SI Big East preview

[Markedman]

They project MU 5th
http://www.si.com/college-basketball/2015/10/19/big-east-preview-villanova-georgetown-kris-dunn-providence

[warriorfan4life]

Here is my fairly unscientific guess at this time of the year:

1. Villanova 13-5
2. Georgetown 12-6
T3. Marquette 11-7
T3. Xavier 11-7
T5. Butler 10-8
T5. Providence 10-8
7. Creighton 9-9
8. DePaul 6-12
T9. St. John's 4-14
T9. Seton Hall 4-14

I think there is a big difference between the top seven and bottom three (lack of talent at DePaul, lack of talent and experience at St. John's, and the hot mess of the Kevin Willard/Isaiah Whitehead dynamic at Seton Hall). If the bottom three teams play respectably out of conference and the top seven teams all come into conference play with 3 or fewer losses, it could set up nicely for a 6-7 bid season for the conference. Besides being a huge Kris Dunn fan, I like his complementary parts enough that the Friars return to the NCAA's and could be a dangerous 8-9 type of seed when they get there. The loss of Chukwu (to the freaking ogre Boeheim at Syracuse) curbs their potential, but I still like their overall roster for a good finish in the Big East (much better then the 7-11 projection at SI).

I am also a lot higher on Creighton relative to the CBS projections, the Big East media day vote, and this model. I believe that Maurice Watson and Cole Huff will be impact players, they were terribly unlucky last year in close games (and figure that turns around this season), and had players like James Milliken and Geoffrey Groselle emerge as solid Big East contributions during the latter part of conference play last season. Add in a normal sophomore jump from Toby Hegner and a couple of their newcomers and redshirt wing Ronnie Harrell providing quality depth and you have an NCAA Tournament sleeper.

[Nukem2]

I suspect SHU is going to surprise people. Now that the transfers and graduations have taken place, I suspect this will not be a divided team as the frosh and the upperclassmen obviously did not get along last year. Watch out for SHU. Then again, who knows, but there is definitely talent there.

[warriorfan4life]

I suspect SHU is going to surprise people. Now that the transfers and graduations have taken place, I suspect this will not be a divided team as the frosh and the upperclassmen obviously did not get along last year. Watch out for SHU. Then again, who knows, but there is definitely talent there.

I think that the wrong crew left and the troublemakers (especially Whitehead) are still there rotting the program.

[mufan2003]

Here is my fairly unscientific guess at this time of the year:

1. Villanova 13-5
2. Georgetown 12-6
T3. Marquette 11-7
T3. Xavier 11-7
T5. Butler 10-8
T5. Providence 10-8
7. Creighton 9-9
8. DePaul 6-12
T9. St. John's 4-14
T9. Seton Hall 4-14

I think there is a big difference between the top seven and bottom three (lack of talent at DePaul, lack of talent and experience at St. John's, and the hot mess of the Kevin Willard/Isaiah Whitehead dynamic at Seton Hall). If the bottom three teams play respectably out of conference and the top seven teams all come into conference play with 3 or fewer losses, it could set up nicely for a 6-7 bid season for the conference. Besides being a huge Kris Dunn fan, I like his complementary parts enough that the Friars return to the NCAA's and could be a dangerous 8-9 type of seed when they get there. The loss of Chukwu (to the freaking ogre Boeheim at Syracuse) curbs their potential, but I still like their overall roster for a good finish in the Big East (much better then the 7-11 projection at SI).

I am also a lot higher on Creighton relative to the CBS projections, the Big East media day vote, and this model. I believe that Maurice Watson and Cole Huff will be impact players, they were terribly unlucky last year in close games (and figure that turns around this season), and had players like James Milliken and Geoffrey Groselle emerge as solid Big East contributions during the latter part of conference play last season. Add in a normal sophomore jump from Toby Hegner and a couple of their newcomers and redshirt wing Ronnie Harrell providing quality depth and you have an NCAA Tournament sleeper.

I think that is a solid projection of how the 10 teams finish. I do not think Villanova will be quite as strong as last season, but still should be the favorites. Georgetown, on talent, size, depth and experience...could easily be viewed as the top team. I think MU is in the mix for a #3 or #4 finish dependent upon staying healthy and will finish 11-7. The Italy tour will really benefit this team, allowed MU to form chemistry as a team sooner than others. Ellenson and Fischer are as tall and skilled as any 4/5 combo in the Big East. With the exception of maybe St. John's, there will not be any games where a team can coast to an easy victory. I agree that Creighton may be the surprise team of the conference. 6"10" freshman Justin Patton was nationally ranked in the 20's by Scout. Good depth of bigs with shooters and a good PG in Maurice Watson.

[Nukem2]

I think that the wrong crew left and the troublemakers (especially Whitehead) are still there rotting the program.
We shall see.

[warriorfan4life]

We shall see.

Besides last season's implosion, and Willard's poor track record as a coach (with multiple team mutinies during his time there), what scares me the most is playing Whitehead at PG. He is not a good enough decision maker or facilitator to run an offense, and there is not a facilitator among their other perimeter options (Carrington is a score-first guard and Gordon is frankly not good enough for this level).

[Phantom Warrior]

The writer is an idiot! Either that, or he has not done his homework. Or both.

Does he honestly expect Luke's ppg to drop by two from 11.1 ppg to 9.2 ppg? A year older, a year wiser, no injured shoulder?

He does not even have Traci in his list of top seven scorers for MU, but he does have Matt at over 6 ppg? Did he not check out anything from the Italy trip before writing this? If not, shoddy journalism.

Conclusion: Lazy or dumb or both

[Cooby Snacks]

The writer is an idiot! Either that, or he has not done his homework. Or both.

Does he honestly expect Luke's ppg to drop by two from 11.1 ppg to 9.2 ppg? A year older, a year wiser, no injured shoulder?

He does not even have Traci in his list of top seven scorers for MU, but he does have Matt at over 6 ppg? Did he not check out anything from the Italy trip before writing this? If not, shoddy journalism.

Conclusion: Lazy or dumb or both

Or, seeing that they're doing this for just about every team, they're putting last year's stats and a general set of assumptions into a formula and simply showing us the results. Neither lazy nor dumb considering the sheer quantity they have to crank out.

[Markedman]

Or, seeing that they're doing this for just about every team, they're putting last year's stats and a general set of assumptions into a formula and simply showing us the results. Neither lazy nor dumb considering the sheer quantity they have to crank out.
I agree.....they say in the first paragraph of the piece they are using a statistical projection model.

What I don't get is what sort of model would predict Heldt playing virtually the same % of available minutes as Luke?

I wonder how good it was last season?

[Cooby Snacks]

I agree.....they say in the first paragraph of the piece they are using a statistical projection model.

What I don't get is what sort of model would predict Heldt playing virtually the same % of available minutes as Luke?

I wonder how good it was last season?

For Luke's minutes, my guess is that they looked at total% of minutes played last year without considering he missed a chunk of games at the start of the season.

With freshmen they're probably looking at recruit rankings and Heldt was pretty highly regarded by a couple of the services. Same goes for their Cheatham projection.

[Phantom Warrior]

Sorry. I'll stick with lazy. This is Sports Illustrated. If they are going to do an article on the Big East, which has a whopping 10 teams, do the damn homework. The writer is getting paid to write these articles. He is supposedly a professional.

I assume this is this writer's primary job, writing for SI. I don't care if he has to produce one article per day five days a week. Do it right. This is just plain shoddy journalism.

As for the model, like I said, Luke is going to score two points per game less this year now that he's had shoulder surgery and is 100%? Traci, who will almost certainly start at point, is not going to be among our top seven scorers? Please.

Scrap the damn model and write something of value.

[TheSultan]

Seriously, are you really getting this pissed off over modeled point projections that weren't even put together by the author you have labelled "lazy?" The author was likely told to write a summary of the conference, and one for each team. He had nothing to do with the statistical projections that were included.

[Nukem2]

Seriously, are you really getting this pissed off over modeled point projections that weren't even put together by the author you have labelled "lazy?" The author was likely told to write a summary of the conference, and one for each team. He had nothing to do with the statistical projections that were included.

That is true. Beginning of article says the statistical model was developed by economist Dan Hanner and SI reporter Luke Winn.

[TheSultan]

Furthermore, *they are projections.* I'm not sure why anyone would think it is "lazy" to suggest Luke might score less. There are more options on the team, so that projection seems reasonable. I think it will turn out to be wrong for the reasons that Phantom stated however.

[Phantom Warrior]

O.K. Maybe the writer simply did what he was told - post the projections based on some model. Then the problem is with SI.

Does anyone on this board really believe that Luke will average around 23 mpg and Matt will average around 19 mpg this season (barring injuries, of course)?

Does anyone on this board really believe that Traci will not be among the top seven in terms of mpg or ppg?

We are two thirds of the way through October; our first game is a little over three weeks away. This is not May or June or even July. If SI wants to publish an article on the Big East, then do it right.

As for the model, if this is what it comes up with, wow!

[TheSultan]

Phantom, read this interview with Hanner, the guy who came up with the model.

http://www.sloansportsconference.com/?p=14701

"One of the key things that I’ve tried to do here is move us from a “returning minutes” situation – where you have one linear regression where you’ve got some outputs on one side and you’ve got a bunch of variables – to really doing what all the other sports do. Project for individual players how they will perform and adding that up to get a team projection."

He acknowledges that college sports are much harder to fit into a model as well.

[Phantom Warrior]

He lost me at "one linear regression."

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

I think that the wrong crew left and the troublemakers (especially Whitehead) are still there rotting the program.

Agreed completely. Driving Gibbs away feels like a huge mistake. That kid played with passion and energy for SHU. Whitehead and Delgado might have talent, but they seem to be the wrong types to build a team around. My guess is that Willard will finally be fired after this year.

[Phantom Warrior]

Not so sure I would lump Delgado in with Whitehead. From a couple of articles I read last year, it seemed that Whitehead and his posse were the big issue off the court, while Whitehead was the major negative issue on the court (forcing shots, not passing, sulking, etc.) I think Delgado is just a hard working kid who gives it his all every minute on the court. Could be wrong, though.