It's one game- the very first one at that.. your track record on jumping to bad conclusions regarding the guard play in first games isn't great (
case in point) .. could they look better- absolutely. Did they shoot poorly- yes.
Still a lot of time.. I would easily argue you don't really want to be polished and high performing in November as it's really hard to keep 18-24 yo's attention for 5 solid months.. let the guards and roster get through the pecking order of who's starting/playing/logging key minutes- rotations that work best etc..
Oh is it? 1 good year doesn't make up for 3 bad ones. I've had concern about guard play since the day Nick arrived. Granted, he didn't have a lot of roster players his first two years but guard play has always been a concern, every year, as it should be for a G5 program (or any program). I had a lot of guard play concerns last year as well and rightly so. Sims didn't play that well the year before and Jefferson was a big question mark as a transfer and we had no idea Weston would break out like he did. Make no mistake, those have been rare exceptions since Nick arrived. We've seen many more busts than hits.
2022-2023 might be the "Year of the Big" according to national sportswriters, but teams are only going to go as far as their guards take them. Especially a program like ours. I stand by my belief that losing Sims and Jefferson is going to be extremely difficult to overcome. They may have only been 2 guys, but they did so much for the team on the offensive end and made a crap ton of timely baskets when we needed them. I believe our offensive numbers suffer significantly this year with their loss. I just don't see anyone on the team that can give us what they did on the offensive end unless Porter, Smith, or Green can surprise.
3 point shooting is everything in today's game. And right now we suck at it until proven otherwise. They are welcome to prove me wrong.
We will beat most teams most nights with defense and superior athleticism but when we go up against equal talent I just can't see us winning a lot of those games without 35-40% 3pt shooting. Closer to 40% hopefully.
I went through the schedule and estimate about 12 losses for this team, give or take a game or two. People are going to point to strength of schedule to try and explain away the losses but losses are losses. These should all be winnable games against fellow G5 programs that we should be beating. Let's remember,
Nick McDevitt is one of the top paid G5 head coaches in the country. With a schedule that doesn't have a single power 5 program on it (nor a program from the pseudo-P5 American), along with Nick entering year 5, it's completely reasonable for expectations to be high for our program.
But back to the losses, I believe the vast majority of these losses will be to teams that we can't just rely on defense and superior athleticism against and actually have to hit shots (UAB, WKU, North Texas, UTEP, @FAU, Belmont, St Bonnies, SFA, possibly Winthrop/Mo St jury is out on them still, + a random off night or two with someone like a La. Tech).
I count 31 games on the schedule, so my prediction would then be 19-12 going into CUSA tournament. Not a good look after a very promising season last year. And I believe it will be because of a clear lack of 3pt shooting and offensive numbers down across the board. 19 wins isn't the end of the world, but it's certainly not what we are hoping for and being in year 5 as a top paid G5 head coach with a winnable schedule I think we should be getting a little more and going dancing soon. Again, team is welcome to prove me wrong.
What's your prediction Kingaling ? Not trying to get in a pissing match here but I would love to book mark this thread and return to it after the season.