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2015 Maui Invitational: Hudson & Watson to Play in 3rd Place Game v. UCLA 7:30 ESPN2

ChrisL68 said:
All things considered, I think that UCLA win was the best and biggest win of the last 6 years. We have beaten higher ranked teams at home during that time, but beating what should be a bubble/NIT quality team on a neutral site without either of our starting guards was really a great win.
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The 2 neutral site wins are big...and we're showing that we can close-out and win competitive games, so nothing but positives...
 
I look at it this way we are 'on the edge of relevance' now. If we had been competitive against Vandy I'd be a little more bought in.

While Crab didn't shoot welll, he certainly well do better than 2-12 and 1-6 over the rest of the season. Clearly he was aggressive and rewarded with 16 FT's (UCLA took 14 FT's for the game). Add in 8 rebounds (only behind DT's 9) and 4 assists (tied with Mitch) plus two steals and we get an impact player back.

We can become relevant by winning the next 4 games, which are all winnable. Which will also include our 2nd road win of the year, which I think is as many as we had last year.

After that the schedule is going to get tough fast.

X -top 25
@LSU
@Louisville
dook

Assuming we win the next 4, these 4 will decide which bubble we are playing for.
 
ChrisL68 said:
All things considered, I think that UCLA win was the best and biggest win of the last 6 years. We have beaten higher ranked teams at home during that time, but beating what should be a bubble/NIT quality team on a neutral site without either of our starting guards was really a great win.
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The Miami win was much bigger IMO. #2 ranked team. But the Indiana and UCLA wins are huge as far as getting things turned around this year.
 
wfu22fan said:
The Miami win was much bigger IMO. #2 ranked team. But the Indiana and UCLA wins are huge as far as getting things turned around this year.
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Every year bad teams rise up at home and pull off big upsets. Winning against UCLA on a neutral floor down both guards is much bigger and tells us much more about our program.
 
 
Deacsfan27 said:
From the Ken Pomeroy himself on preseason ratings:



Basically Wake is really hard to predict. Our two freshmen are exceeding their projections (basically they don't weigh in at all to begin with because they aren't top 100 RSCI players), one of our best players and point guards hasn't played yet, and arguably our 3rd best player just started playing last night.

Since Wake is hovering around where they were projected to be with a full roster, I think exceeding expectations moving forward is a real possibility.

Also, there aren't "personal opinions" in the ratings other than how it is designed as a whole by KenPom. It's a predictive and analytical statistical model.
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fuck you doofus
 
What were our "expectations" based on KenPom?

I am struggling to define my own expectations... separating what I want vs what I can realistically expect. Obviously I want us to be in the NCAA tournament every year. But what can I expect based on what I know? Making the NIT is what I expect. Being on the NCAA bubble and hosting a couple of NIT games would exceed my expectations. Making the dance would far exceed my expectations... and crossing my fingers Indiana and UCLA have great seasons so we'll have two quality wins on our resume.
 
wfu22fan said:
The Miami win was much bigger IMO. #2 ranked team. But the Indiana and UCLA wins are huge as far as getting things turned around this year.
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That Miami win was one of the worst things that could have happened to our team.
 
Yet there were people arguing Manning's questionable substitution patterns were because he didn't really care much about these early season games.
Hitman Hart said:
 
Unfortunately, I missed the KU and UCLA games so I decided to read the last 45 pages of this thread. Thanks for giving me a feel of the flow and emotion of each game. Seems as if everyone is pleased with the results. Beating IU and UCLA 'talks' to anyone familiar with CBB. To do so missing two starting perimeter players might suggest this team has the potential for a winning season. It certainly made for an enjoyable Thanksgiving.

However...until the Deacons learn to play defense as a unit for 40 minutes, they will never achieve the success they desire.
 
simosfrostyone said:
Until we show we can play some defense I am not expecting too much.
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DM is somewhat like Skip, talks about defense but his Wake teams have not delivered. The one difference is that Skip never had a team that played defense and DM had one team at Tulsa that did.
 
Josh Howard was strong on D. That's about it. He turned the Mavs into a decent defensive team for a few years.
 
Can't make a reasonable assessment of this team's upside until we're at full strength. Figuring that we will improve having 2 more starters available then we did for each of the 3 games in Maui, I'm optimistic.
As for defense, CMM, Crawford and Hudson seem a big upgrade over Crawford, Wilbekin and McClinton/ TVH. Should be able to improve on our transition D a good bit too.
 
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