LouisvilleAg said:

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I think you mean a fringe NIT team at 17-14.

This a 40ish most difficult schedule out there. We are challenging ourselves, but last year's schedule was much stronger. I think it came out to a top 10 difficult schedule.

Yes our team has drastically changed and we have a lot of unknowns, but the schedule does ease up quite a bit. The downside is that there is little margin for error. Anything less than 19 wins won't get us in the big dance.

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I don't think the standard for making the NCAA tournament is as high as you, but you may be right.

I think it's too hard to predict where the cutoff for the NCAA's might be, but last year we had those wins against West Virginia and USC in our back pocket all season. We also snuck a huge road win at Auburn and smashed Kentucky. So even though our record was meh, we had some really good wins, especially early, that buoyed our numbers all year.

So our non-con, and beating Auburn on the road, really let us get away with a middling run through conference.

Another underrated aspect of last season is we didn't lose a single game to anyone bad. Our worst loss was to LSU, which wasn't all that bad, and even then that game was without Gilder, Williams and Wilson (before Wilson was out for the year.)

The path is a little different next year. The only game that's going to raise any eyebrows if we win it before January is Gonzaga. Unless Washington, Oregon State or Boston College somehow become good next year. I think we're going to have a post a little better SEC record unless we basically sweep our non-conference games except for Gonzaga and Kansas State. If we beat one of them then maybe we can sustain a loss somewhere else.

When we lost at LSU- we had Williams, Gilder and a hobbled Wilson. We also lost by 12 and it wasn't that close (down by 15 at half). Maybe not by seeding metrics (since it was on the road), but that was our worse game of the year imo. And it was a horrible loss.

Just like at Tennessee, at Arkansas, and at Alabama were embarrassing too. Non-competitive games to teams we had no business being destroyed by.

Yeah, I was talking about the home loss. A road loss to a top 100 team isn't really all that bad.

One thing I think is important as fans is separating what's a bad loss to us, versus what the committee actually looks at when evaluating tournament teams. I actually think the home loss to Mississippi State might have been the worst game of the season considering the stakes at the time and how we looked.

We had several pathetic games last season, but none of them were very bad from a committee evaluation standpoint.

bobinator said:

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At any rate there is not nearly enough people putting their expectations out there on this thread. Let's see em.

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I think we'll end up between 16-15 or 18-13 and I don't see the better end of that as being good enough to make the dance.

I really don't know what to expect from this team with all the roster turnover and expectation of young guys stepping up. I realize the word out there on guys like Nebo and Mitchell is we should expect them to be pretty good, but I feel like I've bought into that hype one too many times with this staff outside of Jones and House. I can't say my level of confidence is very high heading into next season, but hopefully they surprise me. The SEC as a whole will continue to improve next year, but our schedule sets up to avoid playing some of the heavy hitters more than once. The roster has potential, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Topher17 said:

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bobinator said:

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At any rate there is not nearly enough people putting their expectations out there on this thread. Let's see em.

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I think we'll end up between 16-15 or 18-13 and I don't see the better end of that as being good enough to make the dance.

I really don't know what to expect from this team with all the roster turnover and expectation of young guys stepping up. I realize the word out there on guys like Nebo and Mitchell is we should expect them to be pretty good, but I feel like I've bought into that hype one too many times with this staff outside of Jones and House. I can't say my level of confidence is very high heading into next season, but hopefully they surprise me. The SEC as a whole will continue to improve next year, but our schedule sets up to avoid playing some of the heavy hitters more than once. The roster has potential, but I'll believe it when I see it.

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This is unfortunately where I'm at too. I thought the 2016-17 team was gonna surprise everyone because of how good the 15-16 team was even without Caruso, Jones and House on the court... and they didn't even make the NIT.

A&M had a top 15 defense last year.

Hogg because of his length was a top 15 team defender prior to the weed suspension per advanced metrics.

Top 40 in both 2 point FG defense and 3FG defense.

A&M didn't force steals and were a bad outside shooting team...and made way too many TOs. The story of ruts during the season and Michigan.

miller0926 said:

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Topher17 said:

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bobinator said:

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At any rate there is not nearly enough people putting their expectations out there on this thread. Let's see em.

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I think we'll end up between 16-15 or 18-13 and I don't see the better end of that as being good enough to make the dance.

I really don't know what to expect from this team with all the roster turnover and expectation of young guys stepping up. I realize the word out there on guys like Nebo and Mitchell is we should expect them to be pretty good, but I feel like I've bought into that hype one too many times with this staff outside of Jones and House. I can't say my level of confidence is very high heading into next season, but hopefully they surprise me. The SEC as a whole will continue to improve next year, but our schedule sets up to avoid playing some of the heavy hitters more than once. The roster has potential, but I'll believe it when I see it.

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This is unfortunately where I'm at too. I thought the 2016-17 team was gonna surprise everyone because of how good the 15-16 team was even without Caruso, Jones and House on the court... and they didn't even make the NIT.

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I'm assuming a near 0.500 team like 2017, and if the team gels it's lagniappe. I'll still cheer for the players and winning even if it buys Kennedy more time.

NIT

DukeMu said:

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Hogg because of his length was a top 15 team defender prior to the weed suspension per advanced metrics.

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What? Hogg was an awful defender, almost all of the time, based on anyone with a working set of eyes.

This will not be a tournament team. Bottom half SEC.

I set the over at 6 for total SEC wins next year. Too many teams getting better while we have taken several steps back. We have to replace 60+% of our scoring and rebounding. Hope to be wrong.

Wheels fall off. We finish last in SEC. Kennedy gets an extension.

Hate to say it but...no post-season...maybe win 5 games in conference. BK fired at the end of conference play.

No NCAA tourney this year.
Maybe a bottom feeder in the NIT

Guessing 16-17 wins unless somebody comes out of left field to become a surprise star.
BK develops yet another excuse and "wait 'til next year" prediction.

Probably dropped out of top 50 after Michigan game

16-14

Most of the SEC got better this offseason. We got worse.

BK steps down at the end of the season.

21-10