Based on last year's performance (the end) and this year's expectations, this is what I'm hoping for...
Auburn
Alabama St*
TROY*
JSU*
Illinois
Va Tech/ISU
Georgia St
Illinois St
Seattle*
USC Upstate*
South Florida
Stephen F
(Not including Non-D1 game against Hiawassee)
The 5 lower profile games* we MUST win. I think we really can't afford to lose to Georgia St, South Florida, and Illinois St either in the case we are threading the needle for an at large at the end of the year. That leaves us with Auburn, Illinois, Va Tech/ISU, and Stephen F. If win all 4, we'll be ranked nationally going in to CUSA play. I personally would be content with winning half of the 4 bigger games. 10-2 would be a mighty fine place to be starting in January. This may sound crazy but I'd take going 0-2 in Destin for wins against Auburn and Stephen F. This Auburn game is a massive image game for us.
Your 5 lower profile games are where I'll start. As you said, must wins. No more excuses there. I'd almost throw south Florida in this bunch.
Georgia state is a game we need to win at home. I won't throw a fit if we lose at Illinois state. That should be one of the best teams on our schedule.
For the sake of state perception, we need that auburn game. that team is only going to get better, and we now have a decent amount of experience. That's a game a team with at large aspirations needs to win.
Stephen f Austin is a huge game. We are at home, let's take care of business. It won't be a bad loss, but it would be a huge missed opportunity.
The tournament. Illinois is your run of the mill power conference team. We need to win this game. The schedule doesn't allow us much margin for error, but on paper wins over Illinois, auburn, and sfa would at least look reasonable. Iowa state is what it is. It presents a great opportunity if we get them. Otherwise, we cannot afford a loss to va tech. They are much less than run of the mill. I'd like to enter conference play no worse than 9-3. We'd at least have a decent win at that point, and likely no major slip ups.
A loss to Steve Austin will be a bad loss, not because they are a bad team, but from the perception of idiots who don't know basketball, but think they do and don't realize that they are a good team.
A loss to Auburn and a win against SFA will have less positive effect on perception than a win over Auburn and a loss to SFA.
I think 10-2 or 9-3 with no bad losses it's totally reasonable to expect with the talent and experience we have returning this year.
Yep. We have 5 games we have no business losing and a 6th that's pretty damn close. Expecting to go 4-3 against the best teams on our ooc schedule is more than reasonable.
Let's just beat everyone. It's doable. There is no Kansas or Duke on our schedule. We should be equal to or better than everyone we play... it all comes down to execution.
Unfortunately, I think we'll screw up on the road in C-USA play somewhere like we did last season. SFA at home scares me, as does a rematch with Illinois St & potentially Iowa State. Heck, with Illinois down a few players due to injury I'm afraid of us overlooking them... they're still a Big Ten team with Big Ten talent.
I'll be interested to see how our still young team handles being the hunted & getting everyone's best game.
8-4 is my cautious prediction in the OOC schedule... 10-2 if I let my fan flag fly.
As UAB has improved within C-USA, the effect of each loss may be magnified due to our ranking as a top conference team. (Ole Miss is experiencing that in FB since they were considered an SEC West power team this year, beat Bama and then lost to Memphis. Losing to Memphis a couple years ago would not have been seen as the same thing). The list of "expected wins" will continue to grow as UAB improves leading to more perceived "bad losses" when/if they occur.
SFA returns almost all of its contributors from last year, plus adds some Jucos to replace the couple bigs that graduated. I bet the Lumberjacks win 25+ again this year. Not that it matters from a perception standpoint, but I'd say they are the second best team on the schedule. I'm going to try to do a non-conference write up before the season.
Illinois and Virginia Tech both brought in recruiting classes with three 4-stars each and impact transfers. Illinois adds our old friend Mike Thorne as a graduate transfer. We played against him thrice when he was at Charlotte. I don't know if either team will be good this year, but both are definitely talented.
(10-21-2015 03:38 PM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote: [ -> ]As UAB has improved within C-USA, the effect of each loss may be magnified due to our ranking as a top conference team. (Ole Miss is experiencing that in FB since they were considered an SEC West power team this year, beat Bama and then lost to Memphis. Losing to Memphis a couple years ago would not have been seen as the same thing). The list of "expected wins" will continue to grow as UAB improves leading to more perceived "bad losses" when/if they occur.
This is a basketball thread. There are football threads your post would fit in, provided you haven't derailed them with educAtion talk.
So where is the yearly WTF loss?
IF we do it will be a conference game. Rice or a FUs. Good enough to beat you if they get hot but bad enough to have multiple WTF losses each and drag down the league RPI.
Of the games you list, predict 8-4. Hope for better
Remember, Tosin was out for that road weekend at the FUs last year.
To the casual southern basketball fan, beating teams like SFA, Illinois State, and Georgia State isn't worth front page real estate. In reality, coming out of OOC with 10+ wins would be the best start since the 18-2 Mike Davis season.
The 18-2 starting mike Davis team had the biggest collapse to end the season I've seen as a UAB fan. That was incredibly frustrating