Up Next: Evansville

[Kyle]

Re: Up Next: Evansville

Reasons why 13-14 wins isn't unrealistic:

1) We won 11 games last year in a MUCH tougher MVC.

2) The league replaced CU with Loyola, which almost guarantees another win.

3) We are off to a much better start this year. Last year we dropped our first two home games and were sitting at 1-3.

4) We have already played (BY FAR) our hardest game of the year.

5) Our two wins have been dominating 30 point beat downs.

[9YRPLAN]

Re: Up Next: Evansville

Honestly I didn't even consider the creighton factor. My mind hasn't adjusted to it yet.

[UNIdad]

Re: Up Next: Evansville

Reasons why 13-14 wins isn't unrealistic:

1) We won 11 games last year in a MUCH tougher MVC.

2) The league replaced CU with Loyola, which almost guarantees another win.

3) We are off to a much better start this year. Last year we dropped our first two home games and were sitting at 1-3.

4) We have already played (BY FAR) our hardest game of the year.

5) Our two wins have been dominating 30 point beat downs.

We are capable of winning 14 games . . . until we have lost too many for it to be possible any longer.

What games are "unwinnable?" It is tough to be up for every game and for opponents to be down, but we are certainly capable of winning them all.

[BCPanther]

Re: Up Next: Evansville

Reasons why 13-14 wins isn't unrealistic:

1) We won 11 games last year in a MUCH tougher MVC.

2) The league replaced CU with Loyola, which almost guarantees another win.

3) We are off to a much better start this year. Last year we dropped our first two home games and were sitting at 1-3.

4) We have already played (BY FAR) our hardest game of the year.

5) Our two wins have been dominating 30 point beat downs.

Yep. This is exactly right...

[Hail Our Panthers]

Re: Up Next: Evansville

Real Time RPI fwiw now predicts us to win 12. I believe thats up from 10 before conference play started. I started off the year thinking we were going to go 10-8 or 11-7. 12-6 or 13-5 seems more likely to me now. I don't think we're better then we've been in the last 3 years..I just think the league is so bad. I would be shocked if we got to 14 tho.

http://www.realtimerpi.com/rpi_300_Men.html

[panther-state]

Re: Up Next: Evansville

After Wichita, Indiana St and us the Valley is really down. Drake, Illinois St and Missouri St are kinda mysteries in the middle pack but the rest of the league is bad. Really, really bad.

[UNIGrainer]

Re: Up Next: Evansville

Reasons why 13-14 wins isn't unrealistic:

1) We won 11 games last year in a MUCH tougher MVC.

2) The league replaced CU with Loyola, which almost guarantees another win.

3) We are off to a much better start this year. Last year we dropped our first two home games and were sitting at 1-3.

4) We have already played (BY FAR) our hardest game of the year.

5) Our two wins have been dominating 30 point beat downs.

I didn’t say it was unrealistic, I just think it is too early for that to be the expectation. As in, I think if we only win 11 or 12 games we should not be disappointed. Getting 14 wins in the MVC is very, very tough to do.

I haven’t seen the consistency on the road yet to declare us a team that is going to win 5 or 6 away MVC games, while holding serve at home. We’ve won some lobsided games, and we played decent at Wichita, and that is awesome. But we haven’t really played anyone in the league that is supposed to be “at our level” like Mo State or Indy State. Our body of works would say that yesterday’s performance was more the exception than the rule, at least at this point. Last year we reached a point where we sort of flipped a switch and started playing consistently, and that was about 2/3rd the way through the season (we still lost to the worst team in the league in that stretch). If we’ve already done that this year, and we will be playing at a higher level for the balance of the season, then yeah, it is possible we could win 14 games.

But it isn’t easy to win 14 games. The league is down this year, sure. But the Sweet 16 team only won 15 games. They lost to the worst team in the league. Last year Wichita State only won 12 games and they went to the Final Four. Fourteen wins is REALLY hard to do. It doesn’t matter if the league is down. You can’t have off nights. You can’t have a bad shooting night, especially on the road. Other teams can have great nights. You still have to be a very good team to win 14 games in this league. By my count it would be only the third time UNI has done it if we did, the other two were our two regular season championships.

I guess I just am not ready to jump the gun. We’ve played well for a couple weeks. It looks promising. But I am not ready to notch my expectation level that high based on 3 games.

[achrist70]

Re: Up Next: Evansville

We might as well just go 17-1, then nobody would be right

[run&blade]

Re: Up Next: Evansville

Anybody heard from Mudra or r&b??

Nah, didn't think so.

The Valley sucks, check the prediction thread. I said UNI would only have 4 Valley losses.

As the prophet Denny Green said years ago, "You wanna crown their $#@ then crown'em ".

Since they didn't do well enough in the non conference schedule nothing matters besides winning the Valley tournament. They have zero shot of an at large bid...ZERO.

[9YRPLAN]

Re: Up Next: Evansville

I wouldn't go that far. Our RPI is solid and we could find ourselves in a similar position to Maryland or Iowa last year

[ubuntuCAT]

Re: Up Next: Evansville

I wouldn't go that far. Our RPI is solid and we could find ourselves in a similar position to Maryland or Iowa last year

Right, If UNI won all of it's remaining games and lost early in the conference tournament they would still be in the tourney.

Now do I think that is a likely scenario, no. Possible, yes and it's > zero.

[BCPanther]

Re: Up Next: Evansville

Lunardi likes our chances with 14 league wins as long as we get Wichita up here.

[UNIGrainer]

Re: Up Next: Evansville

If we won 14 games I think we would be in the discussion. That would put us at 20-10 with at least one good noncon win, plus hopefully Wichita. Can't say what our RPI would be but right now it is in the 60s or 70s so I would imagine it wouldnt go down if we went 12-3 from here on out. Probably the 50s somewhere.

Right now our noncon SOS is #15. I think it will go down by the end of the season, but it should be pretty respectable.

Not ready to say were gonna win 14 but if we did, I think we would have a shot.

12+ and we have a good NIT shot.

[Kyle]

Re: Up Next: Evansville

That double overtime loss is going to bite us. We win that game and our at large chances increase 3 fold.

[Trapped in California]

Re: Up Next: Evansville

Real Time RPI fwiw now predicts us to win 12. I believe thats up from 10 before conference play started. I started off the year thinking we were going to go 10-8 or 11-7. 12-6 or 13-5 seems more likely to me now. I don't think we're better then we've been in the last 3 years..I just think the league is so bad. I would be shocked if we got to 14 tho.
http://www.realtimerpi.com/rpi_300_Men.html

Realtime RPI had us losing the UE game 73-70.