So what's everyone's thoughts this year?

I'm a little worried with Alvarez out for a lot of the season at min. And we still don't know if Curbelo will get approved to play.

We have some good talent, but the depth worries me. We played good against Mississippi State in the charity game, but once they got tired we collapsed a little.

If Curbelo gets approved I'm predicting we either win the conference or are right in the running till the end. If he isn't though I'm predicting top half of the conference still fun to watch, but won't be able to pull it through to win it. Most of the better teams will probably be in the East so we may luck out there not having to play them twice.

I think we could struggle. Last year was great, but everyone seems to think we'll pick right back up. Replacing Hassee and Pinkney is a big deal. Do we have the players? I doubt it. Hopefully we have players that can absorb some of the loss though.
Nefti getting hurt again sucks big time. The back court was our strength and now we're down one. I like AC a lot, but, hate to admit it, he's a bit overrated. He fell off some at the end of the season last year when we really needed him.
I'm thinking the Cobie and Victor looked pretty good against State. Our season may depend on how good they end up being.

When will we know about Curbelo? The season is here!

Picked up a schedule poster this weekend. I don’t like it (the schedule, not the poster which is cool). The conference didn’t balance it out at all. All of our home games are in February! If you are from out of town that bites.

We've now lost to Akron, Utah Valley, and Cal State Fullerton....Yikes.

Ya we need a Curbelo approval bad. It hurt to have him and Alvarez out of the game. I've seen all these other teams from UNC first (of course) get their approved. To New Mexico. To Louisiana Tech. But, Curbelo is still waiting. I guess their waiting to approve him on April 1rst next year.

(11-22-2023 09:20 AM)Golden Fogg Wrote:  We've now lost to Akron, Utah Valley, and Cal State Fullerton....Yikes.

Add South Dakota St to this list.

Usm has had some of the worst teams in basketball that I've ever witnessed in my life with Doc and Landers teams. THIS, may be the worst in the history of basketball. And we have the preseason Conference Player Of the Year. Think about that.

I've never seen anything like this. Going from most wins ever to most losses ever...AGAIN!

So we’ve only beat 2 NAIA teams. Offensively we’re very bad. We just jack up 3’s yet we don’t have any 3 point shooters. We might want to think about driving the lane.

I’m not too worried just yet. We were already replacing key guys and then lost Alvarez. It may take a bit to get things figured out.

Honestly, we know going in this crap is just going to boil down to 4 days in March so I just can’t bring myself to sweat November.

(11-26-2023 08:59 PM)HarborPointe Wrote:  I’m not too worried just yet. We were already replacing key guys and then lost Alvarez. It may take a bit to get things figured out.

Honestly, we know going in this crap is just going to boil down to 4 days in March so I just can’t bring myself to sweat November.

Yeah, maybe if we had been good for more than last season, but he was horrible, just winning 24 games total in his first 3 years. He's never impressed me. I think last year was a fluke.

(11-28-2023 09:58 AM)Golden Fogg Wrote:  

(11-26-2023 08:59 PM)HarborPointe Wrote:  I’m not too worried just yet. We were already replacing key guys and then lost Alvarez. It may take a bit to get things figured out.

Honestly, we know going in this crap is just going to boil down to 4 days in March so I just can’t bring myself to sweat November.

Yeah, maybe if we had been good for more than last season, but he was horrible, just winning 24 games total in his first 3 years. He's never impressed me. I think last year was a fluke.

The possibility that Ladner just caught lightning in bottle last year and will regress back to his mean looms over us all.

Another impressive outing by the men...Losing to McNeese State 67-48.
When they extended Ladner last year was it for one year or did they extend to a full 4 years?

(12-14-2023 08:49 AM)Golden Fogg Wrote:  Another impressive outing by the men...Losing to McNeese State 67-48.
When they extended Ladner last year was it for one year or did they extend to a full 4 years?

He's through the 26-27 season.. So 3 years when he signed.

(12-14-2023 08:49 AM)Golden Fogg Wrote:  Another impressive outing by the men...Losing to McNeese State 67-48.
When they extended Ladner last year was it for one year or did they extend to a full 4 years?

I thought it was a rolling 1 year extension still?

But ugh.. unless the conference is bad as a whole, we ARE NOT repeating as champs... I swear our entire team moved ilke it was walking in cement for most of the game yesterday.

(12-14-2023 04:50 PM)DaSaintFan Wrote:  

(12-14-2023 08:49 AM)Golden Fogg Wrote:  Another impressive outing by the men...Losing to McNeese State 67-48.
When they extended Ladner last year was it for one year or did they extend to a full 4 years?

I thought it was a rolling 1 year extension still?

But ugh.. unless the conference is bad as a whole, we ARE NOT repeating as champs... I swear our entire team moved ilke it was walking in cement for most of the game yesterday.

This conference is crap in basketball. It's atrociously bad this year. There's 1 decent team with App State. 1 really good team with JMU. We still easily could be the 3rd best team in the Sun Belt this year. Everyone else other than the top 2 in the conference range from below average to

The weakness of the conference is a key ingredient that is overlooked for last year's "break out" season. What would the record have been if we'd still been in CUSA? We'll never know.

I think the Sun Belt was way better last year. There were about 6 decent teams in the Sun Belt last year. This year there will probably be only 2 unless someone goes on a run in conference. It is still early to say for sure, but it does look like there will only be 2 decent teams.

I believe there were 6 teams in the top 150 Net rankings last year. This year there are only 2.

Either way I think it's enough into the season to say the Sun Belt is way worse than last year.

I also think comparisons to conference peers are fair. Just because it's a bad conference doesn't mean we should run through it unless our program is way better than our peers (think Gonzaga). So we absolutely should be compared to the conference. Though it seems the conference as a whole is in a rough spot.

Blown out by an 0-12 Georgia Southern.

(Sigh) most everyone was thinking this guy needed to go, he pulls a rabbit out of his hat and now we’re right back where we started.

Brace yourselves, the tsunami of suck is headed for baseball.