2024-2025 Season Prediction Thread

[WUH]

Just now, ACE said:

Absolutely - it's an easy case to make considering he was the 8th pick in the NBA Draft following his freshman season and was the national freshman of the year. 

Right, I was thinking Huggins had multiple All-Americans on his team, but I cannot remember.  That was such a fun season.

[Pistol]

40-0

[White Pelican]

22 hours ago, WUH said:

The crowd was shockingly small for the Rockhurst game (I did not make the Maryville or Rockford games).

 

 

The Maryville crowd was even smaller than the Rockhurst crowd. And I'm pretty sure that NO ONE attended the Rockford game.

[juniorbill76]

16-0 to start the season, and in top 25.

[WVBilliken]

No predictions for me.  Hoping SLU dances and will watch the season play out.

"The best way to predict the future is to create it".

[thetorch]

11 hours ago, WUH said:

The Billikens played a particularly tough schedule in 1997-1998, but I think we could make a case for Larry Hughes Sr.

Yeah, maybe. We played a lot of guys who were great college players but not NBA guys that year who did manage to outplay Hughes.

Toby Bailey, Baron Davis, Marcus Fizer, Demarco Johnson and especially Ruben Patterson out played Hughes that year. Patterson single handedly took Hughes out of the CUSA poty conversation. Louisville as a team also locked up Larry pretty effectively.

[gobillsgo]

Popped over to the Santa Clara message board to see if there was any discussion on the game, and this gem was posted there on July 10, well after Avila, Swope, etc had committed:

“SLU appears to have one sharpshooter, but looks like they lost some important players to graduation or transfer. The team had a rough year last year (12-20 overall, 5-13 in A-10 conference play), and it doesn’t look like they’ll be much better this season (lots of freshman and sophomores on the team, please some upperclassmen, many of which didn’t get a lot of PT). This game will be a “must win” for SCU if the goal is to end the season with a top-60 RPI”

 

I like flying under the radar, but holy cow, is that a clueless post. That guy is in for a rude awakening. 

[almaman]

hope the Santa Clara team believes that though seems impossible they're not aware of our goggled gentle giant as he is in the mix for all American honors. who of course is an upperclassman!  as are all. 5 Coach thinks will start.  writer would. get an. F. if. graded

[Dr. Holly Hills]

They should be familiar with skilled, goggle wearing white guys.. Kurt rambis went to SCU.  That was before my time.  I did watch Steve Nash play there.  He was an amazing college player.

[WUH]

11 hours ago, thetorch said:

Yeah, maybe. We played a lot of guys who were great college players but not NBA guys that year who did manage to outplay Hughes.

Toby Bailey, Baron Davis, Marcus Fizer, Demarco Johnson and especially Ruben Patterson out played Hughes that year. Patterson single handedly took Hughes out of the CUSA poty conversation. Louisville as a team also locked up Larry pretty effectively.

It is impossible to run the counterfactual, but imagine Larry Hughes on that Cincinnati team.

Hughes had some good players around him, but how many of those guys are in the rotation for SLU in 2024-2025?

[ACE]

11 hours ago, thetorch said:

Yeah, maybe. We played a lot of guys who were great college players but not NBA guys that year who did manage to outplay Hughes.

Toby Bailey, Baron Davis, Marcus Fizer, Demarco Johnson and especially Ruben Patterson out played Hughes that year. Patterson single handedly took Hughes out of the CUSA poty conversation. Louisville as a team also locked up Larry pretty effectively.

This was your statement that WUH responded to: "Avila will be by far the best player on the floor in every game we play until the NCAAs.  When was the last time we could say that?  Macauley?"

WUH correctly pointed out Larry Hughes.  As a freshman, Hughes carried a supporting cast that would have been sub .500 without him to the NCAA tournament - a very impressive accomplishment. It's why he was the national freshman of the year and the #8 pick in the NBA Draft. Not one of those players you mention could have taken that SLU team and led them to the Dance. Davis and Bailey played on a team with 5 future NBA players. Larry played with the likes of Luchtefeld, Baniak and Cobbin -  Cincy was absolutely loaded, a top 10 team - Larry, on the other hand, was a marked man every game and had to single handedly carry his team. It was very easy to game plan against SLU. Let anyone other than Hughes beat you. None of those guys you mentioned received that type of focus from opposing teams defenses.

WUH gave the correct answer to your question. It's probably best to just tip your cap, rather than try to move the goalposts.

[OkieBilliken]

Three days away from the most important season in several years.    Its too quiet in here.  I wish someone would post something incendiary so I could lose my mind about it and be distracted from this nonstop election craziness.   I wish we had actual rivals who hated us.  

[3star_recruit]

39 minutes ago, ACE said:

This was your statement that WUH responded to: "Avila will be by far the best player on the floor in every game we play until the NCAAs.  When was the last time we could say that?  Macauley?"

WUH correctly pointed out Larry Hughes.  As a freshman, Hughes carried a supporting cast that would have been sub .500 without him to the NCAA tournament - a very impressive accomplishment. It's why he was the national freshman of the year and the #8 pick in the NBA Draft. Not one of those players you mention could have taken that SLU team and led them to the Dance. Davis and Bailey played on a team with 5 future NBA players. Larry played with the likes of Luchtefeld, Baniak and Cobbin -  Cincy was absolutely loaded, a top 10 team - Larry, on the other hand, was a marked man every game and had to single handedly carry his team. It was very easy to game plan against SLU. Let anyone other than Hughes beat you. None of those guys you mentioned received that type of focus from opposing teams defenses.

WUH gave the correct answer to your question. It's probably best to just tip your cap, rather than try to move the goalposts.

Excellent points.  Just because you're the best player on the floor doesn't mean you won't get outplayed occasionally by a lesser player.  Sometimes it's just not your night.

[HoosierPal]

1 hour ago, OkieBilliken said:

Three days away from the most important season in several years.    Its too quiet in here.  I wish someone would post something incendiary so I could lose my mind about it and be distracted from this nonstop election craziness.   I wish we had actual rivals who hated us.  

Here you go.  Robbie Avila is not an elite three point shooter.

 

[shempie]

13 hours ago, gobillsgo said:

Popped over to the Santa Clara message board to see if there was any discussion on the game, and this gem was posted there on July 10, well after Avila, Swope, etc had committed:

“SLU appears to have one sharpshooter, but looks like they lost some important players to graduation or transfer. The team had a rough year last year (12-20 overall, 5-13 in A-10 conference play), and it doesn’t look like they’ll be much better this season (lots of freshman and sophomores on the team, please some upperclassmen, many of which didn’t get a lot of PT). This game will be a “must win” for SCU if the goal is to end the season with a top-60 RPI”

 

I like flying under the radar, but holy cow, is that a clueless post. That guy is in for a rude awakening. 

I actaully think Santa Clara is going to be favored. Most of the "quant" sites show them as a 1 or 2 point favorite as of today. Can't wait to see what The Wiz has to say. 

[shempie]

On 10/31/2024 at 1:40 AM, thetorch said:

Avila will be by far the best player on the floor in every game we play until the NCAAs.  When was the last time we could say that?  Macauley?

I've made some dour predictions the last couple years (they came true), but that ends this year.

Non Con 12-1

Conference 14-4

A10 Tournament 3-0

NCAAs 2-1

31-6

In game 1 we will see a player (Adma-Alpha Bal) that flirted wit the NBA last year and is on many draft boards for the 2025 draft. I love RA and he is great. He is probably the most unique player in college, a true point center. But we are going to see some really good players this year. 

[gobillsgo]

36 minutes ago, shempie said:

I actaully think Santa Clara is going to be favored. Most of the "quant" sites show them as a 1 or 2 point favorite as of today. Can't wait to see what The Wiz has to say. 

Was trying to decipher what the spread might be.  Most computer sites like them more currently.  However, DraftKings has us at 300-1 to win the NCAA Championship, while they have Santa Clara at 1000-1.   Not sure about other books.  I really could see us being anywhere from 3 point dogs to 5 point favorites.  

[shempie]

25 minutes ago, gobillsgo said:

Was trying to decipher what the spread might be.  Most computer sites like them more currently.  However, DraftKings has us at 300-1 to win the NCAA Championship, while they have Santa Clara at 1000-1.   Not sure about other books.  I really could see us being anywhere from 3 point dogs to 5 point favorites.  

I checked a few. All show SCU favored by a couple. Bookies might have a different take. 

Warren Nolan

Haslam Metrics

Massey Ratings 

Barttorvik (T-Rank) 

[WUH]

I am not sure the computers can predict the outcome with only two exhibition games worth of data from this season and prior season data that cannot properly account for the new coaching staff and a (almost) completely new rotation.

[shempie]

5 minutes ago, WUH said:

I am not sure the computers can predict the outcome with only two exhibition games worth of data from this season and prior season data that cannot properly account for the new coaching staff and a (almost) completely new rotation.

100% agreed. And yet someone will have to put a line out for the game. 

[almaman]

there still "bookies"?

[WUH]

1 hour ago, shempie said:

100% agreed. And yet someone will have to put a line out for the game. 

Do they do it based solely on the computers? 

[billikenfan05]

I'm going to have a lot of fun this season, hopefully enough fun to make up for the last two years. This team is going to be electric on offense, if that success carries over to the defensive end, we could be in for something real special.

[gobillsgo]

1 hour ago, WUH said:

Do they do it based solely on the computers? 

I’m not sure how they come up with initial lines, I’m sure computers are involved.  How people bet will move the lines from there.  
 

lines are out in most books, and we are anywhere from 1 point underdogs to 1.5 point favorites.  Vegas expects a close game. 

[Schasz]

Well I like the Josh Schertz hire and believe he will get our program headed the right way. I won't make a prediction on our overall record this season. I hope for a team that is competitive in each game. It would be amazing to see his initial SLU team in the NCAA Tourney. I am so excited about the team I plan to make my first trip to Chaifetz in a few years