The Holy Land of Hoops

I'm interested in hearing everyone's high and low expectations for this year. I recall last year a thread about what fans were thinking were best case scenarios and worst case for their respective teams going into the season:

I'll take a stab at Nova:

1). Best Case:
- Repeat as BE reg season champion with a similar conf record.
- Win the BET
- Be consistently ranked in Top 10
- #1 seed
- FF

2). Worst Case:
- Injuries upfront causes Nova to revert to a 4 guard offense again
- Team misses James Bell more than we expect
- Frosh aren't ready to contribute
- Finish 3rd/4th in BE
- Early exit from tourney

The best case for anyone is a national title, so i'll word this differently.

If things go right we'll finish 2nd in the Big East and make it to the BET finals. If things go wrong, we'll finish 7th in the conference and lose in the first round of the BET.

More than likely we'll finish 3rd like last season. It just depends on how many other teams we'll share that spot with.

Best case -
Win the regular season and/or the BET
Advance to the Elite 8

Worse case
Finish 4th in the regular season
early exit in the BET
PIG game exit

xavier1994 wrote:Best case -
Win the regular season and/or the BET
Advance to the Elite 8

Worse case
Finish 4th in the regular season
early exit in the BET
PIG game exit

I am VERY high on this Xavier team and feel very good about finishing top 2 or 3 in the Big East but by what you are saying, the worst case is a PIG loss? I would say NIT isn't entirely out of the question with so many unkonwns.

Not to kind of defeat the purpose of the thread, because I am interested to see a lot of the answers but I think the best case and worst case is pretty much the same for everyone not named Villanova or DePaul (maybe Butler).

Best case: Team gels, nobody gets injured, top 3-4 in the conference, good BET performance and make the Big Dance where hopefully matchups fall in your favor

Worst case: Injuries/suspensions hit the team, team struggles and misses the tourney

Chalmers0 wrote:

xavier1994 wrote:Best case -
Win the regular season and/or the BET
Advance to the Elite 8

Worse case
Finish 4th in the regular season
early exit in the BET
PIG game exit

I am VERY high on this Xavier team and feel very good about finishing top 2 or 3 in the Big East but by what you are saying, the worst case is a PIG loss? I would say NIT is absolutely possibility with so many question marks.

Not to kind of defeat the purpose of the thread, because I am interested to see a lot of the answers but I think the best case and worst case is pretty much the same for everyone not named Villanova or DePaul (maybe Butler).

Best case: Team gels, nobody gets injured, top 3-4 in the conference, good BET performance and make the Big Dance where hopefully matchups fall in your favor

Worst case: Injuries/suspensions hit the team, team struggles and misses the tourney

I'd also say what about the league?

Best case-
2-3 top 25 teams
5 NCAA teams
2 teams make sweet 16 and 1 final 4 team

worst case-
Nova only top 25 team
3 NCAA teams- with 2 in as 10+ seeds.(like last year, except minus Creighton)
Nova gets upset early in tourney and doesn't make sweet 16 even

I would say best case for SJ is finishing 2nd, beating 2 of Gonzaga/Duke/Cuse, and going on to the Sweet 16. That's absolute best case if the upperclassmen really gel and fit together.

Worst case for SJ is having a clueless front court and finishing 7th, missing the tourney, missing the NIT, and getting invited to the CBI possibly. Lavin is fired (assuming we don't get any of the big 3 to commit i.e. Briscoe/Sampson/Diallo in addition).

Marquette:

Best case: Solid young recruits and good players who suffered injuries and bench banishments last year under Buzz flourish. Deonte Burton becomes an All-Big East First or Second team player. Luke Fischer contributes immediately, we score a huge nonconference scalp at home against Wisconsin, and Wojo's Warriors go on an unexpected run to an NCAA Tournament berth.

Worst case: Young players don't develop quickly enough. Bucky walks all over MU, and we leave nonconference with no quality wins, needing a massive Big East Conference season to make the postseason, which doesn't materialize.

Not to stray off-topic, but I notice lots of people are afraid of an early exit if they make the tourney. I think making the tourney itself is an accomplishment. What you do from there is really mostly luck IMO. Maybe the team gels (2011 SJ team gelled and beat tons of top 10 teams out of nowhere), maybe there are favorable match ups (PC didn't have do go through Nova to win the Big East for example), maybe you get red hot late in the season and it carries over to the tourney (UConn), or maybe you just go on a miracle run (Dayton, Davidson, George Mason, FGCU, etc.). That's why it's called March Madness. Sometimes the blue bloods lose right away and the little guys go on huge runs.

The bottom line is that I think it's a law of averages sort of thing. I think a new Big East team is "due" to make a big run…at least 1 if not 2 or more. There is no way all our tourney teams lose right away again. It was just an off year IMO. Some years it's very predictable and the big names do what they are supposed to and some years the big names bow out early i.e. Cuse/Duke.

Best Case:
Big East Regular Season Champs
Big East Tournament Champs
National Title

yes I think they'll be that good that it's in the realm of possibility they win it all.

Worst Case:

4th Place finish in the BE
Early BET loss
PIG or Low seed in the NCAA tournament, First round loss.

hoyahooligan wrote:Best Case:
Big East Regular Season Champs
Big East Tournament Champs
National Title

yes I think they'll be that good that it's in the realm of possibility they win it all.

Worst Case:

4th Place finish in the BE
Early BET loss
PIG or Low seed in the NCAA tournament, First round loss.

Your worst case is actually a likely outcome for the Hoyas.