georgia fans gave up on fox years ago. i think its put up or shut up for auburn and state. those two on paper are in the top quarter of the league in talent and only a couple coaches in this conference have better resumes than howland/pearl.

I don't know about top quarter, but certainly top half.

bobinator said:

---

Pumpkinhead said:

---

Leander - Ag said:

---

This is the year to win the sec

---

We have a team with a puncher's chance to win the SEC, but the SEC conference also looks like it will be pretty salty this season. It won't be that surprising IMO if the team that wins the conference finishes with like an 11-5 conference record.

---

Actually I think it would be pretty surprising if the team that wins the league plays two less games than everyone else...

But assuming you mean 13-5, that's what we were when we won a pretty competitive league two years ago. The league sucked overall, but it was competitive. I think this year the league has a chance to be competitive, but also be good. I could see a team with five losses winning it again.

Since the move to 18 games, the regular season champions have had 4, 0, 0, 5 and 2 losses, but in those five years the league has never had more than two teams finish the season ranked, which is awful.

---

Predicting us to win the SEC is a huge leap. Consider the caliber of the players.

Kentucky will be heavy favorites. They have eight 5-star players.

We have zero 5-star players and only seven 4-star players.

Missouri has two 5-star and two 4-star players in their freshman class.

MidTnAg said:

---

bobinator said:

---

Pumpkinhead said:

---

Leander - Ag said:

---

This is the year to win the sec

---

We have a team with a puncher's chance to win the SEC, but the SEC conference also looks like it will be pretty salty this season. It won't be that surprising IMO if the team that wins the conference finishes with like an 11-5 conference record.

---

Actually I think it would be pretty surprising if the team that wins the league plays two less games than everyone else...

But assuming you mean 13-5, that's what we were when we won a pretty competitive league two years ago. The league sucked overall, but it was competitive. I think this year the league has a chance to be competitive, but also be good. I could see a team with five losses winning it again.

Since the move to 18 games, the regular season champions have had 4, 0, 0, 5 and 2 losses, but in those five years the league has never had more than two teams finish the season ranked, which is awful.

---

Predicting us to win the SEC is a huge leap. Consider the caliber of the players.

Kentucky will be heavy favorites. They have eight 5-star players.

We have zero 5-star players and only seven 4-star players.

Missouri has two 5-star and two 4-star players in their freshman class.

---

We were SEC conference Co-Champs just the season before last. Kentucky is obviously the favorite (As usual) but there are certainly a few other teams who may challenge them (e.g., Florida, Texas A&M, etc). Regarding A&M, the roster on paper looks as talented with a similar good mix of older/younger guys as that 2015-2016 roster was, including having the returning SEC Defensive Player of the Year and a projected NBA lottery pick in Robert Williams. So the people in the media (and posters on this board) who have opined that Texas A&M belongs on the short list of teams in the SEC that are capable of winning the conference are not being unrealistic IMO.

MidTnAg said:

---

Predicting us to win the SEC is a huge leap. Consider the caliber of the players.

Kentucky will be heavy favorites. They have eight 5-star players.

We have zero 5-star players and only seven 4-star players.

Missouri has two 5-star and two 4-star players in their freshman class.

---

Like pumpkin said, it's not really a huge leap, we did it just two years ago with a roster that I'd argue was less talented than this one.

But your distillation of players down to their star rating as prospects is one of the more gross oversimplifications I've seen in a while.

For one, not all four stars are created equal. In 2015 DJ Hogg was a four star but was ranked #30 (And Tyler Davis was #31) in the country, which was just five spots out of being a five star. So five stars went from #1 to #25 (that year) but 4 stars go from #26 to #149. That's a big difference.

Second, I'd say a junior four star that's developed can be as good as a freshman five star.

And, of course, there's the fact that recruiting rankings and ratings are predictors of how talented a player is and the likelihood that player will play in the NBA, not necessarily indicators of how good a player is at the time or even how good they'll be at college basketball.

This is, simply put, probably the most talented roster in the history of A&M basketball and it has some experience.

Quote:

---

We have zero 5-star players and only seven 4-star players.

---

If it makes folks feel better about the talent on this 2017-2018 roster, it turns out that Robert Williams was the equivalent of a Top-5 'one-and-done' 5-star recruit in the 2016 recruiting class.