Predict UB regular season victories

[UB92]

We have about a week before the games begin for real.  The poll will close then.

There has been a lot of optimism on this board for the players and the coach.  Here is the opportunity for you to vote on the # of regular season victories (in 29 games) for the Bulls.

 

 

[DocCas86]

I went with 21-24 as I am thinking 21 wins / ranking 60-70.   On paper we have added depth, but not sure how it all comes together.  The second most likely win total in my opinion is 20 - which is in line with barttorvik estimate and ranking of 80.  The way ranges are presented skews toward a more optimistic view as I would say 21-24 (60%) and 17-20 (40%).  Maybe I should vote 10 times to get the 60/40 represented from my perspective???

 

[Tee4three]

Voted 21 to 24

My super optimistic prediction is 8-1 ooc and 17-3 in conference for 25-4

My realistic prediction 6-3 ooc and 16-4 in conference for 22 - 7

I really don't see many if any mac teams being able to match up with our top 3 guys so I expect a top mac performance either way

[squire17]

20-9 and 15-5.

[DooleyBull06]

Just win the MAC tournament.  But I voted 21-24. I expect big things. To me this is a championship or bust season.

Edited November 3, 2021 by DooleyBull06

[JoeyRattlesnake]

I'll believe Whitesell can win big when I see it.  I've been very underwhelmed with our clock management and overall shot discipline the last two years.  I think the best we can hope for is a top 2 seed in Cleveland and a run to a 13-seed.  Nate is proving that he was who we thought he was... an elite coach.  And it takes an elite coach to get a MAC team to a 10-seed or lower.

Edited November 3, 2021 by JoeyRattlesnake

[SGBull]

As others have alluded to, this is Whitesell’s make or break year in my opinion. The second best senior class we have ever had by results and the top rated coming out of high school. If this team doesn’t win at a very high rate I will be very concerned for the future.

[DocCas86]

55 minutes ago, SGBull said:

As others have alluded to, this is Whitesell’s make or break year in my opinion. The second best senior class we have ever had by results and the top rated coming out of high school. If this team doesn’t win at a very high rate I will be very concerned for the future.

Curious what victory total will cause concern for others.  Assuming no injuries, I am thinking 17 wins (I debated 18) or less would be cause for concern, 20 wins seems to be what impartial polls would expect.  On the other hand if we get to 23 wins or more, than I would give Whitesell his due.  

Another key for Whitesell is how his team's do starting next year as will be truly his team.

[DooleyBull06]

2 hours ago, DocCas86 said:

Curious what victory total will cause concern for others.  Assuming no injuries, I am thinking 17 wins (I debated 18) or less would be cause for concern, 20 wins seems to be what impartial polls would expect.  On the other hand if we get to 23 wins or more, than I would give Whitesell his due.  

Another key for Whitesell is how his team's do starting next year as will be truly his team.

I think we get to caught up in win total. 20 wins use to be a bench mark but when you schedule two high school teams is 20 really a bench mark? No! Forget about win total…go out and compete against Michigan. Beat Bonaventure and win the MAC title. Take care of your own house. Ultimately we control our own fate. What good is 22 wins if we lose in the MAC tourney? Win total is over rated. Whitesell needs a banner this year.

Edited November 3, 2021 by DooleyBull06

[SGBull]

3 hours ago, DocCas86 said:

Curious what victory total will cause concern for others.  Assuming no injuries, I am thinking 17 wins (I debated 18) or less would be cause for concern, 20 wins seems to be what impartial polls would expect.  On the other hand if we get to 23 wins or more, than I would give Whitesell his due.  

Another key for Whitesell is how his team's do starting next year as will be truly his team.

I think 23 would be a good number for me as well. When it comes to others, I have a feeling that many on this board will consider this season a fail unless we make the tournament. So even if we get 25 wins, lose in the conference final, and don’t make it in, they will be calling for a new coach. 

[DocCas86]

47 minutes ago, DooleyBull06 said:

I think we get to caught up in win total. 20 wins use to be a bench mark but when you schedule two high school teams is 20 really a bench mark? No! Forget about win total…go out and compete against Michigan. Beat Bonaventure and win the MAC title. Take care of your own house. Ultimately we control our own fate. What good is 22 wins if we lose in the MAC tourney? Win total is over rated. Whitesell needs a banner this year.

Does not change your point, but we were talking about win total excluding high school games.  

As for your point on the MAC championship, this should definitely be the team's goal.  However, at absolute best, I would say favorite is 50/50 to win, so I wouldn't say season is failure if we had 23-6 record, but lose in the final. I would be certainly be disappointed though.

[DocCas86]

31 minutes ago, SGBull said:

I think 23 would be a good number for me as well. When it comes to others, I have a feeling that many on this board will consider this season a fail unless we make the tournament. So even if we get 25 wins, lose in the conference final, and don’t make it in, they will be calling for a new coach. 

I agree with you that if we get 25 wins, and lose a heartbreaker finals...will be extremely disappointing, but not a sign by itself that Whitesell should go.

Similarly if they go 17-12 and then get hot for 3 games, not a reason to say  we have a great coach...but...I am certainly happy to be in ncaa tourney.  

[Jeseph]

2 hours ago, DooleyBull06 said:

Whitesell needs a banner this year.

 

[DooleyBull06]

3 hours ago, DocCas86 said:

Does not change your point, but we were talking about win total excluding high school games.  

As for your point on the MAC championship, this should definitely be the team's goal.  However, at absolute best, I would say favorite is 50/50 to win, so I wouldn't say season is failure if we had 23-6 record, but lose in the final. I would be certainly be disappointed though.

Lol I called them high school teams. But to your point about 23-6…if we do that, as the season unfolds everyone’s expectations will become championship or bust. There’s gonna highs and lows so expectations can change accordingly. 

[Big 4 Hoops Blogger]

I’m going to be ballsy and pick Buffalo to go 24-7 (15-5). I watched UB practice yesterday and this team looks special. They have the most depth they’ve had since Oats was leading the way. Maceo Jack should be an impact player and I like some of the other newcomers and young talent. They’re well rounded and have some decent shooters in the mix. Love the schedule. A few tough road games and a neutral site tournament. It’s set up for Top 50 NET season.

Edited November 4, 2021 by Big 4 Hoops Blogger

[UB92]

18 hours ago, DocCas86 said:

I agree with you that if we get 25 wins, and lose a heartbreaker finals...will be extremely disappointing, but not a sign by itself that Whitesell should go.

Similarly if they go 17-12 and then get hot for 3 games, not a reason to say  we have a great coach...but...I am certainly happy to be in ncaa tourney.  

This is the interesting point.

The consensus seems (from how they have been ranked to something as simple as this poll) to be that they have a lot of talent (and senior talent) and the low - mid 20s for a win total is the expectation.  That's a high bar that calls for few off nights.  If Whitesell can deliver that, I think he will have passed a hurdle.  

The tournament is sometimes a crapshoot, but going there with a 23, 24 or 25 win team would be a good thing.

If they are in the upper teens in wins (which would be disappointing from the consensus), go to the tournament and win, that would be a very unlikely scenario on my view.   I would take it as well.

[DocCas86]

1 hour ago, UB92 said:

This is the interesting point.

The consensus seems (from how they have been ranked to something as simple as this poll) to be that they have a lot of talent (and senior talent) and the low - mid 20s for a win total is the expectation.  That's a high bar that calls for few off nights.  If Whitesell can deliver that, I think he will have passed a hurdle.  

The tournament is sometimes a crapshoot, but going there with a 23, 24 or 25 win team would be a good thing.

If they are in the upper teens in wins (which would be disappointing from the consensus), go to the tournament and win, that would be a very unlikely scenario on my view.   I would take it as well.

Agree with what you are saying.

I would say that regular season wins would be correlated to MAC tourney prospects, so I agree with your point of 17 win team winning MAC, possible but not the most likely.

As for tournament being a crapshoot, I looked at last 20 years of semifinal results.  The top ranked of the remaining semifinal teams won only 50% of time.  So top seed in current format (I.e. win 3 games) would proabably have 25-35% chance of winning tournament.   Note I focused only on semifinals, because changing format of tournament makes it impossible to compare across years.

So in my opinion, you need to consider the whole season and not judge solely based on 3 games in Cleveland.  That said, I want a championship.

Edited November 4, 2021 by DocCas86

[Tee4three]

12 hours ago, Big 4 Hoops Blogger said:

I’m going to be ballsy and pick Buffalo to go 24-7 (15-5). I watched UB practice yesterday and this team looks special. They have the most depth they’ve had since Oats was leading the way. Maceo Jack should be an impact player and I like some of the other newcomers and young talent. They’re well rounded and have some decent shooters in the mix. Love the schedule. A few tough road games and a neutral site tournament. It’s set up for Top 50 NET season.

The trio of segu williams mballa is one of the better trios in the country, the key will be the depth. If there is depth this team can be special, if the depth is similar to previous couple seasons you are looking at a very good mac team 

[DocCas86]

18 minutes ago, Tee4three said:

The trio of segu williams mballa is one of the better trios in the country, the key will be the depth. If there is depth this team can be special, if the depth is similar to previous couple seasons you are looking at a very good mac team 

I agree.  The trio of Massinburg, Perkins and Harris made 18-19 team very good, but it was Caruthers, Jordan, Graves,  McRae, Williams and Segu that made that team special.  Time will tell.  Looking forward to first glimpse tonight.

[UB92]

I forget if I made the results open or you have to vote, but whatever the case, these are the results:

 

Regular Season Wins.    (Respondents:  N = 33)

25 - 29; Nate who? Whitesell is the man.    2 votes

21 - 24; UB justifies the optimism that many feel about this season.   25 votes

17 - 20; Okay season, but some unexpected losses. Questions remain.   6  votes

13 - 16; Something bad happened (injuries, regression, coaching, etc.)   0  votes

12 wins and under; Yikes...  0 votes

 

This averages to almost exactly 22 wins (sorry...no error bars here).  

I think it is interesting that 33 people voted and no one thought we would have 16 or fewer victories.  

it is a long season, with ups and downs, so we will check in at the end of the regular season to see what happened.  Thanks to all who voted.

 

 

[DocCas86]

The around the MAC thread seems to have vanished, so posting top 8 composite rankings as of today.  Impartial observers have us more or less rated equally with Ohio at this point at top of the MAC, although Ohio has a larger range. 

Next pack of Miami, Toledo, Akron and Kent.  Bowling Green has struggled early this year and is moving to be more in pack with Ball State and the CMU, EMU, WMU, and NIU. 

I am still thinking 21-8 at this point and a dogfight between us and Ohio.

 

[UB92]

Now that the regular season has ended and we have a few days before our game against the Zips, it is time to go back to the beginning of November and see where we are with our predictions.

Recall we had 29 regular season games and here were the predictions prior to the season starting in Ann Arbor.

Regular Season Wins.    (Respondents:  N = 33)

25 - 29; Nate who? Whitesell is the man.    2 votes
21 - 24; UB justifies the optimism that many feel about this season.   25 votes
17 - 20; Okay season, but some unexpected losses. Questions remain.   6  votes
13 - 16; Something bad happened (injuries, regression, coaching, etc.)   0  votes
12 wins and under; Yikes...  0 votes

This averages to almost exactly 22 wins (sorry...no error bars here).  

___________________________

The average prediction was 22 wins, so the performance was 3 wins worse than the prediction.  In retrospect, we were probably just a little more pessimistic in our predictions than the MAC coaches, who had UB finishing atop the MAC (all but one vote).

The comment in the 19-win range (17 - 20) said "Okay season, but some unexpected losses.  Questions remain."

I think that this comment is a concise summary of the regular season.

 

If you go back and look through this thread, I think there was less optimism in November about a 17 - 20 win UB team being able to run the table in Cleveland than there is now.  I guess the thought then was that UB was 17 - 20 win team for a reason, so winning three games in a row with such a team was unlikely.

The data we have now in March (i.e. UB floundering against the top MAC teams this season) only goes towards making such a run even more of a longshot.

But that's why they play the games!  Go Bulls!!

 

[skrabukes]

8 minutes ago, UB92 said:

 

17 - 20; Okay season, but some unexpected losses. Questions remain.   6  votes
 

 

The titles of each choice were alarmingly accurate. The "correct" choice certainly was as well. Without the CMU and Irvine games, the sub 20 wins was it. The opportunity has been there to jump a voting group, but ultimately wasn't hit. Sadly, a win this past Friday vs Kent would've alleviated at least a fair amount of the pessimism from some, with a 20 win season, 2 seed and relatively promising path to the MAC final game, but alas didn't come to fruition. Fingers crossed for Thursday (and Friday, Saturday).

The women's path and team seems as though they should make it to at least Saturday!

Positive thoughts for the Bulls this week.

[121Merrimac]

Which bothers folks more, loses to poorly rated Canisius and Miami...  Or, losing by a bucket to more respectable foes in Austin and Bonaventure?  For me its the former, because beating North Texas by a bucket cancels out the close loses to some extent. 

[DooleyBull06]

38 minutes ago, 121Merrimac said:

Which bothers folks more, loses to poorly rated Canisius and Miami...  Or, losing by a bucket to more respectable foes in Austin and Bonaventure?  For me its the former, because beating North Texas by a bucket cancels out the close loses to some extent. 

Winning mac titles. Sorry for the dick response. But I think winning 20 games is a poor goal to shoot for and a poor measure of how successful a program is. Especially in a day and age when we can’t even fill a full schedule with D1 opponents. End of the week is this season gonna be remembered for losses to Canisius/Bona/SFA so on? Or will it be remembered by what happens in Cleveland? If we win in Cleveland will anyone care that we lost to local rivals? 

Going forward measure the program by, is it perennially a contender to win a mac title in its “down” years and does it win a title(s) in its “good” year(s).