I think the Shockers will win the league. If there is a fan of a decent team, I would certainly expect them to believe their team was going to win the league. That's part of being a fan.
I haven't watched enough AAC games to see how D gets played. I'd be a little surprised if any AAC teams have seen D the way Marshall coaches it. WSU will frustrate an opponent. With exceptional depth, WSU will play physical D. There are a lot of fouls to give with a 10-deep roster.
By the end of the season, WSU had a bunch of rim protecters who were blocking a lot of shots. That's going to allow the perimeter guys to gamble on steals. WSU's opponents are going to have a defender in their face and two guys cheating into passing lanes to disrupt running an offense.
I'm delighted to be in the AAC, where the Shox will get tested. Winning games by 30-40 points gets old. We had walkons getting court time in the first halves of games. We had walkons extending leads late in games.
There was one team in the Valley (Illinois State, 27-7) that could give us a game. After the lineup got set, we beat them by 41 (home) and 20 (neutral).
(06-22-2017 09:50 PM)Nevadanatural Wrote: When you start mentioning ESPNs magic number generator, aka BPI, as an advanced metric now that's crazy talk.
You should consider multiple advanced metrics to analyze how good a team is. KenPom is the best, but Sagarin, KPI, BPI, RPI, AP Top 25, and other rankings should point to how good a team is. The crazy talk is to try to compare teams only by the conference they play in and use only good wins without considering bad losses, a team who only wins at home and won't venture out on the road, and poor efforts against bad teams (even though they may pull out a close win). That's just lazy. KP cuts through the muck.
One example of lazy is K-State won't play WSU. KSU has an awful OOC schedule and plays nobody, then they beat TCU and a Texas Tech at home ( they also had a Iowa St. win I think) and get into the NCAA tourney. We would have beat them by 20 points but they are an 11 Seed and we are a 10.
(This post was last modified: 06-23-2017 01:57 AM by Shockit.)
(06-22-2017 09:50 PM)Nevadanatural Wrote: When you start mentioning ESPNs magic number generator, aka BPI, as an advanced metric now that's crazy talk.
You should consider multiple advanced metrics to analyze how good a team is. KenPom is the best, but Sagarin, KPI, BPI, RPI, AP Top 25, and other rankings should point to how good a team is. The crazy talk is to try to compare teams only by the conference they play in and use only good wins without considering bad losses, a team who only wins at home and won't venture out on the road, and poor efforts against bad teams (even though they may pull out a close win). That's just lazy. KP cuts through the muck.
One example of lazy is K-State won't play WSU. KSU has an awful OOC schedule and plays nobody, then they beat TCU and a Texas Tech at home ( they also had a Iowa St. win I think) and get into the NCAA tourney. We would have beat them by 20 points but they are an 11 Seed and we are a 10.
Come on man. This is just lazy now. They beat WVU, Baylor x2, OK State (who smashed WSU!!), etc.
Saying you would have beaten them by 20 points does not make it so. That is pure conjecture.
(06-23-2017 12:27 AM)Aargh Wrote: I think the Shockers will win the league. If there is a fan of a decent team, I would certainly expect them to believe their team was going to win the league. That's part of being a fan.
I haven't watched enough AAC games to see how D gets played. I'd be a little surprised if any AAC teams have seen D the way Marshall coaches it. WSU will frustrate an opponent. With exceptional depth, WSU will play physical D. There are a lot of fouls to give with a 10-deep roster.
By the end of the season, WSU had a bunch of rim protecters who were blocking a lot of shots. That's going to allow the perimeter guys to gamble on steals. WSU's opponents are going to have a defender in their face and two guys cheating into passing lanes to disrupt running an offense.
I'm delighted to be in the AAC, where the Shox will get tested. Winning games by 30-40 points gets old. We had walkons getting court time in the first halves of games. We had walkons extending leads late in games.
There was one team in the Valley (Illinois State, 27-7) that could give us a game. After the lineup got set, we beat them by 41 (home) and 20 (neutral).
Wichita State averaged 3.74 blocks per game last year, which would have ranked 9th in the AAC last year.
The defense in this conference is a mixed bag really. Some teams are truly stout defensively (UC, UCF, and SMU), while some of it can be attributed to bad offense. This was not a good offensive conference last year. Hopefully, things pick up for this coming season.
(This post was last modified: 06-23-2017 08:43 AM by JFlight21.)
(06-23-2017 12:27 AM)Aargh Wrote: I think the Shockers will win the league. If there is a fan of a decent team, I would certainly expect them to believe their team was going to win the league. That's part of being a fan.
I haven't watched enough AAC games to see how D gets played. I'd be a little surprised if any AAC teams have seen D the way Marshall coaches it. WSU will frustrate an opponent. With exceptional depth, WSU will play physical D. There are a lot of fouls to give with a 10-deep roster.
By the end of the season, WSU had a bunch of rim protecters who were blocking a lot of shots. That's going to allow the perimeter guys to gamble on steals. WSU's opponents are going to have a defender in their face and two guys cheating into passing lanes to disrupt running an offense.
I'm delighted to be in the AAC, where the Shox will get tested. Winning games by 30-40 points gets old. We had walkons getting court time in the first halves of games. We had walkons extending leads late in games.
There was one team in the Valley (Illinois State, 27-7) that could give us a game. After the lineup got set, we beat them by 41 (home) and 20 (neutral).
Wichita State averaged 3.74 blocks per game last year, which would have ranked 9th in the AAC last year.
The defense in this conference is a mixed bag really. Some teams are truly stout defensively (UC, UCF, and SMU), while some of it can be attributed to bad offense. This was not a good offensive conference last year. Hopefully, things pick up for this coming season.
Blocks /= Defense quality.
WSU was 13th best AdjD per KenPom last year, good for the best in the AAC. Though Cinci was just slightly behind at 15th and UCF at 18th and SMU at 26. So yes WSU would have had the best defense, but it's not drastically better like the other WSU poster mentioned.
(06-20-2017 09:29 AM)bearcatmark Wrote: I think Wichita State and Cincinnati will be the two best teams in the conference with SMU not far behind. I think Wichita State was a bit better than Cincinnati last year, but Cincinnati has a higher ceiling this year. I think Wichita will be one of the 10-12 best teams in the country and UC will be one of the 5-15 best teams in the country. I think SMU will be a top 25 caliber team. I think it should be a hell of a race at the top.
UC's ceiling last year was capped because Caupain had issues against teams with high level athletes/guards and we saw that in the SMU/UCLA games. This was exacerbated by the fact that Johnson couldn't take the pressure off because he couldn't handle or pass.
It remains to be seen what Broome brings to the table but Cumberland is a serious difference maker and will be a massive upgrade over Johnson. If Broome is as advertised, I think UC will be the best team in the conference, but regardless I think they have the best 2-5 (Cumberland, Evans, Clark & Washington) in the AAC and one of the best in the country.
You may be right (by a small margin IMO), but don't underestimate the benefit that WSU has by being able to roll out 10-11 deep without much of a drop off. Keeping fresh legs can do a lot.
Stickboy beat me to the punch.
Every big game we play we hear, "they'll never be able to contain _ _ _ _ , he's headed to the NBA after this year."
One player who comes to mind that we had "no chance" of containing is Jakob Poeltl of Utah. He's this 7' wunderkind going 1st rd. in the draft (and he did go 1st rd.)
He scored 9 pts. in 31 mins. against us and we beat them by 17.
Wichita's State's advantage in basketball has to be experienced (against your team) for you to truly understand it. None of the brand teams ever think we're good enough until they face us and then it's like, "oh f**k".
Yes, we're deep. No, we don't have the best players in the game. 1-10 on our roster is at least 75% as good as the elite players in college with a couple who are legitimately elite (Shamet, McDuffie, Morris). But 75% is good enough on fresh legs. A 75%'er can look like an All-American against a blue-chipper who's "Cadillac'ing" down the floor.
See 75%'er Zach Brown go 110% against a blue-chip 5* Cadillac'er in Oubre
Also see Captain Fred VanVleet lay down some trolls on "ol' boy" Oubre, who when asked if he had watched the Shockers the previous day to prepare, said he was sleeping during our game...
Gregg Marshall has a simple rule for his players: "Give me everything you've got while you're on the floor". It's that simple. If your cuts aren't sharp, you miss a screen, or don't stay in front of your man on defense, you're out. There's always a competent player on the bench waiting to take your spot and your minutes. This sounds simplistic, and I'm sure every coach in America has the same rule, but somehow Marshall is able to get that extra 10% and do it on a consistent basis.
I offered this warning in another thread, I'll offer it again. Do not come at a Shocker fan with how great this player is or that player is... we've played the best over the last half decade and proven we can either beat the best or hang with the best. There won't be one second that our team looks intimidated or tired this year in the AAC. When we show up at your barn, we will expect to win and we will play like we expect to win from minute 1 till the final buzzer. To beat us you will have to play harder than you have in a long time (for 40 minutes) on a night when we can't throw it in the ocean. If we're hitting our shots, I have confidence that nobody in the country can beat us... let alone someone from the AAC.
(06-22-2017 09:50 PM)Nevadanatural Wrote: When you start mentioning ESPNs magic number generator, aka BPI, as an advanced metric now that's crazy talk.
You should consider multiple advanced metrics to analyze how good a team is. KenPom is the best, but Sagarin, KPI, BPI, RPI, AP Top 25, and other rankings should point to how good a team is. The crazy talk is to try to compare teams only by the conference they play in and use only good wins without considering bad losses, a team who only wins at home and won't venture out on the road, and poor efforts against bad teams (even though they may pull out a close win). That's just lazy. KP cuts through the muck.
One example of lazy is K-State won't play WSU. KSU has an awful OOC schedule and plays nobody, then they beat TCU and a Texas Tech at home ( they also had a Iowa St. win I think) and get into the NCAA tourney. We would have beat them by 20 points but they are an 11 Seed and we are a 10.
Come on man. This is just lazy now. They beat WVU, Baylor x2, OK State (who smashed WSU!!), etc.
Saying you would have beaten them by 20 points does not make it so. That is pure conjecture.
Those few home K State wins, that boosted their stature were late in the season in February. They couldn't win on the road. A lot of K-State fans (the ones I know) believed that they would have lost to the Shox too and that their foundation was built on sand.
Can you at least look things up before you post? They beat Baylor and Oklahoma State on the road.
Also, was just looking up WSU's road schedule by comparison and dear lord. I had no idea how bad the MVC was last year. Only 3 teams inside the RPI 150 (WSU 32, ISU 33, SIU 145). The AAC had 8 inside the top 150 by comparison.
SMU only had 6 players, so they had to play slow. UC had a slow point guard (Caupain). I'd imagine both teams will play at a quicker pace this coming season.
(06-23-2017 09:55 AM)JFlight21 Wrote: Can you at least look things up before you post? They beat Baylor and Oklahoma State on the road.
Also, was just looking up WSU's road schedule by comparison and dear lord. I had no idea how bad the MVC was last year. Only 3 teams inside the RPI 150 (WSU 32, ISU 33, SIU 145). The AAC had 8 inside the top 150 by comparison.
yup we loved the 16 guaranteed games against RPI 145+ ....
(06-23-2017 01:21 AM)AndShock Wrote: Cincinnati plays like the SIU teams of yesteryear AKA I want to gouge my eyes out watching them play.
They led the conference in points per game (by the slimmest margin over SMU) last year but good try!!!!
SMU even has a lower AdjT than them, Jesus Christ. Did we join a conference set in 1952?
Edit: SMU had the same AdjT as UNI. Kill me.
Let's not compare SMU and UNI
SMU AdjO = 119.8 (10th, the other AAC team with a higher AdjO than WSU)
UNI AdjO = 97.6 (295th)
So yea SMU played slow .. but at least they understand the point of the game is to put the ball in the hoop. Not just hack away and flop like UNI. Pretty sure UNI averaged more Flops per game than baskets.
(06-23-2017 01:21 AM)AndShock Wrote: Cincinnati plays like the SIU teams of yesteryear AKA I want to gouge my eyes out watching them play.
They led the conference in points per game (by the slimmest margin over SMU) last year but good try!!!!
SMU even has a lower AdjT than them, Jesus Christ. Did we join a conference set in 1952?
Edit: SMU had the same AdjT as UNI. Kill me.
Let's not compare SMU and UNI
SMU AdjO = 119.8 (10th, the other AAC team with a higher AdjO than WSU)
UNI AdjO = 97.6 (295th)
So yea SMU played slow .. but at least they understand the point of the game is to put the ball in the hoop. Not just hack away and flop like UNI. Pretty sure UNI averaged more Flops per game than baskets.
Yes, a closer comparison is a the aforementioned SIU team's of old. Like 2007 who had the #61 offense and #315 AdjT. The only difference is as you said, when the shot clock gets down to 5, SMU can put the ball in the hoop. SIU put it in the hoop by chucking in fadeaway 3s at the end of the shot clock. SMU can probably actually get to the hoop or hit open shots. I'm not looking forward to either.
I called the SIU teams of old the Carbondale Clowns due to their propensity to fly around the court like clowns causing innumerable body contact violations to the point where the refs just didn't know what to do. I've always thought it would be fun to see today's Shockers face off with the authors of UglyBallTM.
(06-23-2017 01:21 AM)AndShock Wrote: Cincinnati plays like the SIU teams of yesteryear AKA I want to gouge my eyes out watching them play.
They led the conference in points per game (by the slimmest margin over SMU) last year but good try!!!!
SMU even has a lower AdjT than them, Jesus Christ. Did we join a conference set in 1952?
Edit: SMU had the same AdjT as UNI. Kill me.
Let's not compare SMU and UNI
SMU AdjO = 119.8 (10th, the other AAC team with a higher AdjO than WSU)
UNI AdjO = 97.6 (295th)
So yea SMU played slow .. but at least they understand the point of the game is to put the ball in the hoop. Not just hack away and flop like UNI. Pretty sure UNI averaged more Flops per game than baskets.
Here I was defending you SMU over the summer ... and then you had to go and lose to UNI ...
