I didn't say we won' be improved from last season, I expect us to be.PeterRamTime wrote: ↑1 year agoToo early to expect much? What exactly is reasonable to expect?Jersey77 wrote: ↑1 year agoBlue Man, I don't think there are any fans here (possibly a very few) that are sour on this staff or our team.Blue Man wrote: ↑1 year ago
The addition by subtraction is huge.
Malik, while an important leader and great guy who gave a lot to this program and helped lay a foundation, lacked the talent to see a lot of minutes on this new team. I would guess that Fuchs and Green will be significant upgrades.
Foumena and Brown are significant upgrades over Tchikou and Samb.
Montgomery is an upgrade over Carey. I liked Carey’s athleticism and effort but he was an absolute liability with the ball in his hands.
Bray showed up once every couple games and was a detriment where he didn’t. Louie/Ways may not have top end scoring that he did, but I can’t imagine their floor is as low as his was - plus the team issues.
Ish was a loss, of course he was, but let’s not act like adding a kid who averaged 17 a game is nothing. The A10 wasn’t some world beater league either - but it’s not insane to think we won’t be losing too much in the scoring department from him.
Idk why so many people are so sour on this team and staff, but I’ll happily unjam your heads from your asses when this team turns it on.
Just because we are tempering our expectations for this season "only" doesn't mean we aren't optimistic or enthusiastic about our future with this roster and our coaches.
We have plenty of question marks including several key pieces that have very limited Div.1 experience.
Although we don't have any exceptional teams in the A10, there is a good balance with lots of depth in our conference. Many of the teams return a lot of quality players and others have added proven contributors.
Overall, I like what the staff has done with building our roster.
I just feel it is a little too early to expect much this season.
But yeah, I hope I am surprised, and this team exceeds my expectations for 23-24.
I dont think it's necessarily sunshine pumping when you expect this current roster that will actually have 13 scholarships available, with more experienced, more talented, bigger, more athletic players at every position to be better than last years 9 win mess.
I would get saying that if people were projecting us to be an NCAA tournament team, but blue man is just pointing out how likely it is that this team will be much better.
We should expect a big improvement. It's year two. We need Archie and his staff to get better immediately. It's his responsibility as a coach of a program that has the ability to compete for NCAA bids on a yearly basis.
Then I don't see how anyone can compare last year's roster with our current one and think we won't improve.
There's such a long list of reasons that we could easily be better than 9-22.
Archie has won championships in the A-10 before. Duane and Kenny have coached up a number of NCAA tournament level teams over the year.
Last year was a total mess. There was hardly any experience, tons of injuries and asshole Bray and his stupid family.
Consider all of that and what blueman said about the roster and then ask yourself if it's actually reasonable for anyone to temper expectations of us improving considerably.
If we somehow don't get any better or get marginally better then we got some SERIOUS problems.
Though I still feel we will finish in the bottom half of the conference.
Just based on us having a brand new roster, and trying to get everything to gel.
That along with many players that will be heavily counted on, having very limited (or any) Div.1 experience.
Also comparing us at this time against the competition in our conference.
Again I will be expecting a much bigger jump in 24-25, assuming we will be keeping most of the key pieces intact.
I don't think I am alone in my thinking, will be curious to see how the A10 coaches predict us to finish in the preseason polls, along with some of the credible insiders.