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I hope its the first. I could however see Whitesell use Williams like Perkins. Jim 100% wants more size and would love to do Mballa - Bertram for stretches to help with the poor inside defense.

NIU has beaten us the last 2 years when we had much better/more consistent teams. I think we are better than them, but we also lost to Army and Dartmouth. This should not be the attitude for any of our games this year.

I hope some of these forecasts for how Bertram will help us comes true. He has barely practiced or played this year and the other years he was also injured or barely played. He is a big body but not overly although athletic or quick of foot and has been foul prone. I know he came in with the great potential tag and I hope he can contribute and have success this year. Go Bulls!!!

I took a look at past few years at number of wins for 1-4 in MAC. Here are the average # of wins 1st - 14.5 2nd - 12.0 3rd - 11.0 4th - 10.5 I went with 11/12 with my most likely 12.

I definitely agree with your concept of averaging a few ranking publications. I was just lazy, and selected Massey’s site to quickly review every team’s opponents. Originally I was curious how many non-D1 teams everyone played. Then I got side tracked by how many 300+ teams there were, so I lumped them in too. After checking the NET, or Kenpom, or another site, I also like to review the following compilation. More publications are added to the table as the season progresses- it’s up to 50! Even though I’m not familiar with most of them, the big hitters are all there, and for me the average is a good gut check. https://www.masseyratings.com/cb/compare.htm FWIW, I think the quantity of non-D1 schools is an example of why the rankings are so different from one site to another... sometimes those scores are used, and sometimes they aren’t. I remember you saying that some team (I couldn’t recall which) always scheduled 4 or so non-D1s. It’s what prompted my post.

Why do people think we getting back this star or big role player. Mballa will still start at the 5. Brock will be good for 5-8 minutes off the bench, that’s it. Fagan maybe couple min also but neither gonna play big roles.

I'm hoping to get Brock and Fagan back as much as the next guy, but the idea of him jumping right into the starting lineup seems preposterous to me. He's been a light role player during his time here and many are clamoring for him to be a superstar after 2 months of being out due to injury. Having the 2 injured guys back would aid in moving people to more natural positions, but thinking that you're going to get 20-30 minutes/game out of them seems crazy, not to mention whose minutes are being taken away. I'd love to have him back gradually for some short burst here and there, to rest Mballa, but is his time going to take away from Hardnett or Williams' time? While Hardnett has not been great all season, he's shown some growth during periods of time this season, and I'd like to see that growth continue moving forward (remembering that he's only a freshman). Williams and Mballa have played well at the forward positions for the most part.

If we can get Brock in there, it can totally change our offense. Play the 6-10 Bertram at the 5, move Mballa over to the 4 which is probably his more natural position. Have Williams play the 3, Graves the 2, and Jordan the 1. Then Johnson can come off the bench, which might be a welcomed change for him.