There's definitely talent on the team. Not enough to make the tourney probably, but could definitely still do better than we have so far.

To be honest, I almost didn't believe we only had three turnovers. I am re-watching the game out of amazement.

I would say we have 4-5 talented players that can play with anyone. But not a lot of depth and our top guys need to be consistent. We could make a run if the chemistry begins to gel. Looking forward to auburn at home. If win that and the outlook on the season shifts

Arkansas lost so many of last year's players, I thought it really bad when they squeezed by us at home to start the SEC schedule. Today I turned on the TV and Ark was 12 points behind LSU so I thought "confirmed".
Bur the pigs started stealing the ball and tied the game at 81, only to lose 94-88 OT when LSU got hot from three point land.

It's basketball

Anybody can get hot and lucky and beat anybody else in any given match

Doesn't make you a good team if you do

Just another crappy BK season in progress

Maroon Dawn said:

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It's basketball

Anybody can get hot and lucky and beat anybody else in any given match

Doesn't make you a good team if you do

Just another crappy BK season in progress

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You would characterize 43.8% from the field and 15.8% from three as "hot and lucky"?

Aston04 said:

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William_C_G said:

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Three turnovers doesn't sound like an uncoached team.

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I presume you will be back on here saying we are NOT a well-coached team when we go back to the norm of the bk era of relatively high turnovers?

That said, for me, I'm just trying to enjoy the win today. Not complain about our coach after a good win. Let's see if we can turn this season around. Who knows.

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In direct contrast to Maroon Dawn, this seems like exactly the appropriate response for a "pot banger" to have after that game.

Yet some posters on here seem to think the better 3pt shooting team is going to win in college basketball.

Those numbers are pretty close to our season averages.
Most of our success against Arkansas was in the paint.

The key, without doubt, was the turnovers ... 3.
I strongly suspect we won't see that kind of number again. Anything under 10 is manageable IF we have a decent game shooting.

Any given night we always have at least an outside shot but it's gonna take a great night for us and a lousy night for the opponent when we play the good teams.

Lots of "upsets" of varying degrees in Saturday's games all across the NCAA spectrum.

I don't have a different outlook for the team. I put a lot of qualifiers in my first post. It is just refreshing to finally see us win one rather than flame out the last 5 minutes of a good game. All it did is show we can do it vs every other time where we fell short.

I don't really feel like we've flamed out a lot this year. Kentucky was simply a better team that eventually extended the lead. Arkansas was neck-and-neck the entire game. Oregon State we held off a late push.

Washington and UC Irvine were both teams we had decent leads on, but both have shown since our game that they are pretty decent squads.

fact is we have fought hard in all of our games. The TSU and the Gonzaga games were out there, Gonzaga understandable. But the other games have been somewhat tight well into the second half.

Hop said:

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free_mhayden said:

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It amazes me how some people can take a singular win (a buzzer-beater at that) and come out with a whole different outlook on a team.

Yeah, Alabama took down an inconsistent Kentucky team.... They also lost to UCF, Georgia State, Northeastern and got handled by LSU fairly easily.

Unless Starks significantly improves his play, this is still a 4-5 win conference team at best.

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The long-term prognosis is the same either way, but interesting post though. I dont recall you beating back the posters going out of their mind blaming Kennedy when LSU hit that "lucky" bomb last year.

I didn't see anybody mention the two buckets coming out of timeouts made on in-bounds plays, or the forced 5-second call against Alabama that reflected a successful tactical plan from the A&M staff.

As usual, there's a mixed bag of good results and bad results. You highlight the bad results and trivialize the good results.

Yeah, I think a change will be made and it is warranted, but one can still be happy they won Saturday.

The team should get kudos for winning a road game as an underdog. That doesn't mean I blindly support this regime. It just means I thought the players played a decent game and the coaches coached a decent game.

The A&M staff certainly outcoached the Alabama staff on Saturday. I say that because over the years a lot of posters here were banging the drum wanting Avery Johnson.

He was facing the worst outside shooting team in the country and he wasn't smart enough to double Josh Nebo on the entry pass down low. I thought Avery coached a poor game.

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agree with this post- I do think Avery Johnson would have had more success here. Much better fit and had a ready made roster.

It is interesting over on the bama board- they are banging the drum for him to go.

I appreciate the psycho-analysis Hop, but you've shown time and time again that you are unable to remember which posters posted what and lump anyone "anti-Kennedy" into the same group, so it's rather useless.

Yes there plenty of bright spots -- we've got enough talent on the team that rarely will you find a game devoid of anything positive.

Yes, if we play within our strengths (posts) and don't turn the ball over a ton we can win against teams like Alabama.

The problem is Alabama is looking like the 9th or 10th best team out of the other 13 teams in the conference (wht Arkansas being about the same)... So if it takes a buzzer-beater after playing well to take down one of the lesser teams in the conference then I'm not sure that's necessarily that bright of a spot.

A win is always better than a loss, but right now I'd say the win means less in regards to how high this team can climb in conference play (it's still a 4-5 win team) and more to give some of those guys out there working hard a bright spot for their work.

If we win 2 out of our next 3 I'll be singing a different tune, but I just don't see it.

free_mhayden said:

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It amazes me how some people can take a singular win (a buzzer-beater at that) and come out with a whole different outlook on a team.

Yeah, Alabama took down an inconsistent Kentucky team.... They also lost to UCF, Georgia State, Northeastern and got handled by LSU fairly easily.

Unless Starks significantly improves his play, this is still a 4-5 win conference team at best.

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It's hard to win in conference. It's hard to win on the road. As far as I'm concerned this win moved the floor and ceiling for the conference season one game higher. I know you gave yourself an out with the if Starks comment but 3-4 more wins happening is pretty close to a sure thing. This team has been playing people close all year and a certain portion of the time things are going to go our way down the stretch in games.

Realistic floor in my opinion is 5-13 and realistic ceiling is something like 9-9 or 8-10. Most likely is 6-12 or 7-11

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realistic ceiling is something like 9-9 or 8-10

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If being "realistic" means being on crack.

There isn't a coach in the business that hasn't been outcoached in a game. Sometimes you have enough raw talent to overcome a poorly coached game, and sometimes you don't. Melvin Watkins is a testament to that.

A poorly coached game that shows up as a W is quickly forgotten. One that ends up with an L that should have been a W takes longer to fade into history. There is little argument that BK outcoached AJ in this contest. I'm betting AJ put that in his memory bank and won't make the same mistake again anytime soon.

The issue revolves around the usual, more statistically relevant overall coaching effort, and I think even you, Hop, would be hard pressed to argue that BK consistently outcoaches the opposition.

A good win, albeit a lucky win with an incredible running 3 pointer with a fraction of a second left on the clock. We've been beaten that way before (you mentioned LSU), so maybe it's our turn. but if we are going to rely on that kind of play to up our Ws, then we are in big trouble.

This team lives and dies in the paint. Turnovers and a decent FT shooting percentage are huge for us.

I'm sticking with my pre-season 4 conference win projection. 2 or 3 are not unlikely. Neither is 5.

EXCELL said:

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There isn't a coach in the business that hasn't been outcoached in a game. Sometimes you have enough raw talent to overcome a poorly coached game, and sometimes you don't. Melvin Watkins is a testament to that.

A poorly coached game that shows up as a W is quickly forgotten. One that ends up with an L that should have been a W takes longer to fade into history. There is little argument that BK outcoached AJ in this contest. I'm betting AJ put that in his memory bank and won't make the same mistake again anytime soon.

The issue revolves around the usual, more statistically relevant overall coaching effort, and I think even you, Hop, would be hard pressed to argue that BK consistently outcoaches the opposition.

A good win, albeit a lucky win with an incredible running 3 pointer with a fraction of a second left on the clock. We've been beaten that way before (you mentioned LSU), so maybe it's our turn. but if we are going to rely on that kind of play to up our Ws, then we are in big trouble.

This team lives and dies in the paint. Turnovers and a decent FT shooting percentage are huge for us.

I'm sticking with my pre-season 4 conference win projection. 2 or 3 are not unlikely. Neither is 5.

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You think going 1-14 over the next 15 games is not unlikely? We have 9 games left against teams that have already lost 5 or more.

Hop said:

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free_mhayden said:

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It amazes me how some people can take a singular win (a buzzer-beater at that) and come out with a whole different outlook on a team.

Yeah, Alabama took down an inconsistent Kentucky team.... They also lost to UCF, Georgia State, Northeastern and got handled by LSU fairly easily.

Unless Starks significantly improves his play, this is still a 4-5 win conference team at best.

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The A&M staff certainly outcoached the Alabama staff on Saturday. I say that because over the years a lot of posters here were banging the drum wanting Avery Johnson.

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Would you swap Kennedy for Avery if given the opportunity?

_lefraud_ said:

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Hop said:

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free_mhayden said:

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It amazes me how some people can take a singular win (a buzzer-beater at that) and come out with a whole different outlook on a team.

Yeah, Alabama took down an inconsistent Kentucky team.... They also lost to UCF, Georgia State, Northeastern and got handled by LSU fairly easily.

Unless Starks significantly improves his play, this is still a 4-5 win conference team at best.

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The A&M staff certainly outcoached the Alabama staff on Saturday. I say that because over the years a lot of posters here were banging the drum wanting Avery Johnson.

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Would you swap Kennedy for Avery if given the opportunity?

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I would, if it meant Avery inheriting Kennedy's current contract and we weren't locked in for a significant amount of time. Would like us to hopefully aim higher when we go to market.

Avery Johnson is nothing special in terms of coaching (below average in my opinion). His teams play "iso nba" which is not very different from our chaotic and non systematic approach (most of the time).

However, he can definitely recu recruit and he will be a great name just for marketing purposes...

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Yet some posters on here seem to think the better 3pt shooting team is going to win in college basketball.

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Yea, that's why the win is considered as "luck" by some. The shooting %'s were certainly not the norm for winning/losing teams.

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I'm sticking with my pre-season 4 conference win projection.

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I think this is pretty clear where I think we will end up.
I said it wasn't unlikely, i.e. impossible to end up with 2 or 3 total conference wins.

Yes. It's possible. It's also theoretically possible we could win out, but not very likely.

The losses by those future competitors are not necessarily a harbinger of things to come because so many factors are involved in those losses. Who did they lose to? At home or on the road? Are injuries a factor?

If that's your criterion then you should look at our losses at home to Arkansas and Texas Southern as examples of those kind of teams and we haven't fared extraordinarily well in spite of that. We don't have a quality win. Our Bama win was a function of 3 turnovers which likely won't be repeated again. We have minimal depth. One injury, one suspension or some other similar event and we take one below the water line.

EXCELL said:

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Quote:

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I'm sticking with my pre-season 4 conference win projection.

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I think this is pretty clear where I think we will end up.
I said it wasn't unlikely, i.e. impossible to end up with 2 or 3 total conference wins.

Yes. It's possible. It's also theoretically possible we could win out, but not very likely.

The losses by those future competitors are not necessarily a harbinger of things to come because so many factors are involved in those losses. Who did they lose to? At home or on the road? Are injuries a factor?

If that's your criterion then you should look at our losses at home to Arkansas and Texas Southern as examples of those kind of teams and we haven't fared extraordinarily well in spite of that. We don't have a quality win. Our Bama win was a function of 3 turnovers which likely won't be repeated again. We have minimal depth. One injury, one suspension or some other similar event and we take one below the water line.

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South Carolina lost to Stony Brook, Wofford, and Wyoming. We get them twice.

Vanderbilt lost to Kent State. We get them at home.

We know we can beat Alabama, especially if we don't shoot a terrible percentage from outside like on Saturday, and we get them at home next time.

Georgia lost to Georgia State, and we get them at home.

Is 2-16 more likely than 16-2? Definitely. Is it more likely than 9-9? Probably not.

FWIW (and I don't think much) ESPN's matchup predictor has us going 5-10 the rest of the way in conference, which would put us at 6-12 on the season in conference play.

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Is it more likely than 9-9? Probably not.

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I completely disagree with that.

9-9 is a dream scenario.

You can't take isolated games and apply them to a dozen conference games.
If so, you'd need to just thrown in the towel after Cal-Irvine and Texas Southern, and then we should have beaten Arkansas too.

I can't believe somebody who has been around as long as you have has fallen into the "they beat XYZ" or "they lost to "LMN".

EXCELL said:

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Quote:

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Is it more likely than 9-9? Probably not.

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I completely disagree with that.

9-9 is a dream scenario.

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1-15 the rest of the way is a nightmare scenario that just isn't going to happen. TJ could sit out the rest of the season and we would pick a couple up somewhere along the way.