Not a shock. The number of college basketball fans in Houston is minuscule.
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Important couple weeks in the portal for the AAC:
*On paper Tulsa, USF, ECU, Wichita St & UCF , dont look good. For the rest of the league:
*Cincinnati- after Landers Nolley commit, i believe their at 13. Full roster
*Tulane-have they done enough in the portal to compete next season? I wish they had a better rim protector. They can score. But i donât think they rebound and defend well enough
*Memphis- do they end up getting Caleb Murphy? Does Williams and Quinones both return?
*SMU-what does SMU do with their final 2 roster spots? More size or guard play
*Temple- they get Khalif Battle back from injury. But they lost Jeremiah Williams to the portal. Temple is probably the biggest question mark for me
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i think you are selling wichita and ucf shortâŠ
i put ucf, wichita and smu (as is) as low floor, heigh ceiling teamsâŠ
wichita got a bunch of âleading scorersâ from a bunch of low level teams, obviously the success might not translate, but theres a decent chance it does⊠they have porter and pohto returning (who was their 2nd best guard and 2nd best big), rogers 14pt scorer from sienna, okafor 14pt scorer from SE Louisiana, bell 11pt from drexel, pierre 10pts from usmâŠand 2 notebale former juco in rojas and walton
ucf has some dudes, they got a starter from pitt, a top 60 recruit coming in, a former 4star returns who was all freshmen last year, former 5star cj walker returning, added durr who did work when at usfâŠthey are like smu to mee, they have 2 ships and if they can land 1 big time guy they instantly become good
no oine but us looks good, but as you noted there are about 4-6 teams that have ships that 1 major get and they look complete different ⊠everyone but cincy, ecu, usf have multiple ships to play with
I maybe wrong but the AAC could be awful this year.
The track record of guys transferring up a level isnât that great so Wichita St has a lot to prove.
This is why I donât believe in UCF anymore. Dawkins has underachieved most of his tenure.
10-14 point scorers often seem to look better on paper than when they were actually playing. The right ones can be very effective I just have my doubts on WSU and SMU.
Right now I am predicting one tournament team, Houston, until some else shows something.
It will also be very important for any bubble teams to be good and win some big games before AAC play and high roster turnover makes that task more difficult.
I will be pulling for UCF and Cincinnati and BYU.
Theres definitely some recency bias, with how poor UCF and Wichita played last season, factoring into my predictions next season.
Wichita St, talent wise, has not gotten worse though. Etienne, Council, Dennis, Udeze. The players theyâve brought in are from smaller leagues or were role players like Rojas or a bench player like Ballard.
So with lesser talent, you have to play smarter, value the basketball more.
And since Isaac Brown, took over, thats not how his teams play. They play fast and loose.
It started really, 2 seasons ago. Wichita loses to a really bad Cincinnati team in the AAC tournament. A Cincy team we blew out by 30+ in the AAC finals. And then WSU squeaks into the tournament & loses to Drake, in a play in game. Where both teams were awful.
15-13 overall record last season and theyâve gotten worse as a roster. I see probably another .500 season for WSU.
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i agree the track record of lower level guys moving up isnt great⊠but Wichita brought in like 7 of them and just needs 2 of them to translate
and i also agree about ucf being under achievers but their roster doesnt look too bad just looking at the players
Exactly. If we go unbeaten in the AAC then the conference will be a one bid league.
Problem is whenever we lose the committee and media LOVES to gas up the team that beat us for some reason lol
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Whatâs strange about UCF is they underachieve in league more so than the non-conference. If Cincy or Memphis doesnât pop it could be a really down year.
its easy to say wichita lost talent and has a worse roster today, and replacing them with lesser ones⊠but most of the guys they lost were just as unknown when wichita brought them in
nobody was recruiting dexter dennis, or ricky council, or Craig porter, or most of their roster⊠their roster today looks better than their roster 2 years ago when theose guys came in- their coach actually spoke about itâŠnoted they kinda went the âunknown high school routâ 2 years ago, probably should have gone the portal rout like they are now
and itll be interesting in how they play, the were undersized at the big, and had mostly defensive athletic guards⊠theyâll be bigger in the post this year, and the guards have more natural offensive skills but at risk of losing their D
porter and pohto is back too who were 2 of th fan favorite guys they liked âŠporter is the one who almost beat us - his highlights vs us last year:
its going to be down year almost guaranteed⊠the bottom of the league will be the worst its been ages⊠but i still think a few teams could make a case for decent, maybe even tournament teams⊠temple and tulane both finished top 5 in the aac return most of their core and have 3-5 ships to play with⊠a worse bottom might actually be a good thing as tulsa wont be upsetting everyone lol, so the decent teams might look better
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I like Porter, I like Pohto. Porter, will be a senior, so maybe he takes a big step up in his game.
One retort, to your point about recruiting. High School recruiting, youâre 17 yrs old, maybe not playing for a big AAU team. So you get under valued as a player. Under recruited, like with Ricky Council IV.
The transfer portal, where you have tons of film on a player going against D1 competition. And then you see the other schools that are interested in that playerâŠyou get what im saying.
Wichita St, the transfers theyâre targeting, arent being targeted by big schools
I think Ricky Council got hurt in HS, so he was under the radar. Right now, what is Wichita St calling card? Idk what there program identity is under coach Brown.
Xavier Bell, for example, transfer from Drexel. He puts his name in the portal and the only big name school to reach out to him besides WSU is Clemson. 
Colby Rogers, transfer from Siena, looks pretty good. Cal and Temple were interested. Good pickup
https://mobile.twitter.com/tayloreldridge/status/1519109561080238081
Jarron Pierre Jr, transfer from Southern Miss.
Looks like Arizona State, Nevada, Western Kentucky, Eastern Washington, FAU, Cal Baptist, Fordham, ETSU, Mercer and UTEP had some interest.
He looks decent. @pesik they probably do have talent. Its about their style of play. Not turning it over, not taking stupid shots that cost them games last season
Its on Issac Brown. Wichita just fired their AD, which means the new AD has no allegiance to the current coach. Big season for Wichita coming up
https://mobile.twitter.com/tayloreldridge/status/1520844790128164865
Not trying to be negative, but for the sake of conversation what would our starting 5 look like if neither Sasser nor Lofton is in it?
G-Shead
G-Mark
G-Walker
F-Walker
F-Cheney/Roberts
Sharp
Arceneaux
Powell
Francis
Transfer G
Transfer C
I am guessing this is sorta what it would look like?
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bell was the 2x state player of the year in kansas and from wichita, i think he was more of a homecomingâŠ
a couple other ones that are interesting is rojas, who was a juco all american, who had 2 major injuries at bama, and still managed to get PT on stack alabama team despite battling that
https://twitter.com/AlabamaMBB/status/1504540507325689860
and former top 80 recruit jaykwon walton, transferred from geoergia after the coach was fired after his freshmen year, went to juco (where we actually recruited him), committed to Mississippi st, where the coach was fired so he fliped to Wichita (defensice 6â7 wing) or gus okafor who has arkansas, vcu, georgetown, mississppi state on him (really good offensive rebounder)
im not saying theyll be good for sure, but theres enough interesting pieces that its a possibility
arcenueax over r walker , chaney starting and thats the as is⊠but we arent entering the season with 3 open ships⊠there are still tons of touted guards, we likely find 1 goof enough to start ⊠reggie likely starting, unlikely to find a notable big at this point
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Whatâs the health status of Reggieâs arm? Is he getting surgery? or just let it heal via other means?
His hand injury? During the season, they said his injury didnât require surgery.
Havenât heard anything recently