Ucf UConn game on now
- Thread starter libertychamp
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A small UConn win. That keeps them quad 1 and might move UCF up enough to be a quad 2 loss on the road.
Kind of hard to watch announcers says hous in Cincy WSU probably in Memphis next out and slobbering over ucant saying a lock for nit
Announcers are saying in conference tourney 3 seed Tulsa dont want to play USF or Gardner of ecu in quarterfinals or Smu a 4 seed at least they are calling Tulsa a 3 seed and Smu 4
You’re probably joking about UConn, but it would be very difficult for any team outside of the top 4 to win four games on consecutive days. A first round bye is critical.
Hard to tell.
Preseason rankings would say a lot of very good teams. OOC results say the same, sans us.
Current Net says we are a better conference top to bottom than last year but, it feels like the top isn’t a good as years past.
I think it’s a really good conference but we won’t truly know until we see how everyone does in whatever tourney they get in to.
We are better top to bottom....Even the top teams in the conference are quite young,
so they have not been as consistent....Some of the lower teams on the totem pole
have taken advantage of that and pulled some surprises....Many of those lower teams
have some very good Fr./Soph talent plus transfers, and can light you up on any given
night....
Again, overall fact is that the conference is better top to bottom....I think you are right
in the fact that the top is not as consistently good has it has been in some previous
seasons..
All of that makes for a fun conference to be in....We have lost by near forty, and have
won by 40....Hard to reconcile, but fun to watch.....
I remember Houston winning four in a row here in Tulsa. But you are right, very difficult.
I always think we are in a really good conference and then some of our best teams flunk first round NCAA.
UCONN is scary because they have guys like Vital, Bouknight, Gilbert, and Gaffney who can get hot and go off at any minute. It's why SMU can be scary, and Wichita State. They all have 3-4 guys completely capable of going off and going on 10-12 pt runs by themselves.
Outside of Igbanu, we don't have a guy that has proven he can do that. Horne and Korita are the likely candidates but they're more steady throughout the game contributors, not the guys who can take a game over. Jackson can take a game over with his defense. Rachal maybe if we can get stops and get him out on the run.
The Tulane game was weird as we shot the ball fairly well for us. The turnovers made that game be closer than it really should have been.
Yes....I wonder if that will hold true this season, as well....Some on this board have
said that the top of our conference is not quite as strong as in seasons past...I still
think that Houston and WSU have a chance to advance in the NCAA tourney,,,
I think we will see a large # of "big 5 conf." teams bite the dust early this year as
well....As always, many get in that don't actually deserve to...
In watching more BB than I have for some time, it seemed to me that in our conf.,
in particular, more of the teams were younger than previously, and showed it by
their inconsistency....The teams in bottom half of our conference seem to be made
up of talented but young players....It appears that our conference is definitely gaining
balance top to bottom....
I like where we are going into next season personnel wise, with the noted exception of
the 5 position....It's going to be killer hard to replace Igbanu on both ends...Especially
on offense.....How well we do that may be a large indicator of what next season's
record will be like....
The B1G will be the primary culprit. Lunardi had 11 B1G teams in not that long ago. I don't know how many he currently has in. I GUARANTEE that if they get 10 or 11 in, 6 will lose in the 1st round. The ACC is trying to stretch to 4 bids...not seeing how. SEC has Kentucky Auburn, and probably pig sooiee in with LSU, Florida, South Carolina on the edge of a teeter totter if anything goes awry in the last 2 weeks. PAC 12 is absolutely awful and guys are gushing over USC and UCLA right now for being avg. teams but looking good against the rest of the PAC 12. Big East- More meh. Big XII- after Baylor and Kansas, I wouldn't pick any Big XII team to advance beyond the 1st round without seeing the matchup first. WVa, TxTech are avg. IMO, and OU is likely a 5th team in and I don't consider them to be good at all. A10, WCC, and the Southern are all pretty good conferences for mid-majors and should get multiple teams in (WCC and A-10 will, SoCo should).
The AAC is teetering on the brink of only getting 2 and the 2nd is far from guaranteed. (I think both us and Cincy are better than WSU is. WSU is kind of soft). Memphis only gets love b/c they played a demanding non-con and were a preseason darling because they had the best recruiting class. Too bad their coach is worth a nickel when it comes to x's and o's.
If they get 11 teams in it's a complete joke. Their 11 place team is 15-14 overall amd 8-10 in conference. Heck their 10th place team is just 8-9 in conference.
Personally, I don’t think any team under .500 in conference play should be eligible for the NCAA Tourney.
Wrong, they may upset somebody. But they won't be a dark horse for three or four upsets in a row.
Keep in mind, SMU will basically be playing at home. If they get in the semi’s expect them to be a tough opponent as fans start to show up.
I would honestly want to run into UConn as they won’t have many fans there and their coach / program are sort of looking ahead to next season.
I would honestly want to run into UConn as they won’t have many fans there and their coach / program are sort of looking ahead to next season.
I've thought the same thing for a long time. It's sickening that a 7-9 team in the ACC perpetually gets looks at the NCAA tournament, gets a 10 seed and flames out. You see this a lot from the ACC and B1G.
SMU has like maybe 3000 fans in the metroplex. Brown isn't their coach anymore, they don't have any NBA players playing for them, and they're not cheating (well, at least that we've heard).
UCONN has fans everywhere. Even in Tulsa. We don’t want to go up against Boatwright again.
Their attendance for the WSU game was 5,483. Now, I'll grant you, some of those were probably shocker faithful. But, I still see some of those bandwagon Dallas metro fans showing up if SMU makes a run in the tournament.
Bouknight is a good player but he's hit or miss. Mills has been much more consistent as a FR for Houston. Vitale is the lynchpin for UCONN. And they're thin right now, especially in the middle with Akok Akok out for the year. One player in foul trouble for UCONN means they're down to a 7 man rotation unless Hurley plays guys he really doesn't want to. Bouknight tends to get in foul trouble to because he likes to drop in and swipe at balls in the lane.
Against our defense, we dictate who we want shooting. UCF we left Mahan and he had a great game. No one else for UCF really stood out. 2nd game against UCONN, we left Gilbert open...he went off. We then took him and Vitale away and Bouknight went off, we then switched to a more man to stop those 3 and UCONN went with whoever Korita was one on one with. We can survive 1 guy having a good night, we cannot if 3-4 guys are hitting from outside.
Half of that 5400 left with about 4 minutes remaining. The writing was on the wall for SMU that they weren't going to be able to pull out of the funk they were in and the Green Goblin had no answers or coaching to get them going again.
I just think they have a ton of offensive firepower, and they could get a game or two where they just go nuts from outside. Their problem is interior defense.
