Putting your 2022-23 expectations out there

Wet_Blanket_Guy

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It may surprise many of you, but I am not an unrealistic fan who thought we would get to the top half of the big ten this year. In starting this thread, I want to make it crystal clear in what my expectations were / are for this program for this season along with providing the opportunity for many others (clearly we have differing opinions out there) to state what they expected for this season.

In making my expectations crystal clear, I break it down into two categories; non-conference and B10.

Non-Conference:
  • Cream-Puffs: (current KenPom ranking as of 1/2/2023):
    • St. Francis Brooklyn #339 (6-7 overall) WON 72-54 - margin of victory 18 points
    • Western Michigan #310 (4-9 overall) WON 61-60 - margin of victory 1 point
    • Cal Baptist #176 (8-7 overall) WON 62-61 - margin of victory 1 point
    • Arkansas Pine Bluff #355 (4-9) WON 72-56 - margin of victory 16 points
    • Chicago State #314 (3-14 overall) WON 58-55 - margin of victory 3 points
    • Central Michigan #270 (5-8 overall) WON 68-60 - margin of victory 8 points
(total cream-puff margin of victory 47 - but if you take away St. Francis and Arkansas Pine Bluff, it is only it is only a margin of 13 points over 4 games against this competition. Average KenPom rating of all 6 is 294. Without St. Francis and Ark Pine Bluff it is 268.
  • Potential Winnable Games:
    • DePaul #144 (7-8 overall) LOST 69-53 - margin of defeat 16 points
    • UNLV #84 (11-3 overall) LOST 71-62 - margin of defeat 9 points*
(Potential Winnable Games margin - 25 points *and UNLV was much bigger until the final few minutes when they were playing backups)
  • Really Tough Opponents (really looking for moral victory):
    • Virginia Tech #30 (11-3 overall) LOST 67-57 - margin of defeat 10 points*
    • Mississippi State #39 (11-2 overall) LOST 69-51 - margin of defeat 18 points
(Really Tough Opponents margin -28 *Va Tech was much bigger but we pressed their backups for the last few minutes when we were down by 16+ points)

TOTAL NON-CONFERENCE MARGIN -6 points | average Non-Conference KENPOM 206

Big10:
  • Michigan #47 (8-5 overall) LOST 90-75 - margin of defeat 15 points
  • Purdue #5 (13-0 overall) LOST 89-70 - margin of defeat 15 points
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In non-conference, my expectations were:
  • To go 5-0 against the cream-puffs (which we did) *expectations would've been 6-0 (and I fully expect we would've defeated Alcorn State). But my expectation would've been to see the depth of a B10 team (even though many on this site argue we are young *we are still a B10 team competing against much lower talent levels who should have maybe 1 or two players max who can compete) exert their will on these teams.
  • Be within a margin of +/- 8 points on the Potentially Winnable Games (DePaul and UNLV) -
    • DePaul has lost to Santa Clara, Oklahoma State, St John's (19), Duquesne (11), Northwestern (38), Providence (15), Creighton (15)
  • Regarding the Really Tough Opponents, I think the goal margin should've been ~ 16 points (Mississippi State and VaTech both pride themselves on defense and play a slower style, especially MS State. Mississippi state really struggles to score, thus it is much harder for them to run up big margins of victory (yet they did it)

For conference, my expectations for CBJ in his second season are as follows (which uses the below logic to justify it):

Going into the season, I was initially expecting to post a .333% B10 conference winning percentage. And for you that say that is unreasonable, I would counter and say that a record like that would get many coaches fired (lucky for CBJ it is only his second year so he may have time on his side). Also, the gophers have a pre-season ALL BIG TEN nominee in Battle, a former McDonalds All American (who is still slotted on many NBA mock drafts to get drafted in Garcia), and a guard in Cooper (while slow) who has 52 starts at Morehead State and was First Team All Ohio Valley Conference in 2022 (while ranking 7th in the country in assists @ 5.9 per game). Let's not completely say that the cupboard is bare...ok. Do they play some young guys, absolutely, but so does Purdue, who's freshman actually play a higher percentage of minutes compared to the Gopher freshmen.

But after seeing the non-conference and the Big10 teaser (Purdue and Michigan), I get the sense that we really only have shots against Northwestern and Nebraska - and both of these programs have looked really good lately (with the exception of Northwestern getting crushed by Ohio State last night.

My new expectations for full year record: 7 - 25 (6-6 non-conference) (1-19 conference)

The other bad, which we will need to address to hopefully get to .333% winning% in Conference:
  • Team assist to turn over ratio is 1.07 (total assists 172 / total turnovers 161)
  • Team FT % ranked #350 in the country, yet we shoot the 137th most --we will have a few close games in conference and this will make or break us
  • As a team we shoot 20.8 treys a game, yet only shoot 32.9% --> yet our opponents have shot 254 against us while shooting 33.5%

What was everyone else's expectations?
 

I thought we would go about 9-3 and 7-13 or perhaps even 8/9 wins for a .500 or better overall.
Now I think we will go 4-16 in conference- 10-22 overall.
We did get the APB win though!
 


It may surprise many of you, but I am not an unrealistic fan who thought we would get to the top half of the big ten this year. In starting this thread, I want to make it crystal clear in what my expectations were / are for this program for this season along with providing the opportunity for many others (clearly we have differing opinions out there) to state what they expected for this season.
I lose track...is it you or Weather-Guy who's the St. Thomas fan?

Spaulding checked in yesterday as a Marquette fan.

And who was the Michigan State fan again? I'll try to keep it straight from now on.
 

I lose track...is it you or Weather-Guy who's the St. Thomas fan?

Spaulding checked in yesterday as a Marquette fan.

And who was the Michigan State fan again? I'll try to keep it straight from now on.
Went to UST. I know your logic is that unless you go to the U, you can’t be a gopher fan.
 




It may surprise many of you, but I am not an unrealistic fan who thought we would get to the top half of the big ten this year. In starting this thread, I want to make it crystal clear in what my expectations were / are for this program for this season along with providing the opportunity for many others (clearly we have differing opinions out there) to state what they expected for this season.

In making my expectations crystal clear, I break it down into two categories; non-conference and B10.

Non-Conference:
  • Cream-Puffs:(current KenPom ranking as of 1/2/2023):
    • St. Francis Brooklyn #339 (6-7 overall) WON 72-54 - margin of victory 18 points
    • Western Michigan #310 (4-9 overall) WON 61-60 - margin of victory 1 point
    • Cal Baptist #176 (8-7 overall) WON 62-61 - margin of victory 1 point
    • Arkansas Pine Bluff #355 (4-9) WON 72-56 - margin of victory 16 points
    • Chicago State #314 (3-14 overall) WON 58-55 - margin of victory 3 points
    • Central Michigan #270 (5-8 overall) WON 68-60 - margin of victory 8 points
(total cream-puff margin of victory 47 - but if you take away St. Francis and Arkansas Pine Bluff, it is only it is only a margin of 13 points over 4 games against this competition. Average KenPom rating of all 6 is 294. Without St. Francis and Ark Pine Bluff it is 268.
  • Potential Winnable Games:
    • DePaul #144 (7-8 overall) LOST 69-53 - margin of defeat 16 points
    • UNLV #84 (11-3 overall) LOST 71-62 - margin of defeat 9 points*
(Potential Winnable Games margin - 25 points *and UNLV was much bigger until the final few minutes when they were playing backups)
  • Really Tough Opponents(really looking for moral victory):
    • Virginia Tech #30 (11-3 overall) LOST 67-57 - margin of defeat 10 points*
    • Mississippi State #39 (11-2 overall) LOST 69-51 - margin of defeat 18 points
(Really Tough Opponents margin -28 *Va Tech was much bigger but we pressed their backups for the last few minutes when we were down by 16+ points)

TOTAL NON-CONFERENCE MARGIN -6 points | average Non-Conference KENPOM 206

Big10:
  • Michigan #47 (8-5 overall) LOST 90-75 - margin of defeat 15 points
  • Purdue #5 (13-0 overall) LOST 89-70 - margin of defeat 15 points
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In non-conference, my expectations were:
  • To go 5-0 against the cream-puffs (which we did) *expectations would've been 6-0 (and I fully expect we would've defeated Alcorn State). But my expectation would've been to see the depth of a B10 team (even though many on this site argue we are young *we are still a B10 team competing against much lower talent levels who should have maybe 1 or two players max who can compete) exert their will on these teams.
  • Be within a margin of +/- 8 points on the Potentially Winnable Games (DePaul and UNLV) -
    • DePaul has lost to Santa Clara, Oklahoma State, St John's (19), Duquesne (11), Northwestern (38), Providence (15), Creighton (15)
  • Regarding the Really Tough Opponents, I think the goal margin should've been ~ 16 points (Mississippi State and VaTech both pride themselves on defense and play a slower style, especially MS State. Mississippi state really struggles to score, thus it is much harder for them to run up big margins of victory (yet they did it)

For conference, my expectations for CBJ in his second season are as follows (which uses the below logic to justify it):

Going into the season, I was initially expecting to post a .333% B10 conference winning percentage. And for you that say that is unreasonable, I would counter and say that a record like that would get many coaches fired (lucky for CBJ it is only his second year so he may have time on his side). Also, the gophers have a pre-season ALL BIG TEN nominee in Battle, a former McDonalds All American (who is still slotted on many NBA mock drafts to get drafted in Garcia), and a guard in Cooper (while slow) who has 52 starts at Morehead State and was First Team All Ohio Valley Conference in 2022 (while ranking 7th in the country in assists @ 5.9 per game). Let's not completely say that the cupboard is bare...ok. Do they play some young guys, absolutely, but so does Purdue, who's freshman actually play a higher percentage of minutes compared to the Gopher freshmen.

But after seeing the non-conference and the Big10 teaser (Purdue and Michigan), I get the sense that we really only have shots against Northwestern and Nebraska - and both of these programs have looked really good lately (with the exception of Northwestern getting crushed by Ohio State last night.

My new expectations for full year record: 7 - 25 (6-6 non-conference) (1-19 conference)

The other bad, which we will need to address to hopefully get to .333% winning% in Conference:
  • Team assist to turn over ratio is 1.07 (total assists 172 / total turnovers 161)
  • Team FT % ranked #350 in the country, yet we shoot the 137th most --we will have a few close games in conference and this will make or break us
  • As a team we shoot 20.8 treys a game, yet only shoot 32.9% --> yet our opponents have shot 254 against us while shooting 33.5%

What was everyone else's expectations?
Interesting stuff. Thanks for putting it out there.

I’m to the point where I’m just going to (pardon the cliche) look at this one game at a time. Tomorrow night I’m just hoping to see the Gophers legitimately with a chance to win heading into the last 5 minutes. That would be clear progress, no matter how it looks. Generally speaking Wisconsin plays a style that they won’t blow people out, so it seems doable despite our struggles.
 




Interesting stuff. Thanks for putting it out there.

I’m to the point where I’m just going to (pardon the cliche) look at this one game at a time. Tomorrow night I’m just hoping to see the Gophers legitimately with a chance to win heading into the last 5 minutes. That would be clear progress, no matter how it looks. Generally speaking Wisconsin plays a style that they won’t blow people out, so it seems doable despite our struggles.
What is tough about wisco is that being down 7 with 3 minutes to go can be a lot if its 45-38. Not all deficits are the same. Agreed it would be nice to see them be in contention to win though.
 

My expectations were higher than they are now when the season started. I thought Battle, Garcia, transfers and freshman could get to 5 B1G wins and I simply don’t see how that happens now—in part because there aren’t many really bad B1G teams. Projected bottom feeders have surprised minus the Dinkytown Delights who have been pretty shitty.

I’d like to see an identity established on defense and for guys to improve individually and mesh as a team. There is talent but they don’t play together well at times.

Note: I did not attend the University of Minnesota because they told me I was not allowed due to “being very dumb” and “clearly you do not have potential” but I am a lifelong Gophers fan who dislikes every other team they will ever play. Including St Thomas. Hopefully this note keeps me off any no-post lists MNJay is submitting to Liebert and Babu
 

Note: I did not attend the University of Minnesota because they told me I was not allowed due to “being very dumb” and “clearly you do not have potential” but I am a lifelong Gophers fan who dislikes every other team they will ever play. Including St Thomas. Hopefully this note keeps me off any no-post lists MNJay is submitting to Liebert and Babu
I won't name names. But the guy right above your posts is a Marquette fan. And the guy right above him...who just made a decent post...he might be a Minnesota fan (jury is still out) but he likes St. Thomas & Michigan State too.
 




I won't name names. But the guy right above your posts is a Marquette fan. And the guy right above him...who just made a decent post...he might be a Minnesota fan (jury is still out) but he likes St. Thomas & Michigan State too.
Many people like multiple teams. But can still be a fan of a team you like. Did you know many coaches and players have been with other teams? I get your bit but its kinda getting tired.
 




I have here in my hand a list of 205. - J McCarthy
Sometimes I shake my head and hover over the ignore. But Spaulding keeps me coming back for more!

The new positivity promised for 2023 was inspiring to the board but especially me. We appreciate you and what you bring but the ignore is ready for your next repetitive thing.
 
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I have here in my hand a list of 205. - J McCarthy
McCarthy was right. Our government would lock us down permanently if they could get away with it. They're so disgusting that I don't even watch the news anymore...it's all lies & propaganda and a complete waste of time to even talk about.

You won't see me on the political boards because the news is a complete waste of time. So I don't mean to go off topic.
 

I won't name names. But the guy right above your posts is a Marquette fan. And the guy right above him...who just made a decent post...he might be a Minnesota fan (jury is still out) but he likes St. Thomas & Michigan State too.
The best way to know someone is not a Minnesota fan is they actually want them to win. It's easy.
 





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