With the expected departure of Dale Layer things are a little drab going into the Big South Tournament. I was thinking about what are our expectations for our men's basketball squad. Granted the Big South really limits the ceiling of what our program can be. But how many wins, our RPI, our NCAA tournament frequency, etc. do you expect for us to achieve to have a successful season?

Just the typical. Instead of 20 loss seasons I would expect 20 win seasons. An occasional conference championship and RPI between 100-150.

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1. Regular 20 win seasons
2. Regular (2 in 4 seasons) conf. tourny and (or) regular season championships
3. Annual RPI higher than 150
4. National schedule, against power conferences, against at least 2 ranked teams a season
5. Ranking in the Top 25 at least twice a decade.

I think Liberty should expect to win at least 20 games a season, with no games against D II competition. Liberty should almost always be in the top 4 of the Big South, and never in the bottom 4. Liberty should win the conference championship and go to the NCAA tournament once in four years. I don't know a "good" RPI for a Big South school but the current 4th best RPI in the Big South is Coastal with 152 so that sounds like a good minimum. I can't imagine a Big South team being ranked in the top 25, or being seeded higher than 8th in the tournament.

I could see a Top 25 team, but it would be built over a decade or so. We will have to play and beat good OOC competition and roll through Big South play on a regular basis. Other teams from small conferences have done it. So can we.

Jeff Barber was quoted in Chris Lang's recent article saying he expects LU to finish in the top two or three in the conference each year. Those are pretty lofty expectations which I am happy about. We need to be better and it starts at the top.