Clearly the game against WSU was a quality win on the road. More importantly, this win shows that the Coogs are coming together as a team and are positioning themselves as the alpha dog of the Conference.
Currently, we’re 14-4. Looking ahead at the schedule, I believe it is reasonable to project the following wins for the rest of the regular season. I believe there are four (4) games which could be question marks, meaning we could win them or lose them.
UConn - W
USF - W
@ ECU -W
@ Cincy - ?
Tulane - W
WSU - ? @USF - W @SMU - ?
Tulsa - W
@ Memphis - ?
Cincy - W
@ UConn - W
Memphis - W
Add up the wins and we’re 23-4. If we were to split the games which I believe could be question marks, then we’re 25-6. The really good news is if we were to approach the remaining games of the schedule, like we did tonight, we’re going to be a very tough team to beat.
Win a minimum of two wins in the conference tournament and we’re 27-7. Win the tournament, we’re 28-6 (conservative prediction).
It’s all speculation, but the Coogs are going to be a tough match-up the balance of the regular season, the conference tournament and the NCAA Tournament. Another 30 games or more is entirely possible.
a lot of counting chickens…
our issue: we cant score on zone teams…we play a team that plays man 80% of the game (smu) …and a team that plays man 100% of the game (wsu)…and we forget about those issues
still have to prove we can beat a zone that crowds the paint for a full game
We are already ahead of where I thought we would be after 5 games. None of this goes the way we think it will. Sounds boring but one game at a time! The best thing we can do is show up to as many games as we can & YELL like crazy! GO COOGS!
Randy, I’m too old to yell like crazy, unless maybe you are talking about Don Shearer, The Crazy Coog who is “Fighting for truth, justice, and the Cougar way.” He’s getting older too, but I think he still has more stamina.
I think we have a possibilty of running the table in the conference, but it is improbable. But, I do see us winning the regular season again. And this time, winning the AAC tourney as well.
Beating a zone. I watched a few Penders practices. When his team was shooting from outside he used to yell, “flat” to get them to put more arc on the shot. McGyver was already a gunner and he’d hit like seven in a row but Penders kept yelling, “flat! Get it in the air, fluff!”
Of course, Penders used to think missing a jump shot was a sign of laziness.
30 wins? Maybe. But we have to shoot better. The defense is really solid along with rebounding, especially offensive rebounds. Get the shooting percentages up a few points and we will be as hard to beat as anyone.
Being such a young team it might be a tad early to be predicting 25-30 wins and a AAC championship…we have lots of basketball left and no easy touches, home or away.
What that win at WSU did prove is that this young team is making strides, and we have enough talent up and down the roster that anyone can step up on a given night.
We played well against their man defense and I suspect we will go back to seeing zones soon.
WSU probably played as poorly as they have in a long while yesterday, but most of that was because of the smothering defense and our ability to cut to the basket for easy buckets with Deeky doing the dishing.
Regardless, I feel like we are a lot better than the team that lost to BYU and OSU at home…and I think we will continue to get better.
And one last thing, you can bet Sampson will be drilling these guys how to beat a fullcourt press…
I’ve maintained all along we could end up being a better team than last season but come nowhere near 33 wins. Not to take anything away from that magical season, but practically everything broke right last year. For one example, I would bet anything that Hawes’ shot at the buzzer would have harmlessly careened off the rim last season. I doubt we would have beat this Oregon team on the road last year. We hung on at FC to beat them last December.
At the 18 game mark in 2019, we were 17-1. We finished the season 33-4.
At the 18 game mark in 2018, we were 14-4. We finished the season 27-8.
At the 18 game mark in 2017, we were 14-4. We finished the season 23-11.
I believe the current team is on track to finish with an equal to or better record than the 27-8 team.
No reason they shouldn’t be 7-1 going to Cincy.
Even 7-2 wouldn’t be bad at halfway point of Conf gms. When i did Conf poll prediction most had Coogs with 3-5 losses.
