CSNbbs

With the regular season in the books, I figured it'd be a good time to see how different teams across the league finished compared to their preseason expectations.

http://theamerican.org/news/2018/10/14/m...orite.aspx

Most Surprising

-Houston (predicted 3rd, finished 1st)

I don't think many are surprised that Houston competed for the title yet alone won, but rather the dominating manner in which they ran through their schedule. They are on the verge of a top 10 regular season finish and are expected to be the first AAC team to advance beyond the first weekend of the NCAA tournament since UConn in 2014.

-Temple (predicted 6th, finished 3rd)

Many people on here and in the media wrote Temple off as contenders due their lackluster finish to last season and Dunphy's perceived inability to motivate the team to perform. They now are projected to make the NCAA tournament after a two-season hiatus.

-South Florida (predicted 12th, finished 8th)

With one of the most unknown rosters in the league, expectations were at rock bottom for USF who were coming off a 10-win season in 17-18 and lost a good portion of last season's team to graduation/transfer. They built momentum off a weak OOC schedule this win as many conference games this season as they did over the past 3 seasons combined.

Most Disappointing

-UConn (predicted 5th, finished 9th)

Despite a solid start to the season that featured a win over Syracuse and no bad losses, UConn could not string wins together during league play. The month of February was particularly cruel with Jalen Adams getting hurt at Temple and not returning to action until yesterday.

-SMU (predicted 7th, finished 10th)

Between injuries and the final year of scholarship reductions, SMU started the year out in a hole that they could never seem to escape. Losing by 47 points at UCF was the icing on the cake.

-Tulane (predicted 10th, finished 12th)

After showing signs of life in their program last season, Tulane was expected to compete again with several key players returning and a promising freshman class. The absence of Ona Embo and the overall youth of the team equated to many struggles early on and ultimately a winless league campaign - the first of its kind in AAC history.


Who was the biggest surprise and biggest disappointment for you?

Jalen Adams returned yesterday with a casual 12 assists.

I thought SMU would play better defense than they have (not good defense mind you, just decent) and their offensive players would put them in the top half of the league. I didn't have any expectations for USF other than them to challenge ECU and Tulane for the bottom of the league.

I thought Houston would finish first or second. Thought Temple would be a bubble type team. UConn was always going to be an unknown, but they've had some bad luck. The difference between them being 5th and 9th isn't that much.

So I guess East Carolina's 11th Place finish really can't be considered surprising or disappointing. Got it.

South Florida as most surprising. They were expected to be a bottom feeder this year and into perpetuity but competed in almost every game and had a nice season and importantly a bright future.

(03-11-2019 08:30 AM)TIGERCITY Wrote: [ -> ]So I guess East Carolina's 11th Place finish really can't be considered surprising or disappointing. Got it.

They were disappointing in that they finished sub-250 in NET.

The only surprise with them was that they beat Cincy.

Otherwise they pretty much met expectations with regards to how they competed against the rest of the league.

USF is the most surprising AAC team because nearly all the media picked them to finish last.

SMU is the most disappointing team when measured by media predictions. UConn's injuries slowed their performance.

uconn isnt disappointing, they lost their best 2 players and were still playing some good basketball at the end of the season..

its easily smu, they were predicted 7 by the coaches, but hyped up by certain media folks....they predicted 3rd/4th by their fans...and once attacked me for saying they would finish 5th or 6th..and i mean the smu fans were insulting me like crazy for saying that

they lost foster a little bit but foster alone wasnt going to magically make this team not bad...

usf has to be the most surprising....it even caught their fans off-guard

houston isnt a suprise for anyone who followed houston, even before last season season ended sampson has been saying this season would be better .... the people saying houston would be worse are outside people who really only knew gray and thought we'd take a big hit becuase he left or people looking for a reason for us to be bad

same thing will happen next year when we lose corey and galen..tigermanic has already said houston won make the tourney next year..and justin already stated houston wont be anywhere close to this good next year..and to "enjoy it while it last"..even though sampson has said he is extremely confident in next years team

(03-11-2019 09:44 AM)pesik Wrote: [ -> ]usf has to be the most surprising....it even caught their fans off-guard

houston isnt a suprise for anyone who followed houston, even before last season season ended sampson has been saying this season would be better .... the people saying houston would be worse are outside people who really only knew gray and thought we'd take a big hit becuase he left or people looking for a reason for us to be bad

same thing will happen next year when we lose corey and galen..tigermanic has already said houston won make the tourney next year..and justin already stated houston wont be anywhere close to this good next year..and to "enjoy it while it last"..even though sampson has said he is extremely confident in next years team

Houston doesn't need to as good next year as they were this year, they just need to make the NCAA tournament again and keep doing that...

Biggest surprise USF...
Biggest disappointment TULANE, a complete train wreck

(03-11-2019 09:44 AM)pesik Wrote: [ -> ]same thing will happen next year when we lose corey and galen..tigermanic has already said houston won make the tourney next year..and justin already stated houston wont be anywhere close to this good next year..and to "enjoy it while it last"..even though sampson has said he is extremely confident in next years team

Yep. We'll miss Corey and Galen's leadership next year early, but the talent level on next year's team should be higher. Sampson will still have a 10/11 man rotation.

(03-11-2019 09:44 AM)pesik Wrote: [ -> ]usf has to be the most surprising....it even caught their fans off-guard

houston isnt a suprise for anyone who followed houston, even before last season season ended sampson has been saying this season would be better .... the people saying houston would be worse are outside people who really only knew gray and thought we'd take a big hit becuase he left or people looking for a reason for us to be bad

same thing will happen next year when we lose corey and galen..tigermanic has already said houston won make the tourney next year..and justin already stated houston wont be anywhere close to this good next year..and to "enjoy it while it last"..even though sampson has said he is extremely confident in next years team

I feel like the same stuff is said every year about Houston. We lose Dot, UH won’t be good. We lose Rob Gray and Devin Davis, UH won’t be good. We’ll lose Corey Davis and Galen Robinson, UH won’t be good. I actually think we’ll be better next year than we were this year. Just thinking about another year of growth for Dejon Jarreau and Nate Hinton puts a really big smile on my face. Those two along with Armoni Brooks and Caleb Mills gives us the best guard rotation in the conference. It’s going to be a lot of fun next season.

So dramatic. Someone actually said UH “wouldn’t be any good” this season? That seems unlikely as you guys were predicted to be one of the top teams in the conference by most publications.

I doubt many thought you’d have 2 losses at this point in the season, but “not any good”? Nah.

(03-11-2019 10:44 AM)cscottl1981 Wrote: [ -> ]So dramatic. Someone actually said UH “wouldn’t be any good” this season? That seems unlikely as you guys were predicted to be one of the top teams in the conference by most publications.

I doubt many thought you’d have 2 losses at this point in the season, but “not any good”? Nah.

Making it to the tourney is my definition of “good”. If someone says we are going to miss out on the dance then we’re not very good. We won’t be missing any more tourneys.

(03-11-2019 08:52 AM)Tiger1983 Wrote: [ -> ]USF is the most surprising ACC team because nearly all the media picked them to finish last.

I would be surprised too if I found out I changed conferences mid-season!

(03-11-2019 09:44 AM)pesik Wrote: [ -> ]usf has to be the most surprising....it even caught their fans off-guard

I don't know that I'd say we were completely caught off guard. A bunch of us said we'd be improved and wouldn't finish last. Here's just one I found:

(10-26-2018 03:20 PM)usffan Wrote: [ -> ]

(10-26-2018 02:58 PM)HuskyU Wrote: [ -> ]

(10-26-2018 02:53 PM)usffan Wrote: [ -> ]

(10-24-2018 07:30 PM)Bearcats#1 Wrote: [ -> ]I see the AAC looking like this:

UC: NCAA
UH: NCAA
UCF: NCAA
UCONN: NCAA
SMU: NIT
Wichita State: NIT
Memphis: NIT
_________________________

Temple -CBI
Tulsa - CIT
Tulane -sucking less, but train wreck
ECU -close to 20 losses, train wreck
USF -probably 20 losses, train wreck

You clearly haven't looked at our schedule...



USFFan

But he did. Sadly, USF Basketball is the equivalent of UCONN Football.

Can't argue much, but turning around from a disaster hire (Diaco/Antigua) can be accomplished a lot faster in basketball. With that schedule, USF is at least 3 games better than last year, which avoids us hanging a 20-burger. I won't be shocked if we're .500 overall this season.

USFFan

The future looks much rosier going into next season than this one, though I expect the schedule to get tougher (both in conference and out) such that our record might not reflect it. If you look at it, we finished 0-7 vs. the top 4 seeds in the tourney, 2-1 vs. the middle third and 6-2 vs. the bottom 4 seeds. I suspect we'll have home/homes with Wichita and Memphis next year, both of whom should be greatly improved. No telling who we'll only play once.

USFFan

Memphis wasn't the biggest surprise, but a bit of one. Picked 8th, finished 5th.

(03-11-2019 10:50 AM)Joprior23 Wrote: [ -> ]

(03-11-2019 10:44 AM)cscottl1981 Wrote: [ -> ]So dramatic. Someone actually said UH “wouldn’t be any good” this season? That seems unlikely as you guys were predicted to be one of the top teams in the conference by most publications.

I doubt many thought you’d have 2 losses at this point in the season, but “not any good”? Nah.

Making it to the tourney is my definition of “good”. If someone says we are going to miss out on the dance then we’re not very good. We won’t be missing any more tourneys.

Which is the point I was making. Who didn’t think you guys would make the tournament? Seems like that group would have been a very small minority.

(03-11-2019 11:55 AM)cscottl1981 Wrote: [ -> ]

(03-11-2019 10:50 AM)Joprior23 Wrote: [ -> ]

(03-11-2019 10:44 AM)cscottl1981 Wrote: [ -> ]So dramatic. Someone actually said UH “wouldn’t be any good” this season? That seems unlikely as you guys were predicted to be one of the top teams in the conference by most publications.

I doubt many thought you’d have 2 losses at this point in the season, but “not any good”? Nah.

Making it to the tourney is my definition of “good”. If someone says we are going to miss out on the dance then we’re not very good. We won’t be missing any more tourneys.

Which is the point I was making. Who didn’t think you guys would make the tournament? Seems like that group would have been a very small minority.

more like the majority ...we didnt get a single preseason top 25 vote
we werent in any preseason bracketology
here is one
http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketb...ration/125

but in the forum early offseason, it was the same here too..the consensus was that rob carried us ..pesik being super annoying stating why houston would be good, had it changed by late offseason ..lets not make it seem like anyone naturally thought we'd be good

i remember having numerous debates early offseason about why galen is good, despite not having great stats
and i remember a different debate started by memphis fans that "houston fans see corey davis a lot different than the rest of us" when we said he could step in and take a lot of robs roles and is very good

The school from Kansas turned out to be pretty surprising. They have improved since the beginning of the season. They may beat Temple in the AAC tourney. I did vote Temple as the most surprising. Did not think Dunphy had it in him.

UCONN disappointed me the most. I thought Hurley could work magic and 20+ wins. They have played hard with no quit through most of the season.

Tulane fell off the map. Are they still in the conference or did we kick them out?