He’s made 2 FG’s or fewer in 22 of our 27 games … so not much… I will say his size on defense allows us to be switchable and does help balance Chance’s lack of size.
But our starting guards consist of a guy who doesn’t try things because? He knows he can’t?
and a guy who tries too many things because 27 games into a high major schedule he still lives in a land of myopic mid major athletes land? And yes Malik had a very good and important 5 minute spurt from 17:55 to 13:30 when he subbed out and then from 9:58 to 9:40 when he made his last bucket.
you mean the 2 time NIT champ?
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And yet there he is, starting for a team that is 24-3. Maybe he impacts the game positively for this team in ways that you just can’t understand?
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I appear to have stumbled into the No Holds Barred thread by accident. 
Sorry, gotta say I’m on team Cuts here. DTW, your overall point seems to be that we have a PG who rarely scores, we’ve played a weak schedule, so despite our record, we’re basically lucky and likely to lose in the first weekend. Haney, your overall argument seems to be that the previous weak schedule doesn’t mean as much as the current stretch of Miami, NC State, and Duke. Fair enough. One down, two to go.
Would we be better if we had a ball-dominant PG like McCray, Donaldson, Boopie Miller, or Thornton? Probably, though maybe we’d just shift production from other players to the PG spot. And yet, somehow, we managed to beat all of those teams. In fact, we’ve won all but three games so far. At a certain point, the accumulated wins on the actual court instead of in either of your contrarian brains does give us some basis for establishing a fairly high ceiling for the team.
I’m not buying Final Four tickets just yet, but I have high hopes for a Sweet Sixteen or better.
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This is my overall argument:
I typed it before Miami and I feel like I understand a little more about our ceiling following Miami.
About 50% of our evidence of how we will do in a second round type matchup** comes from scrimmages (Vandy, Nova plus Louisville, UNC, IMO).
** assuming seeds hold, which is of course not a safe assumption
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Miami is currently an 8-seed but they played a bit above that, I think, on Saturday. But also we basically beat them by a typical home court advantage
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This is the other strand (strand 1 - how good has our comp been, and what can we draw from that; strand 2 - how good is our talent)
My opinion on this is that our strength is in depth of talent, not top end talent. I think most agree with that overall assertion and then differ as to the particulars or how important they are
We don’t have anyone who would go top 40 or so (even as the draft existed a couple years ago). We have some potential two way types (TDR at least).
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My point on Point guard - punny - is I would prefer he force the opponent to guard him. Don’t need a 20 point scorer but a consistent 8 or 9 would do. He’s literally made more than 2 shots 5 times this year and plays more than everyone else.
About the madness - I fear opponents will scout well and force him to be a double digit scorer and give him every 3 attempt he is willing to take.
And yes - wouldn’t matter Hoo we had - I’ll believe a 2nd weekend appearance when I see it… We’ve had 3 of those since 1995 after having 7 of those from 1981-1995.
Just too many hopes up years - but hope springs eternal!!! Hoping we can!!!
Edit - and the weak schedule isn’t a knock on us - it’s a knock on my entertainment package this season - the Miami game was great because it was high level basketball- something my eyes haven’t seen much in Hoo games from both teams this year - that’s all that means.
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I think where I mostly disagree with these premises is that you can only tell how we could do in a second-round type matchup by playing those specific teams.
The comparison doesn’t have to be apples-to-apples. There are levels of outclassing other good teams, and how you do it, that adds a lot of information to the conversation. I think there’s a lot of intuition that can be applied to determine if what you’re saying against, say a bubble team, is likely to compete against a round of 32 team… especially given that those round of 32 teams lose to bubble teams all of the time.
Perhaps I just feel this way because I’m in the weeds every single game.
I think your second point about not having top 40 guys is more of a point on why we won’t win a national championship - which I agree with - but isn’t really that important re: our ability to make a deep run.
Where would Onyenso go, for example? Not top 40 - but he offers an elite skill that is incredibly impactful at the collegiate level. Chance is probably too small to go high in the NBA - he’s still very good by collegiate standards. TDR is a classic case of a player who probably isn’t quite an NBA profile, but who can make a huge impact on both sides of the floor at the collegiate level.
Is Caleb Wilson a much better professional prospect than Thijs De Ridder? Absolutely. Was TDR able to compete with him and even slightly outplay him? Also, absolutely.
Teams like Kansas and BYU both have that guy - but I don’t like either of their collective teams as much in terms of their ability to play together and support that guy. Would a lot of those guys still get run off of the three-point line against our defense and then be challenged to finish around Ugo… or even Grünloh when he’s playing like this at the rim? I’d suspect so - at least that it would make us competitive.
So, I think our talent is absolutely high quality, not top 40 NBA guys but the way they play together and with the depth do create a high ceiling.
I don’t think there’s a team we can’t beat - but I also think some of those top 5 teams or so… it would take us playing very, very well because, to your point, they have some higher end talent AND depth/team play… and so stringing a lot of those victories together seems improbable - but you probably only play one of those style teams before a Final Four - maybe two.
Anyway, some of this probably just comes down to the semantics on what we mean re: “Ceiling”
If I said I think we’re likely to be a Sweet 16 team but are a credible Final Four threat (and also could credibly be upset in the first round) - would that feel different? Because that’s what I mean.
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Agree- the more I think about this, it’s not that relevant to second weekend ceiling
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