Tourney Team?

While I am certainly happy our bench will consist of guys not wearing dress socks. My question is, gun to your head do feel this is an NCAA tournament team?

It's not finished yet. We don't have a center. As it stands right now, yes. But barely.

If Sampson is almost as good as Harkless I agree. If he is not then no we are not a tourney team.

Evrytin depends on Jamal Branch and his reintroduction to D1 play (not practice) after a year off.

He is the most important player. Dont be mistaken.

We still have more guys to sign, questions about our scoring, who knows how good Sampson will be etc etc

So, gun to my head I say we're a bubble team, and end up missing out.   But we'll be surprising some ranked teams by late February. 

Things are definitely looking good for 2013 though.   2013 & 2014 are break through years for the program I think.   ESPECIALLY if D'angelo is still here.  And I think he will be.

Evrytin depends on Jamal Branch and his reintroduction to D1 play (not practice) after a year off.

He is the most important player. Dont be mistaken.

He is but so are Sampson and Sanchez. This team was manhandled inside.  Lot of help needed when return only 4 capable players.

Depends on the staff, all hands on deck?

Depends on the staff, all hands on deck?

Hahaha   you KNOW you are going to catch some flak for that.

if we can address our need down low and some more scoring ounch outside of d. harrison then yeah definately! but the question remains will we?

What was the biggest issue this year?  Thats a question with a few different answers.  I won't say shooting or rebounding.  I think it was depth.  I think depth cures a lot of problems including the two I mentioned before.

So yes I say Tourney team. (also I am confident were getting at least one true center to even out positions.

A resounding yes.

As moose said Depth will help greatly, both in intensity of practices and having fresh legs and players at the end of games.  Shooting and rebounding are easier when you are not exhausted.

Size,   we were getting killed last year by Taller bigger players.  With Kar and OS added to the mix we will be better out of the box.  Love Hark but he was still undersized and 2 will be better than one.  Add a few fouls to GG and he will get to be more aggressive in the game.

Shooting,  Marco will be a big plus.   When Harrision starts to miss we have someone to bring in who can be another sharpshooter,  or at times have both in the game to bust zones. 

DH, Green, Sir Dom, Garret will all be a year older, stronger, more experienced and better.

Branch as a real PG cannot hurt.

If we get Chandler or Nolan we will be a "Dangerous" Tourney team.  A stopper / Scorer in the middle and we should be able to beat anyone on any given night.

I can't wait for October.  We Are.......................

IMO we are addressing our greatest issues, those being depth and experience.  We are addressing height now too.  We played well down the stretch last year, but we're hurt by some of those factors, mainly depth IMO.  First half of the season we were hurt most by our lack of experience. 

This season will lose only 1 player in Moe, who is a significant loss.  I his stead though, our core of starters has a year under their belt.  We won't be starting from scratch learning defenses, terminology or anything else.  Learning curve won't be nearly as steep.  Even Branch will have practiced with the team for a year before he suits up. 

We lose Moe but will likely gain 6 new talented kids and at the same time address depth and height issues.  I see us as a tourney team, especially adding Branch, Jakarr and Sanchez who in the grand scheme will positively impact us much more than the loss of Moe overall.  Don't forget, we still have more players to sign who could be huge for us.  I think we are tourney bound.  Just my gut, because we return some of the most experienced sophs in the conference including 4 starters and address a lot of our deficiencies.

i think we'll see improvement every year until we reach elite status (not just a tourney team, but consistently sweet sixteen and higher).  there's no doubt in my mind that we are headed there.  i'm looking for at least a four win improvement next year, which will be harder than expected because the league is also getting stronger.  It wouldn't surprise me if they do better than that, but i would be dissappointed if they did less.  I don't have anything to support that number, just a gut feeling.

Jakarr replaces Moe

Greene, Pointer, Harrison, Garret all true freshman last year- a year now under their belt.
Gift might be more productive if used 20 not 28 mins

Branch & Sanchez into rotation immediately. Felix & Marco a valuable 10-12 mins off the bench.

I think we a top 25-35 team as above (making tourn). Better if Chandler comes.

Jakarr replaces Moe

Greene, Pointer, Harrison, Garret all true freshman last year- a year now under their belt.
Gift might be more productive if used 20 not 28 mins

Branch & Sanchez into rotation immediately. Felix & Marco a valuable 10-12 mins off the bench.

I think we a top 25-35 team as above (making tourn). Better if Chandler comes.

With Chandler we would be there IMO.

our players will have a solid year under their belts...we lose harkless, but he was inconsistant so sampson will make that loss a wash.  (had harkless stayed it would be a slam dunk "sweet 16 at least")  we'll have a true point guard who's not mark jackson or erich barkley..but he'll right the ship.  we'll have quality depth.

i still believe in our coaches' ability to improve the players' skill sets.

we'll be top third big east and ncaa bound.

I'm a firm believer that talent wins games.  The better the coaching, the farther that talent can take you - but the talent has to be there.

We still don't know the complete roster.  But we do know we COULD  start Top 50 talent or JC All AMerica talent  at every position right now:  Branch, Harrison, Garrett/Pointer, Sampson, Sanchez/GG.   And that would give us a bench of Garrett/Pointer (top 50), Sanchez/GG (JC AA), Green (top 100), Felix, and Marco.  We've got shooters, we've got scorers, we've got defenders, we've got rebounders.

TOP 50 at EVERY position.   Yeah.  That's a tourney team barring some catastrophic injury/illness/academic scenario.

While I am certainly happy our bench will consist of guys not wearing dress socks. My question is, gun to your head do feel this is an NCAA tournament team?

Although I'll be pulling for us to be in THE tournament, with a gun to my head I'd say we're looking at playing in the Garden next March in the final of the NIT.


 But the following year -- you betcha!

Quote from: we are sju on April 24, 2012, 12:36:05 PM

While I am certainly happy our bench will consist of guys not wearing dress socks. My question is, gun to your head do feel this is an NCAA tournament team?

Although I'll be pulling for us to be in THE tournament, with a gun to my head I'd say we're looking at playing in the Garden next March in the final of the NIT.


 But the following year -- you betcha!

Unacceptable in my mind.  If Lav can't get into the tournament next year its a failure IMO.  Sacrificed this year but no reason why they can't and shouldn't next year.

I think a lo

While I am certainly happy our bench will consist of guys not wearing dress socks. My question is, gun to your head do feel this is an NCAA tournament team?

To me the answer to your question lies with, can Sampson fill the vacancy left by Moe?  I think we all know he has all the talent in the world and clearly our best recruit.  But filling in for Moe as the go to guy is not an easy job.  But when we need a bucket can he get one for us?

The good news is, Sampson will have more help around him than Moe did. 

I think when all is said and done next year...we are a 10 or 11 seed in the NCAA's!