(03-01-2023 04:07 PM)namrag Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 08:48 AM)skyblade Wrote:  

(02-28-2023 09:51 PM)namrag Wrote:  If you bring in 4-stars and coach has them behind guys like MAW and JD, then either they aren’t legit 4-stars, or you aren’t going to see any more 4-stars coming our way.

Fans consistently live in this dream world where 4-star freshmen are instant stars. That's not reality, here or on other teams. Most instant impact freshmen are 5-stars and there aren't many of them. Even 4-star guys generally take time, sure there are exceptions, but in general it's at best 50/50 if you can rely on a freshman to play major minutes, much less start.

Bet on the guys who have years of experience in the system and a full off-season to develop to be the major minute getters. Plus maybe one or two of the new guys and you won't often be wrong.

The advanced statistics are pretty good this year. Same guy syndrome will make us a top 50 kenpom team next year as long as they continue to develop. I'm okay with that. Kick them out and add a bunch of new guys and the odds that we will get much worse are much better than the odds that we improve significantly.

I do not think it is a "dream world" to think that 4-star talent would be superior to 4 year old JD and MAW talent. Both MAW and JD have plateaued. I give Coach credit in that it seems he has reeled in JD to make him more effective (or maybe less damaging) this year. But JD's stats such as FG% and 3PT% are what they are. MAW's assists and points are what they are.

And where did I say that I would expect 4-star freshman to be "instant stars" and "impact freshman"? I did not.

There is a significant amount of real estate between MAW/JD and "instant stars" that elite talent freshman could live in.

(03-01-2023 04:45 PM)skyblade Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 04:07 PM)namrag Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 08:48 AM)skyblade Wrote:  

(02-28-2023 09:51 PM)namrag Wrote:  If you bring in 4-stars and coach has them behind guys like MAW and JD, then either they aren’t legit 4-stars, or you aren’t going to see any more 4-stars coming our way.

Fans consistently live in this dream world where 4-star freshmen are instant stars. That's not reality, here or on other teams. Most instant impact freshmen are 5-stars and there aren't many of them. Even 4-star guys generally take time, sure there are exceptions, but in general it's at best 50/50 if you can rely on a freshman to play major minutes, much less start.

Bet on the guys who have years of experience in the system and a full off-season to develop to be the major minute getters. Plus maybe one or two of the new guys and you won't often be wrong.

The advanced statistics are pretty good this year. Same guy syndrome will make us a top 50 kenpom team next year as long as they continue to develop. I'm okay with that. Kick them out and add a bunch of new guys and the odds that we will get much worse are much better than the odds that we improve significantly.

I do not think it is a "dream world" to think that 4-star talent would be superior to 4 year old JD and MAW talent. Both MAW and JD have plateaued. I give Coach credit in that it seems he has reeled in JD to make him more effective (or maybe less damaging) this year. But JD's stats such as FG% and 3PT% are what they are. MAW's assists and points are what they are.

And where did I say that I would expect 4-star freshman to be "instant stars" and "impact freshman"? I did not.

There is a significant amount of real estate between MAW/JD and "instant stars" that elite talent freshman could live in.

A freshman who isn't an instant star isn't starting ahead of MAW.

A reliable, veteran 5th year PG isn't going to be easy to unseat. MAW is the clear favorite to be our starting PG next year if he returns. If Jizzle excels he may be able to take the role by mid-year.

Even JD isn't going to be as easy to unseat as some think. Sure it would be nice for him to be a 10-15 minute bench guy next year, but transfers, Juco's and freshmen are not nearly as reliable to quickly contribute as many make them out to be. It takes time to adjust to the higher level of play (if they ever do) and to clean up areas of play where a player is lacking. It closer to a 50/50 prospect than a sure thing that they will even be significant contributors in year one.

Look at this year, one of our three freshmen is a quality contributor and even he is nowhere near to being a polished product yet. One of our transfers worked out (Nolley), one bombed (Kalu) and one we'll never know what he could have been because of injuries.

(03-01-2023 04:59 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 04:45 PM)skyblade Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 04:07 PM)namrag Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 08:48 AM)skyblade Wrote:  

(02-28-2023 09:51 PM)namrag Wrote:  If you bring in 4-stars and coach has them behind guys like MAW and JD, then either they aren’t legit 4-stars, or you aren’t going to see any more 4-stars coming our way.

Fans consistently live in this dream world where 4-star freshmen are instant stars. That's not reality, here or on other teams. Most instant impact freshmen are 5-stars and there aren't many of them. Even 4-star guys generally take time, sure there are exceptions, but in general it's at best 50/50 if you can rely on a freshman to play major minutes, much less start.

Bet on the guys who have years of experience in the system and a full off-season to develop to be the major minute getters. Plus maybe one or two of the new guys and you won't often be wrong.

The advanced statistics are pretty good this year. Same guy syndrome will make us a top 50 kenpom team next year as long as they continue to develop. I'm okay with that. Kick them out and add a bunch of new guys and the odds that we will get much worse are much better than the odds that we improve significantly.

I do not think it is a "dream world" to think that 4-star talent would be superior to 4 year old JD and MAW talent. Both MAW and JD have plateaued. I give Coach credit in that it seems he has reeled in JD to make him more effective (or maybe less damaging) this year. But JD's stats such as FG% and 3PT% are what they are. MAW's assists and points are what they are.

And where did I say that I would expect 4-star freshman to be "instant stars" and "impact freshman"? I did not.

There is a significant amount of real estate between MAW/JD and "instant stars" that elite talent freshman could live in.

A freshman who isn't an instant star isn't starting ahead of MAW.

A reliable, veteran 5th year PG isn't going to be easy to unseat. MAW is the clear favorite to be our starting PG next year if he returns. If Jizzle excels he may be able to take the role by mid-year.

Even JD isn't going to be as easy to unseat as some think. Sure it would be nice for him to be a 10-15 minute bench guy next year, but transfers, Juco's and freshmen are not nearly as reliable to quickly contribute as many make them out to be. It takes time to adjust to the higher level of play (if they ever do) and to clean up areas of play where a player is lacking. It closer to a 50/50 prospect than a sure thing that they will even be significant contributors in year one.

Look at this year, one of our three freshmen is a quality contributor and even he is nowhere near to being a polished product yet. One of our transfers worked out (Nolley), one bombed (Kalu) and one we'll never know what he could have been because of injuries.

You're forgetting about the other PG we have coming in, the JUCO DaVeon Thomas.

(03-01-2023 03:54 PM)Cataclysmo Wrote:  Winning and losing is the ultimate goal but it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Not even sure what "finish strong" means if not playing well, given our record over the next few weeks absolutely doesn't matter. Next year a 19 win season will probably be considered rather impressive. In either case, the win/losses require context like any other sport.

(03-01-2023 07:08 PM)bearcatmark Wrote:  Finish strong by winning the next 10

(03-01-2023 11:04 AM)bearcatmark Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 10:50 AM)bcat1997 Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 08:48 AM)skyblade Wrote:  

(02-28-2023 09:51 PM)namrag Wrote:  If you bring in 4-stars and coach has them behind guys like MAW and JD, then either they aren’t legit 4-stars, or you aren’t going to see any more 4-stars coming our way.

Fans consistently live in this dream world where 4-star freshmen are instant stars. That's not reality, here or on other teams. Most instant impact freshmen are 5-stars and there aren't many of them. Even 4-star guys generally take time, sure there are exceptions, but in general it's at best 50/50 if you can rely on a freshman to play major minutes, much less start.

Bet on the guys who have years of experience in the system and a full off-season to develop to be the major minute getters. Plus maybe one or two of the new guys and you won't often be wrong.

The advanced statistics are pretty good this year. Same guy syndrome will make us a top 50 kenpom team next year as long as they continue to develop. I'm okay with that. Kick them out and add a bunch of new guys and the odds that we will get much worse are much better than the odds that we improve significantly.

You have to throw out the advanced statistics this year. They are just being propped up by blowing out bad teams. We have not beat anyone good all year. If MAW and Davenport are slogging large number of minutes next year it will be a blood bath.

This just isn't the case. Looking at Barttorvik game scores... our worst rated performance was against OSU, but our second worst rated performance was against NKU. Both were REALLY bad. They were what you'd expect a team in the 8 percentile and 15 percentile of teams to perform. At Temple was the only other game where UC performed worse than an average team would be expected to.



Our less bad, but still not great performances were at Temple, home against Xavier, home Memphis and at ECU, home against Houston. (UC performed like a 44-61 percentile team in those games). UC should no be performing like an average team.

Our best performances were: At Houston, Home ECU and at South Florida. So our very best performance was against the number one team in the country. In those games we performed like you'd expect a team in the 97th percentile to perform (Essentially a top 10 team).

Every other game we performed between 71st percentile and 94th percentile. And those games run the gammot from EKU to at Memphis to both UCF games.

UC isn't running up its rankings against bad teams. It's performances are pretty independent of caliber of team. Sometimes they play well against good teams, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they play great against bad teams, sometimes they don;t.

(03-02-2023 12:21 AM)bcat1997 Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 11:04 AM)bearcatmark Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 10:50 AM)bcat1997 Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 08:48 AM)skyblade Wrote:  

(02-28-2023 09:51 PM)namrag Wrote:  If you bring in 4-stars and coach has them behind guys like MAW and JD, then either they aren’t legit 4-stars, or you aren’t going to see any more 4-stars coming our way.

Fans consistently live in this dream world where 4-star freshmen are instant stars. That's not reality, here or on other teams. Most instant impact freshmen are 5-stars and there aren't many of them. Even 4-star guys generally take time, sure there are exceptions, but in general it's at best 50/50 if you can rely on a freshman to play major minutes, much less start.

Bet on the guys who have years of experience in the system and a full off-season to develop to be the major minute getters. Plus maybe one or two of the new guys and you won't often be wrong.

The advanced statistics are pretty good this year. Same guy syndrome will make us a top 50 kenpom team next year as long as they continue to develop. I'm okay with that. Kick them out and add a bunch of new guys and the odds that we will get much worse are much better than the odds that we improve significantly.

You have to throw out the advanced statistics this year. They are just being propped up by blowing out bad teams. We have not beat anyone good all year. If MAW and Davenport are slogging large number of minutes next year it will be a blood bath.

This just isn't the case. Looking at Barttorvik game scores... our worst rated performance was against OSU, but our second worst rated performance was against NKU. Both were REALLY bad. They were what you'd expect a team in the 8 percentile and 15 percentile of teams to perform. At Temple was the only other game where UC performed worse than an average team would be expected to.



Our less bad, but still not great performances were at Temple, home against Xavier, home Memphis and at ECU, home against Houston. (UC performed like a 44-61 percentile team in those games). UC should no be performing like an average team.

Our best performances were: At Houston, Home ECU and at South Florida. So our very best performance was against the number one team in the country. In those games we performed like you'd expect a team in the 97th percentile to perform (Essentially a top 10 team).

Every other game we performed between 71st percentile and 94th percentile. And those games run the gammot from EKU to at Memphis to both UCF games.

UC isn't running up its rankings against bad teams. It's performances are pretty independent of caliber of team. Sometimes they play well against good teams, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they play great against bad teams, sometimes they don;t.

I just don't see it this way. The good teams they played Ariz, OSU, X, Houston x 2, Memphis x 2...rating was avg 60. All games total rating 76.

(03-02-2023 06:45 AM)bearcatmark Wrote:  

(03-02-2023 12:21 AM)bcat1997 Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 11:04 AM)bearcatmark Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 10:50 AM)bcat1997 Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 08:48 AM)skyblade Wrote:  Fans consistently live in this dream world where 4-star freshmen are instant stars. That's not reality, here or on other teams. Most instant impact freshmen are 5-stars and there aren't many of them. Even 4-star guys generally take time, sure there are exceptions, but in general it's at best 50/50 if you can rely on a freshman to play major minutes, much less start.

Bet on the guys who have years of experience in the system and a full off-season to develop to be the major minute getters. Plus maybe one or two of the new guys and you won't often be wrong.

The advanced statistics are pretty good this year. Same guy syndrome will make us a top 50 kenpom team next year as long as they continue to develop. I'm okay with that. Kick them out and add a bunch of new guys and the odds that we will get much worse are much better than the odds that we improve significantly.

You have to throw out the advanced statistics this year. They are just being propped up by blowing out bad teams. We have not beat anyone good all year. If MAW and Davenport are slogging large number of minutes next year it will be a blood bath.

This just isn't the case. Looking at Barttorvik game scores... our worst rated performance was against OSU, but our second worst rated performance was against NKU. Both were REALLY bad. They were what you'd expect a team in the 8 percentile and 15 percentile of teams to perform. At Temple was the only other game where UC performed worse than an average team would be expected to.



Our less bad, but still not great performances were at Temple, home against Xavier, home Memphis and at ECU, home against Houston. (UC performed like a 44-61 percentile team in those games). UC should no be performing like an average team.

Our best performances were: At Houston, Home ECU and at South Florida. So our very best performance was against the number one team in the country. In those games we performed like you'd expect a team in the 97th percentile to perform (Essentially a top 10 team).

Every other game we performed between 71st percentile and 94th percentile. And those games run the gammot from EKU to at Memphis to both UCF games.

UC isn't running up its rankings against bad teams. It's performances are pretty independent of caliber of team. Sometimes they play well against good teams, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they play great against bad teams, sometimes they don;t.

I just don't see it this way. The good teams they played Ariz, OSU, X, Houston x 2, Memphis x 2...rating was avg 60. All games total rating 76.

The osu game is such an outler if you're only going to include those as good teams. Also why is osu good but ucf isn't?

(03-02-2023 09:05 AM)bcat1997 Wrote:  Tulane got smoked by ECU last night...they are only 1/2 game up on us for 3rd right now. Who has the tiebreaker between us? They have beat Memphis...does that give them the nod?

(03-02-2023 06:45 AM)bearcatmark Wrote:  

(03-02-2023 12:21 AM)bcat1997 Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 11:04 AM)bearcatmark Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 10:50 AM)bcat1997 Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 08:48 AM)skyblade Wrote:  Fans consistently live in this dream world where 4-star freshmen are instant stars. That's not reality, here or on other teams. Most instant impact freshmen are 5-stars and there aren't many of them. Even 4-star guys generally take time, sure there are exceptions, but in general it's at best 50/50 if you can rely on a freshman to play major minutes, much less start.

Bet on the guys who have years of experience in the system and a full off-season to develop to be the major minute getters. Plus maybe one or two of the new guys and you won't often be wrong.

The advanced statistics are pretty good this year. Same guy syndrome will make us a top 50 kenpom team next year as long as they continue to develop. I'm okay with that. Kick them out and add a bunch of new guys and the odds that we will get much worse are much better than the odds that we improve significantly.

You have to throw out the advanced statistics this year. They are just being propped up by blowing out bad teams. We have not beat anyone good all year. If MAW and Davenport are slogging large number of minutes next year it will be a blood bath.

This just isn't the case. Looking at Barttorvik game scores... our worst rated performance was against OSU, but our second worst rated performance was against NKU. Both were REALLY bad. They were what you'd expect a team in the 8 percentile and 15 percentile of teams to perform. At Temple was the only other game where UC performed worse than an average team would be expected to.



Our less bad, but still not great performances were at Temple, home against Xavier, home Memphis and at ECU, home against Houston. (UC performed like a 44-61 percentile team in those games). UC should no be performing like an average team.

Our best performances were: At Houston, Home ECU and at South Florida. So our very best performance was against the number one team in the country. In those games we performed like you'd expect a team in the 97th percentile to perform (Essentially a top 10 team).

Every other game we performed between 71st percentile and 94th percentile. And those games run the gammot from EKU to at Memphis to both UCF games.

UC isn't running up its rankings against bad teams. It's performances are pretty independent of caliber of team. Sometimes they play well against good teams, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they play great against bad teams, sometimes they don;t.

I just don't see it this way. The good teams they played Ariz, OSU, X, Houston x 2, Memphis x 2...rating was avg 60. All games total rating 76.

The osu game is such an outler if you're only going to include those as good teams. Also why is osu good but ucf isn't?

(03-02-2023 10:22 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  Our biggest scalp of the year was what...Tulane at home?

Should we look at metrics to explain how that's not terrible?

Sometimes analog evaluation works just fine.

(03-02-2023 09:05 AM)bcat1997 Wrote:  Tulane got smoked by ECU last night...they are only 1/2 game up on us for 3rd right now. Who has the tiebreaker between us? They have beat Memphis...does that give them the nod?

(03-01-2023 04:45 PM)skyblade Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 04:07 PM)namrag Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 08:48 AM)skyblade Wrote:  

(02-28-2023 09:51 PM)namrag Wrote:  If you bring in 4-stars and coach has them behind guys like MAW and JD, then either they aren’t legit 4-stars, or you aren’t going to see any more 4-stars coming our way.

Fans consistently live in this dream world where 4-star freshmen are instant stars. That's not reality, here or on other teams. Most instant impact freshmen are 5-stars and there aren't many of them. Even 4-star guys generally take time, sure there are exceptions, but in general it's at best 50/50 if you can rely on a freshman to play major minutes, much less start.

Bet on the guys who have years of experience in the system and a full off-season to develop to be the major minute getters. Plus maybe one or two of the new guys and you won't often be wrong.

The advanced statistics are pretty good this year. Same guy syndrome will make us a top 50 kenpom team next year as long as they continue to develop. I'm okay with that. Kick them out and add a bunch of new guys and the odds that we will get much worse are much better than the odds that we improve significantly.

I do not think it is a "dream world" to think that 4-star talent would be superior to 4 year old JD and MAW talent. Both MAW and JD have plateaued. I give Coach credit in that it seems he has reeled in JD to make him more effective (or maybe less damaging) this year. But JD's stats such as FG% and 3PT% are what they are. MAW's assists and points are what they are.

And where did I say that I would expect 4-star freshman to be "instant stars" and "impact freshman"? I did not.

There is a significant amount of real estate between MAW/JD and "instant stars" that elite talent freshman could live in.

A freshman who isn't an instant star isn't starting ahead of MAW.

A reliable, veteran 5th year PG isn't going to be easy to unseat. MAW is the clear favorite to be our starting PG next year if he returns. If Jizzle excels he may be able to take the role by mid-year.

Even JD isn't going to be as easy to unseat as some think. Sure it would be nice for him to be a 10-15 minute bench guy next year, but transfers, Juco's and freshmen are not nearly as reliable to quickly contribute as many make them out to be. It takes time to adjust to the higher level of play (if they ever do) and to clean up areas of play where a player is lacking. It closer to a 50/50 prospect than a sure thing that they will even be significant contributors in year one.

Look at this year, one of our three freshmen is a quality contributor and even he is nowhere near to being a polished product yet. One of our transfers worked out (Nolley), one bombed (Kalu) and one we'll never know what he could have been because of injuries.

(03-02-2023 10:51 AM)namrag Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 04:45 PM)skyblade Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 04:07 PM)namrag Wrote:  

(03-01-2023 08:48 AM)skyblade Wrote:  

(02-28-2023 09:51 PM)namrag Wrote:  If you bring in 4-stars and coach has them behind guys like MAW and JD, then either they aren’t legit 4-stars, or you aren’t going to see any more 4-stars coming our way.

Fans consistently live in this dream world where 4-star freshmen are instant stars. That's not reality, here or on other teams. Most instant impact freshmen are 5-stars and there aren't many of them. Even 4-star guys generally take time, sure there are exceptions, but in general it's at best 50/50 if you can rely on a freshman to play major minutes, much less start.

Bet on the guys who have years of experience in the system and a full off-season to develop to be the major minute getters. Plus maybe one or two of the new guys and you won't often be wrong.

The advanced statistics are pretty good this year. Same guy syndrome will make us a top 50 kenpom team next year as long as they continue to develop. I'm okay with that. Kick them out and add a bunch of new guys and the odds that we will get much worse are much better than the odds that we improve significantly.

I do not think it is a "dream world" to think that 4-star talent would be superior to 4 year old JD and MAW talent. Both MAW and JD have plateaued. I give Coach credit in that it seems he has reeled in JD to make him more effective (or maybe less damaging) this year. But JD's stats such as FG% and 3PT% are what they are. MAW's assists and points are what they are.

And where did I say that I would expect 4-star freshman to be "instant stars" and "impact freshman"? I did not.

There is a significant amount of real estate between MAW/JD and "instant stars" that elite talent freshman could live in.

A freshman who isn't an instant star isn't starting ahead of MAW.

A reliable, veteran 5th year PG isn't going to be easy to unseat. MAW is the clear favorite to be our starting PG next year if he returns. If Jizzle excels he may be able to take the role by mid-year.

Even JD isn't going to be as easy to unseat as some think. Sure it would be nice for him to be a 10-15 minute bench guy next year, but transfers, Juco's and freshmen are not nearly as reliable to quickly contribute as many make them out to be. It takes time to adjust to the higher level of play (if they ever do) and to clean up areas of play where a player is lacking. It closer to a 50/50 prospect than a sure thing that they will even be significant contributors in year one.

Look at this year, one of our three freshmen is a quality contributor and even he is nowhere near to being a polished product yet. One of our transfers worked out (Nolley), one bombed (Kalu) and one we'll never know what he could have been because of injuries.

I think our opinions are closer than they are opposing.
I appreciate your more nuanced insight.
Some of my opinion may be influenced by frustration, and the aggravation of another season of significant minutes going to guys who we know aren’t going to get this program where we hope it can can be.
It’s frustrating to think that this season isn’t even over, yet it’s most likely that next season will be more of the same (meaning more of players that have been here 4 seasons already, and as much as i am sure are good guys and love the program, don’t have it in them to elevate the program any further than where it is now).

I have to add, though, Jizzle and Rayvon are both ranked at a higher level than any of our current freshman were. It’s fair to expect that top-50 guys should be able to earn significant minutes as freshman. It’s not like they are coming to a program filled with upper classmen who were elite coming out of high school.

(03-01-2023 06:23 PM)natibeast2.0 Wrote:  Well you’ve made it clear wins/losses and record don’t matter and it’s all just how you perceive the team to be that does so I guess sure then the rest of the year doesn’t matter. Says the person that wins don’t exist in a vacuum. Well take out the analytics part and add in the human part of emotion and confidence going into next year then. It 100% matters how they finish for the players, coaches, and fanbase excitement going into next season.