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Lets assume the Nov Dec schedule happens as planned. What are your thoughts?
With so many players to integrate, I like 2 easy games against Central & Hartford to get our feet wet. Step up a level to a lower power conference team with Vanderbilt, then play a team with 7ft (USC) or 7'2 (BYU) centers that are key to their teams. It will be instructive if we play those centers straight up with our bigs, or, try to take them out of the game with end to end play. NC St is a solid game for status and future seeding if we can win it. I think these games are the right mix for this team to get organized. The negative is that we are starting off with higher early rankings than any of them, so a loss hurts us a bit, and more than 1 loss could really hurt seeding later.
Starting the Big East with St John's pressure will be a new style to play against. Will our bigs be an advantage, or will we be forced to match small ball. Georgetown we should win but I have liked Wahab to date. Providence apparently in the eyes of others will be more of a test than I feel they will. I also feel Creighton is going to have problems with us, and it gives us a chance for a signature win. Ending the first 10 games at Depaul I don't take as a gimme. If we are winning and confident then we will roll there. If we have been slow out of the box anything can happen.
I'm betting 8-2 with a Creighton win and 2 trip ups with relatively equal teams. 7-3 is also realistic but I'll admit disappointment with anything worse than 7-3 unless there are games where players were held out. As a believer in this team, 9-1 is possible, but 10-0 is unlikely given the team's stage of building identity, (even though I don't think any of these 10 teams truely fields a better squad).
With so many players to integrate, I like 2 easy games against Central & Hartford to get our feet wet. Step up a level to a lower power conference team with Vanderbilt, then play a team with 7ft (USC) or 7'2 (BYU) centers that are key to their teams. It will be instructive if we play those centers straight up with our bigs, or, try to take them out of the game with end to end play. NC St is a solid game for status and future seeding if we can win it. I think these games are the right mix for this team to get organized. The negative is that we are starting off with higher early rankings than any of them, so a loss hurts us a bit, and more than 1 loss could really hurt seeding later.
Starting the Big East with St John's pressure will be a new style to play against. Will our bigs be an advantage, or will we be forced to match small ball. Georgetown we should win but I have liked Wahab to date. Providence apparently in the eyes of others will be more of a test than I feel they will. I also feel Creighton is going to have problems with us, and it gives us a chance for a signature win. Ending the first 10 games at Depaul I don't take as a gimme. If we are winning and confident then we will roll there. If we have been slow out of the box anything can happen.
I'm betting 8-2 with a Creighton win and 2 trip ups with relatively equal teams. 7-3 is also realistic but I'll admit disappointment with anything worse than 7-3 unless there are games where players were held out. As a believer in this team, 9-1 is possible, but 10-0 is unlikely given the team's stage of building identity, (even though I don't think any of these 10 teams truely fields a better squad).