Aquinas

Right now, we are a little better than we were last year. Expectations this year of being significantly better depend largely on the recovery of Perkins. If memory serves me right, it took Erin C the better part of 2 months to return to form after sitting out a year, and he wasn't recovering from an injury.

I think hanging this one on Ford is ridiculous. We had a top 25 team on the ropes, on their floor. Our veteran guys missed key free-throws.

Ford said a week ago the team came out slow in the previous game and had been doing that in practices. We are not good enough to coast. The projections of this team being top 25 assume Perkins is functioning at pre-injury levels. Perkins is not yet up to speed. He is hitting open 3s but not much beyond that. Right now, I think the Billikens are as good as Perkins is. We will be inconsistent until Perkins is back to his old self.

Great write up Wiz!

That makes 3 bigs with little experience going into next season. I have to believe Ford will sign at least one transfer big. It could be that coach is looking to go with a more traditional center and power forward next season. If we signed a transfer center and power forward. The 3 young players play to their abilities and we would be set up front. We should be attractive to big transfers, with hopefully a strong season this year and playing time available. It could all depend on who is available and interested. Hopefully Bruce will be able to get on campus early. So often international students get delayed.

Any video on him?

Wiz, what number rank do you show us? IE 40th in the country or what?

We are being picked in the top 25 by a number of experts. We have a really good team. Enjoy the ride.

I would like to know how the new players are looking. Especially Momo and Parker. It might be cool in the future to interview players with NIL deals that are promoting products. Let them pitch their products and of course talk some basketball.

Awesome!

I would like to see midtown madness interview this guy and ideally have him breakdown our guards.

I will project a twist . Ford could start a big lineup like he did Bell's freshman year. Momo, Okoro, Perkins, Gibson and Yuri, for the first 3 to 5 min each half. This starting lineup would give us experience playing big, and we will need to play big against some teams. Some opponents will have trouble matching up with 2 bigs, especially with good outside shooting guards. It will also allow Momo to develop and see what he is capable of. It will help us know what if we have and need for next year, as Okoro and Foster will be gone. It will also help us to retain Momo. Players who don't play are at high risk of moving on in today's game.

Evans was a preferred walk on at USF. played in 1 game

I follow Florida Gator football. Just read an article that states they have 5 million in their collective. They have contracts with l15 players, one basketball the rest football. They are promoting 6/month individual contributions. Of course they have a huge alumni base. After watching the game last night, it looks like they have a rising star QB. What will he be worth at the end of the year, if he doesn't go pro. Some of these schools are going to raise a ton of money, but their desire to win National Championships is going to channel a lot of it to a few star players. I think it remains to be seen what is left for non star football players and basketball. I think its telling, that the distribution is 15 to iwhen the football team had a preseason raring in the mid to upper 30s.

To be favored to make the sweet 16, a team needs to be in the top 16 teams being seeded. In other words in the top 4 seeds. To go to the sweet sixteen, obviously you have to win your first game. The odds of winning the first round game improve significantly with a 3 seed or better. Thats because the auto bids of the 14 seeds and higher are conference winners from generally weak conferences. I took the brackets from last year with the overall ranking of the average seeds facing seeds 1-9. 1 seeds faced teams averaging 180 2 faced 146 3 faced 127 4 faced 83 5 faced 59 6 faced 42 7 faced 38 8 faced 32 I through 3 seeds should win there first round games, though almost every year a 3 gets upset and rarely a 2. There isn't much difference between the strength of the first round team faced by a 6, 7 or 8. So in my view, if a coach fails to win round one with a 3 seed or better. He deserves criticism.