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Not sure which deleted thread this should've gone under, but since most of them have gone up to that big message board in the sky, I'll start a new one.
Anyone feel like throwing out predictions for the season as far as final team standings and that kind of stuff go? The season officially starts on the 15th, so it's getting close to that time for the NSIC preseason coaches poll to drop, amongst other predictions from the news and media.
At the risk of angering Augieholic by lowballing our Vikes, I'll throw out a predictive list that I've put about 5% effort/concentration into. I may change my predictions before the season officially kicks off if people present compelling arguments that I haven't considered. But, for now, this is my prediction of finishes in conference play for the 2016-17 season. As always, there's a ton of "I could be wrong" and other qualifiers and crap like that. At least I'm aware of it, I suppose.
Ready, set, go.
1) MSU-Mankato - Mankato only seems able to go a year or two at most without competing for and/or winning the regular season conference championship, and it's been two years now that they haven't even been the 2nd best team in the conference. The time for them not to be on top has to end soon, and my guess is it's this year. I think Fuqua and Aarias Austin are going to be a really brutal combo this year. Throw in Charlie Brown and Witthus (who was looking really solid last season), and the rest of their transfers, and I think they'll have too much talent not to finish first.
2) Moorhead. This one was tough. Every year I overrate USF and every year they let me down (while simultaneously making me happy, since I'm an Augie fan). Frankly, with their returning talent, I don't see how they don't finish top 3, but since they've let me down too many times, I won't put them at 2nd place. I'm thinking Walthall keeps the Dragon train steaming along and the Dragons take home second in conference play. Kretchmann is solid, Lien should average 15-18 ppg, and Walthall seems to puzzle piece random talent together in a way that racks up the wins.
3) USF. It pains me to do this, but I'm putting USF here. Too many decent returners on a team that has solid weapons in Drew Guebert, Mack Johnson and the Barkley-esque guy in the paint whose name escapes me. If they don't finish top 3 or 4 this year, I'd really consider it a letdown for Cougar fans, assuming there aren't drastic/dramatic injuries or something.
4) Augie. I contemplated putting Northern here, even without Peterka, but I realized that if Augieholic hasn't already disowned me in every way possible by this point in my post, putting the Vikes lower than 4th would seal that deal without question. My hope is that Busack comes in and prevents a complete and total drop off from last year's inside game, but those are big shoes to fill. We'll need at least one of the young big guys to step up and be ready to go, but our best candidate for that, Kerkman, is still recovering from his foot injury from what I understand. That's discouraging. If Beyer is healthy and he and Spencer play at a high level, our guard play should still be some of the best in the conference, which will be huge.
5) Northern. A healthy amount of returning talent, a little addition by subtraction, and a couple of bigs who have the potential to do some damage this year. I could just as easily see the Wolves finishing a spot or two higher or a spot or two lower, so this seemed like a decent place for them.
6) St. Cloud. Not as high a ranking as The Sporting News would give the Huskies, but their guards are some of the best scorers in the league and if any big men step up, they'll be pretty well rounded. My gut says I should still put them down in 7th or 8th range, but on paper it just seems too unlikely they'll finish that low.
7) Winona? Lots of other people on the boards (particularly WSU fans) seem to insist the talent is there for the Warriors to be high-level contenders. I would've thought they had the same chance to make that happen last season and it didn't exactly work out. Obviously there were some unique circumstances with the coaching situation and a new system and everything, so maybe they'll make a big jump this year, but I'll need to see it before I believe it. Either way, with Bambenek, Gray, and Bauman, it would seem they have a good combination of talent for a respectable finish, but I'm not as high on this roster as guys like fanofnsic and a handful of others seem to be.
8) SMSU? Also not solid on this one. The Mustangs should be good--their once-young talent is finally hitting upperclassman range--but I haven't seen a ton from them in the past couple of seasons that made me think they'd be a top contender even when they got older. Age doesn't automatically equal wins. Like Northern, I could see the Mustangs finishing a spot or two higher. For the sake of their loyal message board fans, I hope it's not a spot or two lower.
9) CSP. Is Joey James pulling things together in Golden Bear territory? I don't know. They seem to have some decent players though. I could see them finishing 9th.
10) Duluth. Duluth is always one of those teams I think should finish higher than they end up finishing for some reason or another. I see them being right in the lower-middle this year. Interestingly, they only have one senior on the roster this season. I didn't realize that. TONS of freshmen (8) and 5 sophomores, so maybe they'll be solid in a few years, but I'm predicting a 10th place finish (or lower) for this year's Bulldog squad.
11) U-Mary? They got off to such a hot start last year before cooling substantially. Maybe their new-ish coach can actually keep the fire going throughout the season this time around? If he doesn't, I see the Marauders finishing a little lower than they did last season.
12) Upper Iowa. I don't have any reason for this other than simply feeling like other teams should be better on-paper. The Peacocks did keep up with last year's Augie squad pretty well in their first matchup, so I want to put them up a little higher, and they actually had a decent record last year at 16-17, but I just can't commit to them being any higher. If they finished 8th or 9th though, I wouldn't be shocked.
13) Minot? I feel like Bemidji needs to be up higher for some reason, but they only finished 7-15 last year and Minot went 10-12, and I haven't seen anything that makes me think, "That was an aberration...Bemidji's roster will be much stronger next season." So I'm leaving the red Beavers above the green Beavers for now.
14) Bemidji. Another one of those teams where my mind says, "They should finish higher than this, shouldn't they?", but based on last year, 13th makes more sense than randomly putting them up in the 9-12 range without good reason. I could easily be mistaken, obviously. And probably will be proven so.
15) Crookston. At one point a couple of years ago, Crookston actually had a strong recruiting class by Crookston's standards. So this may be the year that said recruiting class starts to show something by digging the Golden Eagles out of the cellar of cellars. I mean, they went 1-21 last year...that can't happen again, can it?
16) Wayne. New coach. Basically the same players as last year. Seems like a recipe for a rough season in Wayne, America. I don't mean to be harsh, I'm just not seeing on-paper what will bring the Wildcats up from last year's 3-19 record. I know a few of their young guys show promise, but they'll need to translate that promise into wins before I'll be willing to put them higher.
Anyway, this was basically me just spitting things off the top of my head, so I might re-read it in a day or two and think, "Oh yeah, I'm an idiot..." (as I often do), but I'm sticking with it for now and posting it just to possibly get some discussion going.
Anyone feel like throwing out predictions for the season as far as final team standings and that kind of stuff go? The season officially starts on the 15th, so it's getting close to that time for the NSIC preseason coaches poll to drop, amongst other predictions from the news and media.
At the risk of angering Augieholic by lowballing our Vikes, I'll throw out a predictive list that I've put about 5% effort/concentration into. I may change my predictions before the season officially kicks off if people present compelling arguments that I haven't considered. But, for now, this is my prediction of finishes in conference play for the 2016-17 season. As always, there's a ton of "I could be wrong" and other qualifiers and crap like that. At least I'm aware of it, I suppose.
Ready, set, go.
1) MSU-Mankato - Mankato only seems able to go a year or two at most without competing for and/or winning the regular season conference championship, and it's been two years now that they haven't even been the 2nd best team in the conference. The time for them not to be on top has to end soon, and my guess is it's this year. I think Fuqua and Aarias Austin are going to be a really brutal combo this year. Throw in Charlie Brown and Witthus (who was looking really solid last season), and the rest of their transfers, and I think they'll have too much talent not to finish first.
2) Moorhead. This one was tough. Every year I overrate USF and every year they let me down (while simultaneously making me happy, since I'm an Augie fan). Frankly, with their returning talent, I don't see how they don't finish top 3, but since they've let me down too many times, I won't put them at 2nd place. I'm thinking Walthall keeps the Dragon train steaming along and the Dragons take home second in conference play. Kretchmann is solid, Lien should average 15-18 ppg, and Walthall seems to puzzle piece random talent together in a way that racks up the wins.
3) USF. It pains me to do this, but I'm putting USF here. Too many decent returners on a team that has solid weapons in Drew Guebert, Mack Johnson and the Barkley-esque guy in the paint whose name escapes me. If they don't finish top 3 or 4 this year, I'd really consider it a letdown for Cougar fans, assuming there aren't drastic/dramatic injuries or something.
4) Augie. I contemplated putting Northern here, even without Peterka, but I realized that if Augieholic hasn't already disowned me in every way possible by this point in my post, putting the Vikes lower than 4th would seal that deal without question. My hope is that Busack comes in and prevents a complete and total drop off from last year's inside game, but those are big shoes to fill. We'll need at least one of the young big guys to step up and be ready to go, but our best candidate for that, Kerkman, is still recovering from his foot injury from what I understand. That's discouraging. If Beyer is healthy and he and Spencer play at a high level, our guard play should still be some of the best in the conference, which will be huge.
5) Northern. A healthy amount of returning talent, a little addition by subtraction, and a couple of bigs who have the potential to do some damage this year. I could just as easily see the Wolves finishing a spot or two higher or a spot or two lower, so this seemed like a decent place for them.
6) St. Cloud. Not as high a ranking as The Sporting News would give the Huskies, but their guards are some of the best scorers in the league and if any big men step up, they'll be pretty well rounded. My gut says I should still put them down in 7th or 8th range, but on paper it just seems too unlikely they'll finish that low.
7) Winona? Lots of other people on the boards (particularly WSU fans) seem to insist the talent is there for the Warriors to be high-level contenders. I would've thought they had the same chance to make that happen last season and it didn't exactly work out. Obviously there were some unique circumstances with the coaching situation and a new system and everything, so maybe they'll make a big jump this year, but I'll need to see it before I believe it. Either way, with Bambenek, Gray, and Bauman, it would seem they have a good combination of talent for a respectable finish, but I'm not as high on this roster as guys like fanofnsic and a handful of others seem to be.
8) SMSU? Also not solid on this one. The Mustangs should be good--their once-young talent is finally hitting upperclassman range--but I haven't seen a ton from them in the past couple of seasons that made me think they'd be a top contender even when they got older. Age doesn't automatically equal wins. Like Northern, I could see the Mustangs finishing a spot or two higher. For the sake of their loyal message board fans, I hope it's not a spot or two lower.
9) CSP. Is Joey James pulling things together in Golden Bear territory? I don't know. They seem to have some decent players though. I could see them finishing 9th.
10) Duluth. Duluth is always one of those teams I think should finish higher than they end up finishing for some reason or another. I see them being right in the lower-middle this year. Interestingly, they only have one senior on the roster this season. I didn't realize that. TONS of freshmen (8) and 5 sophomores, so maybe they'll be solid in a few years, but I'm predicting a 10th place finish (or lower) for this year's Bulldog squad.
11) U-Mary? They got off to such a hot start last year before cooling substantially. Maybe their new-ish coach can actually keep the fire going throughout the season this time around? If he doesn't, I see the Marauders finishing a little lower than they did last season.
12) Upper Iowa. I don't have any reason for this other than simply feeling like other teams should be better on-paper. The Peacocks did keep up with last year's Augie squad pretty well in their first matchup, so I want to put them up a little higher, and they actually had a decent record last year at 16-17, but I just can't commit to them being any higher. If they finished 8th or 9th though, I wouldn't be shocked.
13) Minot? I feel like Bemidji needs to be up higher for some reason, but they only finished 7-15 last year and Minot went 10-12, and I haven't seen anything that makes me think, "That was an aberration...Bemidji's roster will be much stronger next season." So I'm leaving the red Beavers above the green Beavers for now.
14) Bemidji. Another one of those teams where my mind says, "They should finish higher than this, shouldn't they?", but based on last year, 13th makes more sense than randomly putting them up in the 9-12 range without good reason. I could easily be mistaken, obviously. And probably will be proven so.
15) Crookston. At one point a couple of years ago, Crookston actually had a strong recruiting class by Crookston's standards. So this may be the year that said recruiting class starts to show something by digging the Golden Eagles out of the cellar of cellars. I mean, they went 1-21 last year...that can't happen again, can it?
16) Wayne. New coach. Basically the same players as last year. Seems like a recipe for a rough season in Wayne, America. I don't mean to be harsh, I'm just not seeing on-paper what will bring the Wildcats up from last year's 3-19 record. I know a few of their young guys show promise, but they'll need to translate that promise into wins before I'll be willing to put them higher.
Anyway, this was basically me just spitting things off the top of my head, so I might re-read it in a day or two and think, "Oh yeah, I'm an idiot..." (as I often do), but I'm sticking with it for now and posting it just to possibly get some discussion going.
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