Right now - we can still get to a 3 which in my opinion was the goal all along. Three regular season games left - yes we’ve lost 2 home games this year but I still think we win both against UCLA and Rutgers. Don’t see us losing 3 at home. Last regular season game at Illinois is huge but like us they are struggling. We win that game and head into the BTT on a 3 game winning streak and who knows. My point is things can turn around quickly - we lost to 3 ranked teams - 2 on the road and a Wisconsin team who couldn’t miss in the second half. Rivalry game which they had to have to keep any chance of the tourney alive. Maybe just maybe we go on a run and get some momentum going into both tourneys. Nobody knows but I’m optimistic. I was at the IU game and Colvin played extremely well - maybe he keeps it going and we have four reliable scorers - crazier things have happened
Projected 4 seed
- Thread starter SaratogaBoiler1
- Start date
That’s seems reasonable. Need to go at least 2-1 + 1-1 to avoid dropping. More concerned about location and playing well at this point. A 5 seed isn’t the end of the world.
"Rebuilding year." Lol.
A 4 seed is a good spot. 5 seed can be a death sentence. Though I am sure Purdue fans will be weary of a 12 and 13 seed(depending who it even is). A 12/13 VCU is going to be a tough out.
As for the rest of their schedule... UCLA could be a really good game. Rutgers is terrible but they have the two talents that can make them good but haven't. Illinois is easily the most inconsistent team in the nation so who the hell knows. I think Purdue finishes out 2-1 in some way.
Yes, a rebuilding year. We lost the two time NPOY and added five freshman who play quite a bit. We also lost our starting 7 foot center.
Hey BBG, no disrespect but what gives on the 'rebuilding' comment.
Yes, we lost a 2-time NPOY. We also returned 3 starters, preseason BTPOY candidate, preseason prediction to win the B1G. Most of the season looked to play-out that way as well.
Yes, losing DJ hurts, but I'm not sure that was the reason many had us winning the conference vs Smith leading this team to victories.
Several of our losses were not because Edey and jones left and were not the result of the play of our freshman.
I would disagree with the statement that our 5 freshmen are playing a lot of minutes. Myles is NOT. A freshman. Benter is redshirting so he has played 0 minutes. Jacobsen played 1-2 games. So you have Harris, Cox and Burgess! And none of those three are coming close to the minutes Loyer and Smith played as a freshman.
I would disagree with the statement that our 5 freshmen are playing a lot of minutes. Myles is NOT. A freshman. Benter is redshirting so he has played 0 minutes. Jacobsen played 1-2 games. So you have Harris, Cox and Burgess! And none of those three are coming close to the minutes Loyer and Smith played as a freshman.
funny you mentioned VCU, I mentioned that team weeks ago and Dayton as 2 random teams that will knock us out in the Dance
I’m on the fence with respect to this being called a rebuilding year. The team did have very impressive /good early wins such as Alabama and Mississippi (without KC and DJ) and subsequent impressive wins vs Nebraska and Michigan. They have had equally disappointing losses vs PSU, Marquette, A&M and OSU.
I would probably refer to this as being that our reload was not as we hoped for.
I would probably refer to this as being that our reload was not as we hoped for.
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Cox has been the started for a majority of the year now, so I would say that qualifies. The other 2 are mixed throughout the season on usage. If it wasn't for the leg break we would have had 2 freshmen starters most of the year, which is pretty freshmen reliant.
I think Jacobsen being hurt at the beginning of the season had a huge impact on this team. Our front court has no depth at all, and Furst and TKR have been in foul trouble in most of our losses. Adding another 20+ minutes for a solid big to spread out fouls would be a god send.
The other two reasons that we have lost are actually related. Smith has looked absolutely gassed, and our bench contributes very little. If our bench wasn't such a liability, we could have Cox filling in for Smith more without losing as much. As it is currently swapping Cox out for any of our bench guards is a gigantic step down on both sides of the ball, so we are stuck playing Smith almost 100% of the time.
Because we lost Zach and he was so much of the offense.. and everything basically had to change in regards to the offense/defense.
I also don't put a lot of stock in to preseason predictions as often they are very wrong. I mean they picked Indinia to challenge for the conference too.
Myself I have been pretty consistent in saying that I never expected this team to win the B1G and my outlook on the season was mid-level to higher level in the conference as I figured it would take a while to learn to play without Zach which seems to have some merit. The one outlier is I didn't expect to have such poor bench production in regards to Cam/Colvin.
Agree. I think sometimes fans read into the predictions placed on their teams to achieve those goals. We were right there for most part of the season until this 4 game skid hit us in the face and we beat a lot of good teams on the way. I think we saw this team have a lot of highs this year, Smith was playing lights out, TKR was playing like a stud, and some (me included) started to believe we were the best in the B1G....I guess we are right there to say the least.
I do agree most people probably thought this year would be a toss-up between 3-5 teams. I guess it's working out that way.
Unfortunately, we were hoping Myles and Cam would make a larger jump. It just hasn't happened. I feel the ability is there, but something isn't registering.
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Just because you don't believe it, doesn't change the perception put on Purdue. They still entered with the guy considered the best in the conference. They were considered the best team in the Big Ten. They started the year ranked Top 15. Expectations are built on perception. Purdue was considered to still be that good because they were returning Smith, Loyer and TKR and Matt Painter was still the coach.
Expectations were high but there was some expected step back. A lot of the reasons you see for our B1G Title was because a lot of other teams had question marks and we had 3 returning starters.
With that said, I think this team can have a solid tourney run or completely flame out. One of the things that this team excels is when it is a finesse game - that means Braden is getting everyone engaged and scoring. Faster pace/tempo. We fall in the right bracket with matchups, we could see a run. If we get a physical team that slows us down, might be lights out early.
This team just needs to get motivated to right the ship
With that said, I think this team can have a solid tourney run or completely flame out. One of the things that this team excels is when it is a finesse game - that means Braden is getting everyone engaged and scoring. Faster pace/tempo. We fall in the right bracket with matchups, we could see a run. If we get a physical team that slows us down, might be lights out early.
This team just needs to get motivated to right the ship
We can play better for sure than what we have shown lately. However, we are not going to be able to fix our weak inside play this year with our current roster.
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I think this is right but would add that a significant piece of why Purdue was picked was that they had fewer ‘unknowns’ than other teams. If picking Purdue or the field the vast majority would pick the field.
Agree with all of this but am not sure that motivation is a key factor. Not sure what's going on with our key guys but they need to find a way to get out of their heads and get back to just playing hard and executing.
IMO they're worrying too much about what they can't control and at this point when things start to go sideways there's almost a 'here we go again' reaction. This is supposed to be a game and the pressure is off at this point, play hard and have fun.
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