[Rosiak's Blog] Looking ahead, Golden Eagles style

[ToddRosiakSays]

Looking ahead, Golden Eagles style
               




               

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/118804029.html
               

[Benny B]

St. Thomas is going to be so much fun this November.

[Badgerhater]

That is as balanced of a roster that we have had for quite some time.

[mileskishnish72]

My fervent hope is that Vander realizes that much of what Toddd said is right on and works his ass off this off-season on his shooting. If he does, I think he's so gifted athletically that he'll come back and be a guy that it's tough not to give major minutes to.

[Golden Avalanche]

That is as balanced of a roster that we have had for quite some time.

If by balanced you mean we know what to expect from half the roster and have no idea what to expect from the other half of the roster, then I agree.

[mikem91288]

St. Thomas is going to be so much fun this November.

Benny, are you going? Me and some of my buddies are considering it. We graduate from MU in May, need to find jobs first tho....

[Benny B]

Benny, are you going? Me and some of my buddies are considering it. We graduate from MU in May, need to find jobs first tho....

Planning on it... our only obstacle is that we're doing a renovation on part of our home this summer; as long as there are no surprises, it's a go.

FYI - If you book before the end of May, the Wyndham has some rooms available starting at $156/night (double) that include breakfast (a pretty decent deal since meals aren't cheap on the island).  It's going to be hard to beat that price, but unlike some of the package and all-inclusive deals, you're on your own for meals & transportation.

[Coleman]

Planning on it... our only obstacle is that we're doing a renovation on part of our home this summer; as long as there are no surprises, it's a go.

FYI - If you book before the end of May, the Wyndham has some rooms available starting at $156/night (double) that include breakfast (a pretty decent deal since meals aren't cheap on the island).  It's going to be hard to beat that price, but unlike some of the package and all-inclusive deals, you're on your own for meals & transportation.

Does anyone have a good site to go for looking at different travel deals to St. Thomas? I am beginning to consider this trip as well, but would like to compare different packages, including the all-inclusive deals.

[Coleman]

Also, have exact dates been announced?

[Dr. Blackheart]

Also, have exact dates been announced?

Nov. 18-21

http://www.paradisejam.com/pages/m_teams.htm

[reinko]

www.allinclusiveoutlet.com has treated me well

[DaCoach]

Any info on the team hotel yet?

[Jacks DC]

Not to be a downer but the field for PJ is pretty bad.  Not going to boost our RPI and we if we lose to one of these teams it will likely be on the "bad loss" list in March.

[brewcity77]

Not to be a downer but the field for PJ is pretty bad.  Not going to boost our RPI and we if we lose to one of these teams it will likely be on the "bad loss" list in March.

Not so sure about that. It will of course depend on which teams we play, but it could end up being better for our RPI than last year's CBE Classic was provided we get the 3 wins we should. Here's the average RPI over the past three seasons for the 7 potential opponents:

Mississippi 73
Drexel 118
Virginia 128
Drake 188
TCU 189
Winthrop 217
Norfolk State 275

The next question is where these teams are trending in terms of returning players:

• Mississippi: Lose top 2 scorers, but have plenty of good youngsters ready to step up, including top-100 PF Demarco Cox and freshman starter Dundrecous Nelson
  
• Drexel: Return 6 of top 7 players, including top 2 scorers, could be a CAA dark horse
  
• Virginia: Lose top 2 scorers, but have plenty of talent ready to step up, including 4 top-100 players the past 2 years and freshman starter Joe Harris, possible tourney team for Bennett
  
• Drake: Lose only one graduating senior, return 9 players that averaged 10+ mpg, likely top-half MVC team
  
• TCU: Return all 5 starters, and top 5 scorers and rebounders, unlikely to be a tourney team but should be improved
  
• Winthrop: Return 4/5 starters, if Martaveous Smith is eligible, they could challenge for the Big South title
  
• Norfolk State: Lose 2 starters, but return 2 of top 3 scorers, likely won't improve, but probably not much worse either

The real hope here is that we avoid Norfolk State. They'll suck and even on a neutral court will almost certainly be a bad RPI drain. My hope is that we open with TCU in a future Big East-showdown. It'd be a nice hook for the promoters and could be around an RPI 150 win for us, which would have been our second best non-con win this season. After that, I really hope to see Drexel. They could challenge for the top-4 of the CAA, which could be good enough for an NCAA berth, and will probably be a top-100 RPI team. Finally, whomever we see in the final will probably have a shot at postseason play, maybe not NCAA, but likely NIT. Virginia or Mississippi would be ideal, as both will likely retain top-125 RPIs at worst, with the possibility of being top-50 teams if their underclassmen have breakout sophomore seasons. I'd much rather have neutral floor wins against 150, 100, 75 than losses against 4 and 56.

[Jacks DC]

Brewcity, the only part of this that makes sense is that 3 wins would be better than 2 losses no matter who you play.  Fair enough. 

4 of the 7 teams finished outside the RPI top-200 this year, although some could be marginally better next year.  The only two major conference teams (Miss and Virginia) both lose two major contributors.  Drexel could be pretty decent next year, but it's hard to imagine that at the end of the season we would be talking about that key win over Drexel in November.  But if we lose to Drexel, there's a good chance we will be talking about it in March.

The field is relatively weak compared to what you normally see at the Paradise Jam and by our typical early season tournament standards.  It would be great to win it, but I do think we have more to lose than gain, especially if we don't play Drexel.

[Stretchdeltsig]

Watching Butler and VCU... you can see how important it is to have good big guys and shooters.  Hope Buzz recruits a really good big guy with the last scholarship.

[reinko]

Buzz should recruit really good big guys and shooters.  Thanks.

[4everwarriors]

I think we need a live mascot to pet during the intros.

[brewcity77]

Brewcity, the only part of this that makes sense is that 3 wins would be better than 2 losses no matter who you play.  Fair enough. 

4 of the 7 teams finished outside the RPI top-200 this year, although some could be marginally better next year.  The only two major conference teams (Miss and Virginia) both lose two major contributors.  Drexel could be pretty decent next year, but it's hard to imagine that at the end of the season we would be talking about that key win over Drexel in November.  But if we lose to Drexel, there's a good chance we will be talking about it in March.

The field is relatively weak compared to what you normally see at the Paradise Jam and by our typical early season tournament standards.  It would be great to win it, but I do think we have more to lose than gain, especially if we don't play Drexel.

Do you really believe losses to Duke, Gonzaga, Vandy, and Wisco did us good this season? It's great to play top-notch opponents and all, but a balanced schedule does you far more good when it comes to the RPI. We're better off playing 2 top 50 opponents and the rest all below that (but try for none below 250) and actually winning 11-12 games than we are playing 4 top 25 opponents, losing four of them, and getting almost all our non-con wins against teams like Centenary and Longwood.

It's all about balancing the schedule. It's a lot easier to build a respectable non-com resume by playing all teams in the 50-200 range that are more likely to be wins than it is to play numerous top 25 teams and thinking you can balance that with sub-300s. Just look at the number of sub-250 teams the bubble teams in this year's tournament, both those that made it and those that didn't, played against. There's a nearly perfect correlation between strictly the number of those games and the team seeding. Even teams that lost to some of those teams were hurt far less than teams like Marquette, Virginia Tech, and Colorado that feasted on bloated cupcakes.

[Jacks DC]

Do you really believe losses to Duke, Gonzaga, Vandy, and Wisco did us good this season? It's great to play top-notch opponents and all, but a balanced schedule does you far more good when it comes to the RPI. We're better off playing 2 top 50 opponents and the rest all below that (but try for none below 250) and actually winning 11-12 games than we are playing 4 top 25 opponents, losing four of them, and getting almost all our non-con wins against teams like Centenary and Longwood.

Let me be clear - I prefer wins over losses.  Not sure where that got confused.  All I am saying is that if we win the tournament, we would notch a win probably roughly equivalent to our wins over Bucknell or at UW-Milwaukee this year.  That's not a bad thing, but it's not much of an opportunity compared to previous tournaments we've played or previous editions of the PJ.  Having said that, I'm still hoping to go and would be happy to continue this discussion in St. Thomas.