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Message: [QUOTE="oldhusky, post: 4608960, member: 9844"] I am really surprised at some of the responses which seem to be heavily weighted by a reaction to this year, not the prospects for next year. There are some things that need to go our way on the health front, but other than that I don't see any team matching us at positions 1-4. If we get pretty good production at the 5 we should be the best. I frankly don't see how VT or Iowa could be as good. South Carolina won't be as good, but still very good. They could still have the best C in the country with Cardosa, for sure in the top hand-full, have plenty of other bigs that performed well in limited minutes, but still need that outside shooting. Stanford should be near the top again, they lose Jones but return their twin towers with Brink and Betts, and Jump is coming back. LSU is obviously a national power under Mulkey, their superstar returns, and I worry a little they will pull in a major portal addition after this championship like they did last year. Plenty of teams can be contenders, but once again I don't see anybody that can match us 1-4. At the 5 we have two terrific prospects in Ice and Jana and the possibilities are dwindling for a major portal addition, but we should be pretty good there even if we have to play them major minutes in their first year. They probably won't be nearly as good as they will be a couple years later, but how many teams would love to have the problem of inexperienced 5's if they had as much talent as Ice and Jana? This team will have a heavy comeback story to it as well, with Paige, Azzi, Caroline and Ice coming back from injury plagued seasons, and of course Aubrey returning from back surgery this year. You might be able to debate best recruiting classes with a few schools including us, but if you include adding our two players that missed the whole season it is no contest. No addition to any team is as significant as Paige returning next year. We need to avoid the bad luck of the last two years on injuries, and have our recovering players come back close to their pre injury form, but the pieces are there for us to be as good as anybody. [/QUOTE]

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