Cautionary tale...

[Harrison]

Mu fans while we should be excited for the upcoming year need to be realistic in our teams situation.  Way too often teams as rated based on what they did the year before.  Too often the players that are coming back are the focus over what was lost.  While there is no doubt DJ is a great player and Wes will be very good and Jerel has tremendous ability, MU lost a ton last year.  Steve Novak made the jobs of those 3 and anyone else on the floor exponentially easier by spreading the floor and allowing our team most times the opportunity to only have to beat one defender.   Addtionally, Chapman played outstanding defense, commited very few turnovers, seemed to hit every open shot and was what appeared to be a trmendous leader.  Also, Grimm was arguably our second best big man.  My point is whether you use last year's MU team as an example is not importnant what is important is that too often people focus more on who is coming back without giving proper respect to what was lost.  For that reason team's often have nice high preseason ranking or expectations and then are not able to live up to them.  I think this team can be very good but there is no way this group is #16 in the country when last year's team was unranked.  DJ's job will be more difficult this year.  Not sure that Barro will have progressed so significantly to warrant a ranking like that.  It would appear jerel despite his ability is still trunover and poor decison prone etc.  Sure everyone will be better but we sure did lose alot for moving 20 or so spots up in the rankings. 

[mu_hilltopper]

I agree with you, Harrison.  The expectations are just too high right now.  While I admit, the season is incredibly young, the team hasn't performed like a top 20 team yet.

And, to remind, last year's team, with Novak, had 15 games versus quality teams, RPI 90 and below.  You know how many we won of those 15 quality games?  Only 5.  Five.  Cinco.  Below half.

How we can improve on 5 quality wins without Novak depends on how much the Big 3 progress, and how newcomers can perform.

[dwaderoy2004]

Harrison, points well taken.  while i'm becoming irritated with some people who seem to have already written off the season after we WON our first game of the year, at least you provide some reasoning for your skepticism that is not totally reliant on one game's performance.  I would agree that MU lost alot last year.   I think the most important factors are leadership and experience.  However, a lot of your assumptions pretty much assume that MU will try and run the exact same offense as last year.  Crean cannot and will not run the same offense as last year, meaning that we will most likely not be so reliant on the three point shot this year.  While we need to become better on our halfcourt offense, the goal will be to score more in transition before the other team can get back and pack the lane.  furthermore, you bring up chapman's defense, but fail to bring up Novak's.  while steve brought a lot to the table, he was clearly a liability on defense.  so you gain and lose, and it seems that cubillan is equally adept at the defensive end, and lazar/fitz are better defensive options at the 4.  to say grimm was our second best big last year may be frighteningly true.  however, very little development would have to occur in either kinsella, burke or lott to replace what was lost in the reaper.  again, there will be a lot of adjustments and gellign that must occur for this team to live up to their billing.  as i've said before, i'm going to wait more than one game in before i make my decision on whether we are capable of that or not.

[Harrison]

My post is possibly poorly timed...as it was not based on the first two games.  It could have been made two weeks ago when we got the initial ranking.  Look at MU's record last year against quality opponents when Novak went for less than 20.   Now granted MU will look to do things differently this year and hopefully we are a lot better defensively and able to score more easy baskets.  Nevertheless. last year when the other team was able to lock down Novak with a good defender and we could not count on him going for 20+ and just as importantly stretching the defense we typically lost.

[Djgoldnboy]

See that's where you're wrong..we still have Novak, we just have not played him yet.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/player/profile?playerId=10981

I agree the hype is getting high, but even though we won only 5 of those 15 games last year, it's the way we lost that leads us to expect more.  We were in many of those games (Pitt, Villanova, etc) with a chance to win late, a more experienced team (which hopefully we are this year) should have been able to win a few more of those.  I feel that's where a lot of the hype is coming.  We were solid last year, and we should now have more experience, which should lead to some more W's that were L's last year.

[Nukem2]

Obviously shooting (whether 2s or3s ) will be important.  Hayward is a wild card in that equation. Need a consistent contribution from Lazar to take pressure off the amigos. The other real key is whether the combo Barro/Lott/Hayward/Kinsella/Fitz can provide consistency and production from the 4/5 slots.  Not sure Blackledge and Burke can/will help there that much this year?

[RawdogDX]

Why exactly do I "need to be realistic"?  Are my beliefs that we are capable of having a better year than last hurting the team?

[Harrison]

I will post this after very game this Novemeber if it helps

[RawdogDX]

I will post this after very game this Novemeber if it helps

oh you must be one of those people who think players read forums and what we think actually effects the game.  If you excuse me i'm going to have to go to a bears form now and make sure the fans aren't getting too full of ourselvs that could really hurt us against the jets.