Landscape for 2016/2017

[SDHornet]

I like Sac as a potential dark horse. In Hornsby and Strings they'll have two of the better bigs in the league and Marcus Graves was one of the more improved players in the league at guard. I keep waiting for the big kid Stutteville to play to his potential.

This past season we should have been better than our 14-17, 7-13 BSC record. The Demps injury really set us back, but even then we let a few get away. Going into the season I thought our overall win-loss record would have swapped from about what we actually saw (slightly above 500 and middle of the pack in the BSC was my prediction) and I think we would have been right about there if everyone was healthy.

I like what we return up front. Strings had a breakout season and is the best player on our team. Hornsby plays solid defense and is ok on the boards (overall team rebounding needs to really improve), I expected a little more offensively from him but otherwise IMO he is an above average “big” in the BSC. I don’t expect to see much improvement from Stuteville. He does well when battling other slow bigs, but has proved to be a total defensive liability against smaller, more athletic lineups. Strings and Hornsby really shouldered the burden later in the season. We had a redshirt this season, Patton, who will likely be thrown into the frontcourt rotation next season (5-8 mpg will be my guess). Patton will be huge in keeping Strings and Hornsby fresh as those two looked pretty worn out by the end of the season. He’ll also be an option when Hornsby gets into foul trouble.

My concern with the Hornets next season is the backcourt. Graves was thrust into a leadership role when Demps went down and I thought he struggled. He posted some solid games but he also had a lot of games where he was quiet. I like his ability but he needs some help. Wu played well for a true freshman and will probably start next season. He needs to improve his shooting and turn the ball over less but otherwise I like the energy he brings to this team. The big question mark is who fills/rotates in at the last backcourt spot. Our perimeter shooting was severely lacking last season and we graduate Barlett. IMO we could really use a dead on sharp shooter that can bury the open 3, we also need someone who can share the ball handling duties alongside Graves. Ugbaja showed he can be a ball handler and a distributor so maybe he is given a shot to run point. His downside is that he was very hesitant to shoot the ball and didn’t produce a lot of points.

Next season is a long way off but I think we are in decent shape compared to some other programs in the BSC. Katz has made this a competitive program. My WAG for next season is that we are a little above 500 on the season and in the middle of the pack in the BSC.

 

[WILDCAT]

I'm thinking something like this.

1. Weber State (until proven otherwise, Weber is # 1)
2. Idaho (solid team coming back next year, need to cut down on the "bad BSC" losses)
3. Montana (the loss of Bruenig (sp?) could be bigger than most think, but the Griz will still have some of the best guards in the league and a good coach in Decuire).
4. North Dakota (Probably the most talented team in the BSC next year, but coaching holds them back and like this last season the Hawks will lose games they shouldn't.
5. Idaho State (Bengals play great defense, but Telfair cant always be the one doing all the scoring, Bengals need more production on offense, or they could finish lower.
6. Sacramento State (Hornets will have some of the best bigs and a group of talented guards, and they have a good coach in Katz, but the overall talent level is not quite there yet.
7. Montana State (Bobcats always have good players, but always seem to lack the coaching or the team game philosophy. Without any decent post play they could struggle despite the talented guard play)
8. Northern Arizona ( Plenty of Young talent on this team, they need to stick to a constant rotation though).
9. Eastern Washington (Plenty of talent on this Eastern team, but losing McBroom and Jois is huge and it may take a year to get back up towards the top)
10. Portland State (Didn't see anything outside of Forte that made the Vikings all that dangerous, and they will be without him next year)
11. Northern Colorado (Bears have been getting progressively worse since the 2013-14 season, and unless the Bears start seeing some improvements the Bears might want to take a closer look at whether or not BJ is the right guy for the job).
12. Southern Utah (depending on who the coach is they bring in, it could get very ugly in Cedar City).

In all reality, anyone from 6 to 12 could be swapped, as well as the top 5, the top 5 will be those teams, but in what order we wont know until BSC play starts again.

 

[n.ogdencat]

Southern Utah has a new coach...pretty damn good one too. We will see how he does in Cedar. http://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/unlv-rebels/basketball/unlv-s-todd-simon-named-southern-utah-basketball-coach

 

[oldrunner]

Congratulations to SUU and coach Simon. I hope they have some success there. It will be a big rebuilding job going on down there for a while yet. They will need two or three good recruiting years to get back in the thick of it. :thumb: :thumb:

 

[oldrunner]

I wanted to do this while it is fresh on my mind. I know that many things can happen over the spring and summer, but I think we already have a fairly good idea of who is coming back and who is coming in to the BSC.

The surprises this year were ISU moving up as much as they did, Sac and NAU falling as far as they did, and the talent level of the freshmen class in the BSC.

The BSC loses some highly talented big men and a few good guards. However, there are many highly talented guards coming back in the fall. Next year may be the year that talented big men can dominate even more than they did this year. I say that because there will be far less of them to go around next year.

To me, the top two teams and bottom two teams will not change much. NAU did improve over the season, but they just have too far to go. SUU will suck even worse. I don't see ISU changing much. UI loses much more than ISU. If MSU were to find a point guard to replace their senior, they could get better. UND looks like a team on the rise to me. They get virtually everyone back and they were coming on strong at the end of the season. I don't see great changes in anyone else. The exception to that may be that EWU is rebuilding a little bit.

Here is my WAG at next season's ranking. :ugeek:

WSU
UM
UND
ISU
MSU
UI
UNC
PSU
Sac
EWU
NAU
SUU

After seeing the coaching changes and transfers, and considering what others have input, this is what I think now.

WSU
UM
UND
IU
ISU
Sac
MSU
PSU
NAU
EWU
UNC
SUU