The next 4 conference games...

@ECU
Temple
@Tulane
USF

needless to say if we are not 8-0 in the league after this next run , it will be a disappointment ? Three of those are just bad teams .

With Xavier in the middle of those UC will probably be looking at a gaudy 19-2 or 18-3 record.


Just keep winning....

(01-13-2017 11:08 AM)Bearcat2012 Wrote:  The next 4 conference games...

@ECU
Temple
@Tulane
USF

needless to say if we are not 8-0 in the league after this next run , it will be a disappointment ? Three of those are just bad teams .

With Xavier in the middle of those UC will probably be looking at a gaudy 19-2 or 18-3 record.


Just keep winning....

Agreed. I think one big advantage this UC team has over some others in recent memory is the ability to get scoring from multiple players on any given night. So Evans struggles last night yet they advance to fight another day. One might believe 8-0 in this conference could put them a couple of games ahead in the standings before having to face SMU again. Exciting times.

Realtime RPI is predicting with 95% certainty that we will not lose more than 3 games all year. I'm with them...after sturggling through a few of the other conference-mates' games, we should wipe the floor with most, if not all, of them. I'm worried about UCF a bit simply because we seem to have issues with offensive rebounding team and they have a giant on their roster, but outside of them I think SMU and Memphis are the only games in conference we stand a chance at losing if we play even half as well as we're able to.

(01-13-2017 11:27 AM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Realtime RPI is predicting with 95% certainty that we will not lose more than 3 games all year. I'm with them...after sturggling through a few of the other conference-mates' games, we should wipe the floor with most, if not all, of them. I'm worried about UCF a bit simply because we seem to have issues with offensive rebounding team and they have a giant on their roster, but outside of them I think SMU and Memphis are the only games in conference we stand a chance at losing if we play even half as well as we're able to.

IMO at SMU is a likely loss

home vs X and at UCONN are 50/50 games. This team gives a pretty good consistent effort so I'm not expecting any WTF games. I'll take 4 losses as the most likely outcome

(01-13-2017 12:03 PM)RealDeal Wrote:  

(01-13-2017 11:27 AM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Realtime RPI is predicting with 95% certainty that we will not lose more than 3 games all year. I'm with them...after sturggling through a few of the other conference-mates' games, we should wipe the floor with most, if not all, of them. I'm worried about UCF a bit simply because we seem to have issues with offensive rebounding team and they have a giant on their roster, but outside of them I think SMU and Memphis are the only games in conference we stand a chance at losing if we play even half as well as we're able to.

IMO at SMU is a likely loss

home vs X and at UCONN are 50/50 games. This team gives a pretty good consistent effort so I'm not expecting any WTF games. I'll take 4 losses as the most likely outcome

Yep same here, I think at SMU will more than likely be one. My wording may have been off after looking it over again, I meant to say that Memphis and SMU were the only games I'm worried about, and that every other conference game we could win with a 50% performance outside of UCF.

(01-13-2017 12:03 PM)RealDeal Wrote:  

(01-13-2017 11:27 AM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Realtime RPI is predicting with 95% certainty that we will not lose more than 3 games all year. I'm with them...after sturggling through a few of the other conference-mates' games, we should wipe the floor with most, if not all, of them. I'm worried about UCF a bit simply because we seem to have issues with offensive rebounding team and they have a giant on their roster, but outside of them I think SMU and Memphis are the only games in conference we stand a chance at losing if we play even half as well as we're able to.

IMO at SMU is a likely loss

home vs X and at UCONN are 50/50 games. This team gives a pretty good consistent effort so I'm not expecting any WTF games. I'll take 4 losses as the most likely outcome

Eh... i think this is a bit negative.

I think SMU is a slight favorite at Moody, but it's far from a likely loss. I think people are overreacting to UC taking their foot off the gas on offense the last 5-7 minutes. UC lead the entire game, often by double digits, despite Evans being a relative nonfactor. UC is a better team than SMU by almost all objective measures (not by a ton, but they are better). On the road they are close enough that UC will be a slight underdog, but this is not a likely loss.

I also don't consider X at home a 50/50 game. UC is better by almost all objective measures (the very flawed RPI being the exception) and is playing at home. UC should be a favorite in that game, though it is one they could certainly lose.

In no way shape or form will at UConn be a tossup. UC is significantly better than that UConn team. The road game UC already got at Houston was a far closer matchup for UC. UC could lose at Uconn as Uconn still plays really good defense (they've just been abysmal offensively), but UC is a decent favorite in that game. UC just made it through a fairly tough 4 game stretch 4-0. That's a great sign.

I think you guys and real time rpi are all overconfident. I'd love to see it but we are capable of losing several of these games. Hopefully we keep progressing and can win like these predictions but we've still got a lot of work to do. Way too early to be predicting domination the rest of the way.

(01-13-2017 12:53 PM)bearcatjim Wrote:  I think you guys and real time rpi are all overconfident. I'd love to see it but we are capable of losing several of these games. Hopefully we keep progressing and can win like these predictions but we've still got a lot of work to do. Way too early to be predicting domination the rest of the way.

RPI Forecast absolutely would agree UC could lose to several of these teams.

According to RPI forecast UC would lose to:
Home to Xavier 1 out of 3 times
@SMU a little less than half the time (45%)
Home to UCF 1 out of 4 times
Home to Houston 1 out of 4 times
@Uconn 1 out of 5 times

All those games are loseable and even the others are on a really flukie night, but taken as a whole UC will lose 3 or less 90% of the time against that schedule. I guess you can quibble with some of those odds, but they seem pretty reasonable to me given what we know about all of those teams and about UC.

http://www.rpiforecast.com/teams/Cincinnati.html

(01-13-2017 12:53 PM)bearcatjim Wrote:  I think you guys and real time rpi are all overconfident. I'd love to see it but we are capable of losing several of these games. Hopefully we keep progressing and can win like these predictions but we've still got a lot of work to do. Way too early to be predicting domination the rest of the way.

I agree. The losses won't necessarily be the ones we would expect from the data. Mid-February often means fatigue, injuries and sometimes overconfidence against conference cellar dwellers. I'd like to believe this UC team is immune to all that but it's a long season. UC will be in pretty tall cotton with 5 losses for the year and I remain hopeful it could be 3 or 4.

Even on off days, I don't see any losses to the cellar dwellers

(01-13-2017 11:27 AM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Realtime RPI is predicting with 95% certainty that we will not lose more than 3 games all year. I'm with them...after sturggling through a few of the other conference-mates' games, we should wipe the floor with most, if not all, of them. I'm worried about UCF a bit simply because we seem to have issues with offensive rebounding team and they have a giant on their roster, but outside of them I think SMU and Memphis are the only games in conference we stand a chance at losing if we play even half as well as we're able to.

Not like we are running through the ACC or even the BE. Just win a few in the NCAA tourney, if we are tourney tough.

(01-13-2017 02:16 PM)payday Wrote:  Even on off days, I don't see any losses to the cellar dwellers

We almost got beat by Marshall at home a couple of weeks ago.

(01-13-2017 03:01 PM)bearcatjim Wrote:  

(01-13-2017 02:16 PM)payday Wrote:  Even on off days, I don't see any losses to the cellar dwellers

We almost got beat by Marshall at home a couple of weeks ago.

Marshall has a similar ranking to UConn / Temple in kenpom. Marshall is significantly better than the bottom tier teams on UC's schedule. Marshall was insanely hot from three in that first half (in addition to being a good offensive team). UC still won. Nobody thinks UC CAN'T lose some of those games, but the reality is they are very likely to lose 3 or less games the rest of the regular season.

As long as everyone shows up, I think it's entirely plausible they only have 3-4 losses this season. They need to continue to improve and not get flustered. Again, I have a certain deal of ire for coach, for subbing in Tre Scott and Quadri Moore at the same time yesterday during a critical juncture during the second half. But they as a whole, were kind of panicky toward the end last night. If they get through with only 1 or 2 losses during conference play, I think they'll have an excellent seed; particularly so if they manage to do well or win out in the conference tournament.

Still got a whole second half of the season though. Trying to keep my enthusiasm level with reality.

(01-13-2017 12:51 PM)bearcatmark Wrote:  

(01-13-2017 12:03 PM)RealDeal Wrote:  

(01-13-2017 11:27 AM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Realtime RPI is predicting with 95% certainty that we will not lose more than 3 games all year. I'm with them...after sturggling through a few of the other conference-mates' games, we should wipe the floor with most, if not all, of them. I'm worried about UCF a bit simply because we seem to have issues with offensive rebounding team and they have a giant on their roster, but outside of them I think SMU and Memphis are the only games in conference we stand a chance at losing if we play even half as well as we're able to.

IMO at SMU is a likely loss

home vs X and at UCONN are 50/50 games. This team gives a pretty good consistent effort so I'm not expecting any WTF games. I'll take 4 losses as the most likely outcome

Eh... i think this is a bit negative.

I think SMU is a slight favorite at Moody, but it's far from a likely loss. I think people are overreacting to UC taking their foot off the gas on offense the last 5-7 minutes. UC lead the entire game, often by double digits, despite Evans being a relative nonfactor. UC is a better team than SMU by almost all objective measures (not by a ton, but they are better). On the road they are close enough that UC will be a slight underdog, but this is not a likely loss.

I also don't consider X at home a 50/50 game. UC is better by almost all objective measures (the very flawed RPI being the exception) and is playing at home. UC should be a favorite in that game, though it is one they could certainly lose.

In no way shape or form will at UConn be a tossup. UC is significantly better than that UConn team. The road game UC already got at Houston was a far closer matchup for UC. UC could lose at Uconn as Uconn still plays really good defense (they've just been abysmal offensively), but UC is a decent favorite in that game. UC just made it through a fairly tough 4 game stretch 4-0. That's a great sign.

At SMU will be a loss. They will be just as jacked up as UC was for this game and UC WILL NOT shoot that well again from 3 point range at their place. SMU is a far superior rebounding team than UC and the only way you over come that is to shoot well from 3 pt range.

Have you not watch the past 10 shootouts? Regardless of where the game is, XU seems to have UC's number. 2 of their 3 losses have came to teams who were #1 in the country at some point. They are better than what you think. Plus they just got Myles Davis back. (who seems to kill UC) Once he gets a few games under his belt they will be better.

UConn is a hard one to figure out. I usually don't like to play the "who beat who" scenario, but UConn smashed a UCF team who played Villanova tough and UCF also smashed Temple. @ UConn will most likely be a UC win, but like the XU games, you just never know in that one.

Speaking of UCF, don't sleep on them. They have looked good at times and bad in others. We will probably know more about them after they play Houston this weekend.

I just think this team is so hard to figure out, they have flashes of a top 5 team, they have bigs that can do it all, Jacob Evans can look like an NBA talent. Troy Caupain was preseason conference player of the year, and he can play well and still look like our 4th best starter at times. They also have long stretches of disappearing, a 21-0 run against samford, just seems impossible. It seems like when guys make a 3, they keep trying harder and harder shots until they miss a few in a row.

(01-13-2017 12:53 PM)bearcatjim Wrote:  I think you guys and real time rpi are all overconfident. I'd love to see it but we are capable of losing several of these games. Hopefully we keep progressing and can win like these predictions but we've still got a lot of work to do. Way too early to be predicting domination the rest of the way.

I agree. I am just as fired up as everyone else but it takes a dominant team to run through a league undefeated. Last night was a 50/50 when all was said and done. That ball was about as far down as you can get and still pop out. Fortunately, as Jackie Treehorn would say, it was a real "dog in a bath tub" and we lucked out.

There is a reason why they actually PLAY the games you know...

@ SMU is going to be a challenge... But we can most certainly come away with a win.

It is also extremely likely we suffer one "WTF" loss...though I hope we don't.

If UC shows up for each game, we could very well go undefeated from here out. If UC fails to show up, there's not a team on the schedule that can't hang a loss...a really bad loss...on us.

So everybody take a deep breath and enjoy where we're at? Please?

All I know is at the upcoming Temple game my daughter is getting honored again for being one of the Engineers of the Month for this year and I will not be able to be there to see it. So I am counting on all of you to actually pay attention and cheer her on for me. Oh, and I am counting on the team for a big win to keep her happy :)

(01-13-2017 07:47 PM)Bruce Monnin Wrote:  All I know is at the upcoming Temple game my daughter is getting honored again for being one of the Engineers of the Month for this year and I will not be able to be there to see it. So I am counting on all of you to actually pay attention and cheer her on for me. Oh, and I am counting on the team for a big win to keep her happy :)

Will do. Very cool to hear.