SI Big East preview

[Markedman]

They project MU 5th
http://www.si.com/college-basketball...unn-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?