophomore season as there is of him being an unquestioned leader of a young team where he became a star and ends up a lottery pick. Having "lock" expectations of the latter isn't really fair to the kid. Even if he is just 'good' though I still think with all the talent we have this is a borderline second weekend team.
 
Absolute minimum is a return to the NCAA Tournament. I'll go further and say we win a game.

I honestly don't know enough about the other teams, but I have a hard timing thinking that there are more than a handful of teams with more talent. Of course luck is involved, and leadership, and in a covid season with few or no fans, how do those players react? Does a team like Kansas play as well in AFH as they normally do?

The depth on this team is incredible, and I think that really bodes well for a season where guys might test positive and miss a few games. We can replace anybody on this team except Bouknight without much drop-off. That is valuable. I think Sweet 16 to a possible Elite 8 run is on the table. Beyond that it depends on match-ups and how the chips fall.
 
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