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2 hours ago, Bills71 said:

URI coming in at 9 in the A10 @138

That means 8,  A-10 teams will come in above 138.  I would rely on Taj for the best prediction since he seems to be very knowledgeable of all the eastern teams, but just for the fun of it (and since there is no real CBB news at this time) here is my guesstimate:

24  Richmond;  32 SLU;  41 Dayton;  57 Duquesne ;  73 SBU ;  93 UMASS ;  104 VCU ;  115 Davidson.  Above 144---GMU; SJ ; GWU; Lasalle ; Fordham.

As a reminder they picked us at 143 last year with 6,  A-10  teams in the top 144.  This year they have 9,  A-10 teams in their top 144.

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27 minutes ago, slu72 said:

See Rothstein video on CBS sports. He’s thinking we’re the Dayton and San Diego St of the 20-21 season. 

I hope, and think, he is right.  I know it was just one game, but we beat Richmond at their home last year and that was without Fred and Gibson.  It seems like most of the media I have read see Richmond as the favorite in the A-10 because they are bringing everyone back.  However, most of them fail to recognize that we are doing likewise plus adding FT and GJ,  along with two players who improved considerably as the Conf season progressed (TH and JP).  In addition we are adding some needed front court depth with Linssen, plus two more strong recruits. 

Maybe a little East Coast media bias happening here???

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4 hours ago, bauman said:

I hope, and think, he is right.  I know it was just one game, but we beat Richmond at their home last year and that was without Fred and Gibson.  It seems like most of the media I have read see Richmond as the favorite in the A-10 because they are bringing everyone back.  However, most of them fail to recognize that we are doing likewise plus adding FT and GJ,  along with two players who improved considerably as the Conf season progressed (TH and JP).  In addition we are adding some needed front court depth with Linssen, plus two more strong recruits. 

Maybe a little East Coast media bias happening here???

I mean, in a way, I kinda understand it, even if it really does frost my cookies. They have everybody coming back, and they finished 2 games ahead of us in the A10. But then I look at how our season unfolded: we had 7 newcomers,  5 of them true freshman. So outside of Has and JGood, we basically had a bunch of guys still learning how to play d1 basketball, on both ends of the court, and learning how to play with all new teammates, all at the same time. Then you throw in that Shaft and Gibby got hurt and didn’t play a single second of conference play. And we still finished 23-8, 12-6 in conference, finished with a double-bye. AND we were a freak buzzer-bearer 3 (not taking anything away from Crutcher, it was an incredible shot, but he hits that shot in that situation 1 outta 10 times if he’s lucky) away from beating Dayton, and it took an EPIC collapse to lose to UMASS. If we win those 2 games, we have the exact same conference record as Richmond and we’ll be getting 2 key contributors back this season. Now you could probably argue that we won some games that we shouldn’t have (thanks to Perk). But I’d say we were pretty even last season with Richmond, WITHOUT Thatch, WITHOUT Jimerson, and with our true freshman point guard, who playing over 30 minutes a game, and leading all freshmen in the country in assists, playing with 2 numb hands. National writers don’t look at context, they don’t have time to look at context a lot of the time. They look at the records, look at who’s coming back and make their predictions. But I ABSOLUTELY think we will be better than Richmond this year!

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3 minutes ago, Reinert310 said:

I mean, in a way, I kinda understand it, even if it really does frost my cookies. They have everybody coming back, and they finished 2 games ahead of us in the A10. But then I look at how our season unfolded: we had 7 newcomers,  5 of them true freshman. So outside of Has and JGood, we basically had a bunch of guys still learning how to play d1 basketball, on both ends of the court, and learning how to play with all new teammates, all at the same time. Then you throw in that Shaft and Gibby got hurt and didn’t play a single second of conference play. And we still finished 23-8, 12-6 in conference, finished with a double-bye. AND we were a freak buzzer-bearer 3 (not taking anything away from Crutcher, it was an incredible shot, but he hits that shot in that situation 1 outta 10 times if he’s lucky) away from beating Dayton, and it took an EPIC collapse to lose to UMASS. If we win those 2 games, we have the exact same conference record as Richmond and we’ll be getting 2 key contributors back this season. Now you could probably argue that we won some games that we shouldn’t have (thanks to Perk). But I’d say we were pretty even last season with Richmond, WITHOUT Thatch, WITHOUT Jimerson, and with our true freshman point guard, who playing over 30 minutes a game, and leading all freshmen in the country in assists, playing with 2 numb hands. National writers don’t look at context, they don’t have time to look at context a lot of the time. They look at the records, look at who’s coming back and make their predictions. But I ABSOLUTELY think we will be better than Richmond this year!

Richmond doesn't just have everyone come back, they have a 6'6 transfer who is eligible that averaged 10ppg during league play as a freshman for Tulane.  Basically their our own version of Jimerson but Richmond has the luxury of bringing him off the bench. At the end of the day, the teams are being viewed by prognosticators as 1 and 1A in the A10 and at-large NCAA teams.  It's kind of hard for me to view being regarded as an-large team out of a mid-major conference as a slight.

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9 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

Richmond doesn't just have everyone come back, they have a 6'6 transfer who is eligible that averaged 10ppg during league play as a freshman for Tulane.  Basically their our own version of Jimerson but Richmond has the luxury of bringing him off the bench. At the end of the day, the teams are being viewed by prognosticators as 1 and 1A in the A10 and at-large NCAA teams.  It's kind of hard for me to view being regarded as an-large team out of a mid-major conference as a slight.

Even if it does frustrate me, I don’t view it as a slight. Like I said, these guys don’t have the time to get to know the Billikens. That being said, are we convinced Jimerson isn’t going to be coming off the bench? 

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10 minutes ago, Reinert310 said:

Even if it does frustrate me, I don’t view it as a slight. Like I said, these guys don’t have the time to get to know the Billikens. That being said, are we convinced Jimerson isn’t going to be coming off the bench? 

Unless Fred is good to go, I believe Jimerson plays 25+ minutes a game, just as he did prior to the injury.

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11 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

Unless Fred is good to go, I believe Jimerson plays 25+ minutes a game, just as he did prior to the injury.

He’s gonna play plenty of minutes, but I think he will be coming off the bench. I think our starters will probably be JGood, Has, Yuri, Jimmy Bell and Perk/Jacobs.

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1 minute ago, 3star_recruit said:

For me, starter will always mean the 5 guys who play the most minutes.  Starters who only play 15 minutes a game are starters in name only but not in function.  But I get your meaning.

So if this kid who’s “Richmond’s version of Jimerson” is “coming of the bench” for them, I’m assuming you don’t think he’ll be playing starter minutes.  Would he really be equivalent to Jimerson back? Much less getting Jimerson AND Thatch back?

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3 minutes ago, Reinert310 said:

So if this kid who’s “Richmond’s version of Jimerson” is “coming of the bench” for them, I’m assuming you don’t think he’ll be playing starter minutes.  Would he really be equivalent to Jimerson back? Much less getting Jimerson AND Thatch back?

We also have a transfer who at the very least can eat minutes should Has or Jimmy get into foul trouble, and who shoots significantly better than 35% from the line so we have multiple options to prevent pulling Hack-A-Has at the end of games. My guess is: he’s capable of much more than that as well.

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56 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

Unless Fred is good to go, I believe Jimerson plays 25+ minutes a game, just as he did prior to the injury.

3 star, I know this came up in another thread, but your comment about Gibson playing 25+  minutes sent me back to the "who plays how many minutes" drawing board.

Without regard to trying to fit my initial estimates into the 200 minutes each game, I saw HF and JG at 30 each, YC at 33, JP and GJ at 25 each, TH and JB both at 18, Linssen and Fred at 15 ea, Dj at 10 and MS and AL at 8 each.  Add those up and you get 235 or 35 too many.  Some really good players are going to sit more than they want, barring injuries.

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4 minutes ago, bauman said:

3 star, I know this came up in another thread, but your comment about Gibson playing 25+  minutes sent me back to the "who plays how many minutes" drawing board.

Without regard to trying to fit my initial estimates into the 200 minutes each game, I saw HF and JG at 30 each, YC at 33, JP and GJ at 25 each, TH and JB both at 18, Linssen and Fred at 15 ea, Dj at 10 and MS and AL at 8 each.  Add those up and you get 235 or 35 too many.  Some really good players are going to sit more than they want, barring injuries.

This is another reason why I think we’ll be better than Richmond. We’re just deeper. We could EASILY go 10 deep every game. Now we’ll deal with injuries, but so will a Richmond. We could have different leading score every night. We’re incredibly difficult to gameplay against because we can beat you in so many different ways.

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14 minutes ago, Reinert310 said:

So if this kid who’s “Richmond’s version of Jimerson” is “coming of the bench” for them, I’m assuming you don’t think he’ll be playing starter minutes.  Would he really be equivalent to Jimerson back? Much less getting Jimerson AND Thatch back?

Similar skillset. But seeing how Richmond won 14 games, a legit scorer off the bench and the backup point guard they signed in the 2020 class could get them to 16-17  wins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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33 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

Similar skillset. But seeing how Richmond won 14 games, a legit scorer off the bench and the backup point guard they signed in the 2020 class could get them to 16-17  wins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That won't be enough for them.  Our 18 will make them an at large! 😉  (I know the regular season record isn't what gets you the A-10 bid)

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40 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

Similar skillset. But seeing how Richmond won 14 games, a legit scorer off the bench and the backup point guard they signed in the 2020 class could get them to 16-17  wins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By that logic, having won 12 games and getting back a back-2-back A10 rookie of the week and (arguably) our best perimeter defender, along with potential progression of guys like Bell and and Collins and Hargrove, and another year of experience playing together, where does that leave SLU? I’ll take getting Jimerson, Thatch and an another of D1 experience and team cohesiveness with SLU’s roster over a a bench scorer and a backup point guard any day of the week. And again, SLU very easily could’ve won 14 games last year. And I’d say our roster has a lot more room to make big improvements from last year to this year than Richmond does.

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35 minutes ago, Reinert310 said:

By that logic, having won 12 games and getting back a back-2-back A10 rookie of the week and (arguably) our best perimeter defender, along with potential progression of guys like Bell and and Collins and Hargrove, and another year of experience playing together, where does that leave SLU? I’ll take getting Jimerson, Thatch and an another of D1 experience and team cohesiveness with SLU’s roster over a a bench scorer and a backup point guard any day of the week. And again, SLU very easily could’ve won 14 games last year. And I’d say our roster has a lot more room to make big improvements from last year to this year than Richmond does.

We could win 4 more games than last year, including a win over them head-to-head and still finish a game behind in the standings. I don't see any clear separation here. Whoever wins the regular season will win by the skin of their teeth.

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23 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

We could win 4 more games than last year, including a win over them head-to-head and still finish a game behind in the standings. I don't see any clear separation here. Whoever wins the regular season will win by the skin of their teeth.

That, I agree with. Richmond is definitely going to be a great team next year. I just think SLU was pretty close to even with Richmond last season (we beat them pretty good @ their place last year too), but the difference is, I honestly believe that our Billikens will have the talent, depth and potential of improvement from a lot of key contributors from last year, to make a Dayton-like run. That’s not me predicting we’ll be a #1 seed or that we’ll go undefeated in the A10. I think the league has the potential significantly tougher and deeper than it was for Dayton’s run last year. But I think all the ingredients are there for 2020-21 to be a very special season.

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I stole this from the A10 Forum. Usually nothing of value on that forum. This although is good post showing how useless this Top 144 is by illustrating what was predicted last year and what really happened in the A10:

 

 
How did Welser do last year?
1. VCU #22, NET #68
2. Davidson #42, NET #75
3. Dayton #51, NET #3
4. URI #79, NET #57
5. Bona #101, NET #122
6. SLU #143, NET #49
Unranked
Richmond NET #38
Duquesne NET# 94
UMass NET #132
Obviously, he underrated the league by quite a bit. Richmond and SLU by a mile, and Duquesne and Dayton by a significant margin. Let's see if he can do better this year.
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18 hours ago, bauman said:

 I know it was just one game, but we beat Richmond at their home last year and that was without Fred and Gibson.  It seems like most of the media I have read see Richmond as the favorite in the A-10 because they are bringing everyone back.

We absolutely hammered Richmond at the end of the year, without GJ. Fred, the new Europeans, Markhi, etc.  Honestly I get how they would be rated over us from afar, but everyone on here knows that we will continue to pummel them this year.  Am I missing something or does pretty much everyone on here concur; we are the team to beat in the A10?

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1 hour ago, tarheelbilliken said:

I stole this from the A10 Forum. Usually nothing of value on that forum. This although is good post showing how useless this Top 144 is by illustrating what was predicted last year and what really happened in the A10:

 

 
How did Welser do last year?
1. VCU #22, NET #68
2. Davidson #42, NET #75
3. Dayton #51, NET #3
4. URI #79, NET #57
5. Bona #101, NET #122
6. SLU #143, NET #49
Unranked
Richmond NET #38
Duquesne NET# 94
UMass NET #132
Obviously, he underrated the league by quite a bit. Richmond and SLU by a mile, and Duquesne and Dayton by a significant margin. Let's see if he can do better this year.

Thanks for finding this.  And here is the A10 Preseason Poll from 2019.  This is somewhat consistent with the Welser list.  The last number is ( ) is where the team finished the season. They got LaSalle right!

PRESEASON POLL (First-place votes in parenthesis)

1. VCU (19) ............................................................ 381 (8)

2. Davidson (8) .................................................... 359 (7)

3. Dayton (1) ......................................................... 341 (1)

4. Rhode Island ................................................... 283 (3)

5. St. Bonaventure .............................................. 280 (6)

6. Richmond ......................................................... 248 (2)

7. Saint Louis ........................................................ 225 (4)

8. Duquesne ........................................................ 196 (5)

9. George Mason ................................................ 185 (12)

10. La Salle .............................................................. 133 (10)

11. Massachusetts ................................................ 103 (9)

12. George Washington ..................................... 93 (11)

13. Saint Joseph’s ................................................. 65 (14)

14. Fordham ........................................................... 48 (13)

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While I put little stock in the Top 144 actual rankings, I do think the website has some value.  First, it gives us something to look at in the very early off-season of CBB when it's hard to find any info in most major/local media and second, it provides a data source of what players each team has lost from the prior year and which ones they have gained through normal recruiting and transfers.  This latter is especially helpful in looking at for teams that we will play OOC, e.g. Belmont and E Wash last year.

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