Oh I expect nothing short of an NCAA bid and then depending on injuries and what not the 2013-14 team could be real special.
Exactly. Been saying this since the season ended. That should be our timeline.
Concur, realistic and quite acceptable!
Expecting an NCAA bid is a lot to ask for a team adding 8 new players, virtually all freshmen or sophs, and losing a lottery pick. I'm not saying it's unrealistic. Just that we have our work cut out for us.
Soft OOC schedule to build confidence. Its very clear the staff is building for a crescendo like we had two years ago. Come end of January we are clicking on all cylinders and hopefully we have better padded wins under our belt.
Judging by what we return, what we have coming in, depth, BE down year, etc. I dont think NCAA crazy goal. Nobody is sitting here saying we are making the elite 8.
I agree, good points. I didn't mean to imply it was a crazy prediction.
And for a lot of the reasons you pointed out (and MCN as well), making the NCAAs wouldn't be a stretch. I just wouldn't predict it at this point.. if for no other reason than the lack of experience. Truth is we don't know what Branch really is at this point, and don't know what Jakarr will be as a freshmen. To me those are the two biggest "ifs". If those two are as good as we think they can be, we're an NCAA team. If they are disappointing, we're a bubble team.
And MCN, I agree the experience for the returners is far more than your typical sophomore. So they should be ahead of the curve. But in some respects they lack 'meaningful' experience. Dom, Amir etc have tons of playing time, but have they played in close games down the stretch ? Games like that on the road? Tight Big East games on Thurs or Fri of the tournament? Maybe they have a taste of that pressure, but not really.
Another way to look at is a guy like Otto Porter who got slightly less playing time, was in close games on the road at Syracuse, at Louisville etc etc. Other than against Cincinnati, we weren't even competitive in our road games.
I'll stop there. I don't want to defend my position too much, because I sound like a negative-nelly. I think the team is going to be good and I'm beyond excited.
I'll just stick by my initial post; NCAAs aren't a crazy prediction, but we have our work cut out for us.