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Post by couldashoulda on Sept 25, 2024 9:29:10 GMT -8
Just checked out Joe Lunardi's 24-25 early tournament brackets. Always a crapshoot to some extent at this point in the year. But, he's only got one MWC team in at this point, BSU. With our opening exhibition game a little over a month away, my excitement for Aztecs BB is starting to ramp up. College BB is definitely my favorite sport at this point in my life.
I think I saw us projected to finish somewhere around 7th in conference play. Obviously a 7th place finish is not likely to get us into the dance, unless we were to win the conference tourney. So, I guess my question is what should my expectations be? There is a lot of turnover in the roster, which will be the new normal going forward. Can't get too cozy with any particular player. But, I like what we picked up in the transfer portal to replace what we lost.
As Dutch has proven over the years, his teams play their best ball later in the season. Our OOC schedule is no cake walk, but we should know early in the season what needs to be done to be clicking on all cylinders come conference play.
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Post by PAC12 Aztec on Sept 25, 2024 9:56:30 GMT -8
MBB is something I can get excited about! I am really interested in how we do in the OOC games this season. It seems like the defense is always so much further along that offense, which wins us some of these OOC games. Teams don't really know how to prepare for the defense we play. Our intensity, switches, length, etc is hard to replicate or practice for.
I do expect the offense to take some time to gel and get up to speed. Like usual, we will mostly rely on our defense for the earlier games, but we always have a chance to win every game.
IMO, it seems like Dutch teams play better later in the season because the offense starts to come along. However, all we do is win!
I highly doubt we finish 7th, but stranger things have happened. As long as basketball doesn't play AztecFast we should be good to go!
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Post by fisherville on Sept 25, 2024 10:20:13 GMT -8
Lunardi is mediocre at bracketology, he is outright bad at analysis. Don’t care
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Post by RiffelBooks on Sept 25, 2024 10:24:41 GMT -8
Lunardi is mediocre at bracketology, he is outright bad at analysis. Don’t care Strongly agree. His projections are frequently way off the mark. That said, we play a strong non-conference schedule, so we might not have an at-large bid sown up by Christmas like usual, but as others have written, we play better late in the season, so an AQ is definitely within the realm of possibility. |
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Post by Den60 on Sept 25, 2024 10:42:22 GMT -8
Just checked out Joe Lunardi's 24-25 early tournament brackets. Always a crapshoot to some extent at this point in the year. But, he's only got one MWC team in at this point, BSU. With our opening exhibition game a little over a month away, my excitement for Aztecs BB is starting to ramp up. College BB is definitely my favorite sport at this point in my life. I think I saw us projected to finish somewhere around 7th in conference play. Obviously a 7th place finish is not likely to get us into the dance, unless we were to win the conference tourney. So, I guess my question is what should my expectations be? There is a lot of turnover in the roster, which will be the new normal going forward. Can't get too cozy with any particular player. But, I like what we picked up in the transfer portal to replace what we lost. As Dutch has proven over the years, his teams play their best ball later in the season. Our OOC schedule is no cake walk, but we should know early in the season what needs to be done to be clicking on all cylinders come conference play. Yeah, the last two seasons we lost too much from the previous year to be any good. Why should he and other BB gurus change their tune this year? |
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Post by hoobs on Sept 25, 2024 11:46:17 GMT -8
SDSU hoops teams have pretty much *always* played better with a chip on their shoulder vs. getting a ton of accolades.
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Post by missiontrails on Sept 25, 2024 12:21:24 GMT -8
Never count out a Dutcher coached squad. We lost a lot of key players, and that's what the "experts" always seem to look at. But this staff knows how to reload, and knows how to teach, and knows how to manage a game. Seventh place in the MWC? This ain't the Big12.
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Post by docmm on Sept 25, 2024 16:13:33 GMT -8
It depends on how fast a lot of the new guys pick up the defense. I remember how bad Bradley was on D in the first part of his first season here. He was slow to switch and got gassed early.
I think J-C-J may have a breakout offensively. If Magoon can hit 3s, he could be quite a weapon. Would love to see Heide and Pharaoh get some boards while McKinney and Boyd get aggressive.
Byrd could take a big step forward and I have really high hopes for Taj.
And can Reese go back to where he was in the beginning of last season when it surprised you when he missed?
"No ceiling sir!"
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Post by jdaztec on Sept 25, 2024 17:28:31 GMT -8
By the time this team hits conference play I think they will be very good.
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Post by junior on Sept 25, 2024 17:47:03 GMT -8
Don't know how any of the prognosticators can claim mastery over what they do with the advent of NIL. Nobody's team will look like it ever did before.
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Post by sdsuball on Sept 25, 2024 21:01:32 GMT -8
Second place seems a lot more likely then seventh place.
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Post by azson on Sept 26, 2024 10:37:41 GMT -8
My prediction: Aztecs struggle early, show improvement during conference and end up the 5-seed in the MWCT and on the bubble; all the while the usual suspects bitch and whine about how Dutch has plateaued; Aztecs win the MWCT, go to another S16 and the usual suspects eat crow once again.
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Post by I Enjoy Aztecs Basketball on Sept 26, 2024 12:54:30 GMT -8
My prediction: We're ranked somewhere around 60-70 to start the season. We play stellar defense and have one player perform much better than expected on offense. We make it into the top 25 at some point and hover around 25-35 in the NET. Then we get a surprisingly high seed in the big dance and make the S16.
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