Thanks, fixed that. I think Michigan is the worst of the 5, but playing there makes it tough. I like Illinois in March, but I think they lose to UCLA early. Then I think they’re a tough matchup for us, but might be a game where our experience is the edge. I think 2-2 is achievable. 3-1 would be amazing.
1 Like
Even if 126 and 127 prove to be correct, I see those as “can only hurt us, not help us” teams. A loss to either one would need to be offset by a win against one of those top teams.
I agree that 0-4 is a reasonable worry. And I’m high on our chances overall, it’s just, like you said, a good team could still lose all those games. Hence why I won’t say whether I love the schedule until I see how we fare.
2 Likes
I’m actually still quizzical of the ranking. More than anything, looking to understand what the rationale for putting us that high is. Honestly, unanticipated outcomes like these are helpful to better understand (and decide whether to accept or reject) the model.
I think we’ll be good…maybe even as good as KP thinks…but I don’t know why he thinks we’ll be that good based on what he knows (and can quantify/extrapolate) today.
2 Likes
I would be really pleased with 2-2. I’m legitimately expecting 0-4, while acknowledging 1-3 is also fairly probable.
5 Likes
Found this interesting. VT official site has a pic gallery of their scrimmage vs Liberty. All scoreboard shots carefully cropped. No real comment, just found it interesting. I’d rather have a full boxscore than some random actions pics lol
MBB: Scrimmage at Liberty - Image 1: MBB: Scrimmage at Liberty - Virginia Tech (hokiesports.com)
4 Likes
Hoos clock in at #18
8 Likes
UVA 18 in AP Poll. Possible opponents OOC: 3) Houston, 5) Baylor, 8) UCLA, 22) Michigan, 23) Illinois.
ACC- 1) UNC, 7) Duke
9 Likes
Buy:
#24 - Dayton
#23 - Illinois
Unranked FSU
Sell:
#4 - Kentucky
#5(T) - Kansas
3 Likes
I really hope we get Illinois. They’re by no means a bad team. But they just seem like the perfect matchup for us. Watching them last year in the tournament, they’re so talented but so damn stupid. That’s the kind of team TB loves to play.
7 Likes
Probably the best matchup of the 5 games. Neutral court. Frosh PG coming off an injury (knee? ankle?), but a 5-star. Lots and lots of new pieces, esp. transfers. Might even be doing new-ish system. And we’d get them on a back-to-back, where I usually think we do well.
2 Likes
I cannot understand people predicting 0-4 against the decent teams we play on our schedule. That is unbelievably negative.
Here’s the thing, while we have basically everybody coming back and had an extra month in Europe to break in the rookies who are really just gravy/surplus, Here’s the situation of the other teams:
Baylor, houston and Michigan all lost four major rotation players who averaged a combined 40+ points per game.
UCLA lost 3 rotation players who scored 35.7/game.
And Illinois lost their five top scorers and a whopping 60+ points a game. It is a total rebuild at Illinois.
I understand that these teams have guys coming back and transfers and highly rated freshmen coming in but the latter might help them in February and beyond, not in November/December. We found that out the hard way last year.
4 Likes
Illinois is the ideal opponent in that they should be much better later in the year. That’s a win that should look more impressive on selection Sunday than it actually is at the time.
6 Likes
I don’t think we learned anything last year about bringing in the caliber of transfers and freshmen that Baylor, Houston, and Illinois are bringing in.
Baylor and Houston are bringing in OAD lottery guys. Illinois is bringing in a rotation guy on a natty winner / starter on a 1 seed and a featured player on a Sweet 16 team. It’s not really a useful comparison.
Yes, they will be having early season growing pains, just like every team in the nation (esp. Illinois who is almost a completely new team), but Baylor and Houston also both bring back guys off of injury who are capable of being all-american (Sasser) or all confernce (LJ Cryer … maybe an exaggeration for Cryer).
Also, fwiw, 3 of those 4 teams (Houston, Michigan, and Baylor) did international trips, too.
EDIT - y’know … the more I look, I can convince myself that Baylor isn’t as much of a juggernaut as I fear. The guards are all legit, but no natural PG, Everyday Jon (Tchamwa Tchotchwa) may still be out for our game, and they are thin in the frontcourt. Still will be seriously favored over us, but there are concerns that’s a top 10ish team, not a top 5 team.
3 Likes
And which of those teams plays a system that is notoriously difficult for newcomers to learn lol
1 Like
I will echo this sentiment, particularly given that (last 2 years aside) we are regular season outperformers. I think 2-2 is a cautious but reasonable perspective, and probably the most likely. I would put 3-1 as the next most likely, then 1-3, and I would put 4-0 and 0-4 as both highly unlikely.
3 Likes
I’m not predicting 0-4 (and I haven’t seen anyone else do that either?), but I am acknowledging that it’s possible we could go 0-4 against that schedule even if we’re a pretty good team. If we go 2-2, which I’m hoping for, that’ll look great come selection time. A 3-1 record would be “We back, baby”.
Edit: And 4-0 would be
6 Likes
All of those games will look more impressive on selection Sunday than they really are. All five of those teams will be way better in February than they are in November.
Whereas we will be better in February, but we are starting at high enough level given our talent (we are going to be REALLY organized right off the bat), that we probably won’t improve as much over the course of the season in terms of working out obvious kinks, giving up layups, dumb turnovers, etc as any of those other four teams will. Our improvement will be more fine tuning and trying to get the new guys ready for their rotation/spot minutes.
And the rankings as well as the credit we get for those games is dependent on the whole season’s results, so we have a pretty good deal here.
The last thing you want to do with a high major team who is re-tooling like we were last year and those five teams are this year, is schedule a mid major with a bunch of seniors and juniors who have been there forever. BecAuse the truth is that early in the season they have a good chance of knocking you off especially if you don’t get home game/favorable refs.
And if that is true it’s not hard to extrapolate out what’s going to happen if a top team that is rebuilding runs into a team that beat dook on the road in this past February when K clearly wanted that gAme, toasted Miami a couple times who went far in tourney, and that very same team got extra practice time and scrimmages that most teams didn’t, didn’t lose ANYBODY (sorry statts - figure of speech), and brought in some potential new pieces that can help us. Those teams scheduled poorly but they couldn’t have known exactly what we would look like when they scheduled us, and it won’t end up being a bad loss.
4 Likes
My guess is baylor will be favored somewhere between 2-4 points depending on how much buzz uva gets and I can see it building and the coach’s putting us around 10 and it getting closer to a pick ‘em. But the public would favor baylor I would think.
Either way, after we beat baylor we won’t be underdogs again until/unless we lose or play unc.
Does it actually make sense for UNC to be ranked one? Are they ranked one if they lose in the second round as opposed to making it to the finals
I don’t disagree with the overall argument necessarily, but will just note that this is a built in assumption as well. We haven’t actually seen this team of guys play at a high level. They weren’t very good last year and, while they had a brief period where they looked solid, they ended the year in pretty unspectacular form. Yes they’re more experienced and had another off-season to improve, but until we actually see them play at a high level, can’t be taken for granted.
I am feeling pretty solid about this season and do think we’re going to be significantly improved, but just throwing that out there. While we return a lot, it could actually also take us a little time to incorporate new pieces and start playing good defense (which we haven’t done in like two years).
2 Likes