2019-20 season
Re: 2019-20 season
Interesting comments from Bergeron on Baptiste. I haven’t really had a lot of high hopes for him (at some point I think you just are what you are) but given his size/strength/athleticism combination, there’s certainly a nice blank canvas to work with. I do think battling with him in practice is really going to help Tre as he won’t see many players with that size and strength.
Also interesting about Sy — I do have high hopes for him — he certainly showed flashes last year. I think strength was his biggest issue (the Nevada game especially comes to mind) — if he is stronger, he certainly has a nice combination of athleticism and skill to have a big impact. Defensively he could flourish in a press and offensively if his jump shot is for real, having a four that can shoot a bit will really help open up the halfcourt spacing.
Anywho, nice to be able to really start having basketball thoughts again. I’m cautiously optimistic — not necessarily for this season in terms of W-L but for the program’s direction as a whole. For this season, they are young so will take their lumps. For the programs direction, though, I think the talent is there...i think the biggest question mark, for me at least, is McCall reaching the team. I think (hope) that last year’s dumpster fire was more of a bad fit for both team/coach and that maybe McCall is really only effective with his kind of players and that these new kids might just fit that bill.
We’ll see I guess.
Also interesting about Sy — I do have high hopes for him — he certainly showed flashes last year. I think strength was his biggest issue (the Nevada game especially comes to mind) — if he is stronger, he certainly has a nice combination of athleticism and skill to have a big impact. Defensively he could flourish in a press and offensively if his jump shot is for real, having a four that can shoot a bit will really help open up the halfcourt spacing.
Anywho, nice to be able to really start having basketball thoughts again. I’m cautiously optimistic — not necessarily for this season in terms of W-L but for the program’s direction as a whole. For this season, they are young so will take their lumps. For the programs direction, though, I think the talent is there...i think the biggest question mark, for me at least, is McCall reaching the team. I think (hope) that last year’s dumpster fire was more of a bad fit for both team/coach and that maybe McCall is really only effective with his kind of players and that these new kids might just fit that bill.
We’ll see I guess.
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Re: 2019-20 season
Wonder how long it will take for the twitter leaks and subsequent overreactions ( myself included) after the closed scrimmage today.
Re: 2019-20 season
Good thought from Sage. 99% chance it's at the Mullins Center.
Curry Hicks Sage
@CurryHicksSage
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UMass hoops scrimmages Hofstra today and the game is somewhere on campus. Great opportunity for someone to go on a covert ops mission and etch their name in #UMassTwitter lore forever.
Re: 2019-20 season
KENPOM 2020 rankings at https://kenpom.com
240. Massachusetts
He has UMass by far the worst team in the A-10, e.g., 47 spots lower than Fordham. Not sure whether to temper my lofty expectations or shake my head at how awful Kenpom is. He has today's scrimmage opponent, Hofstra, at 125.
240. Massachusetts
He has UMass by far the worst team in the A-10, e.g., 47 spots lower than Fordham. Not sure whether to temper my lofty expectations or shake my head at how awful Kenpom is. He has today's scrimmage opponent, Hofstra, at 125.
Re: 2019-20 season
Kenpom can suck it, bigtime.
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Re: 2019-20 season
I know these aren't run like real games but the result should be interesting nonetheless.. Hofstra is picked to win their league.
Re: 2019-20 season
I've not been drinking the cool-aid. I think having seven freshman in the same class creates problems. Here's an analogy: if you were told an NFL team's roster was 20 returning vets and 28 rookies and 4 free agent signings, you would expect that team to finish at the bottom of their division and their conference. Unless their coach was Bill Belichick. It's gonna take great coaching for this to work. Do we have that?
edit: Just listened to the Jay Burnham/Tony Bergeron. What a terrific interview! Really lifted my attitude about the team. I'm really concerned about trying to win and have decent chemistry with 7 guys in the same class, but one thing I didn't take into account before listening to Bergeron is that he has years of experience building teams from brand new players. So that's nothing new to him. One thing I didn't know is that he has a Calipari connection as well. Well, we soon will see.
edit: Just listened to the Jay Burnham/Tony Bergeron. What a terrific interview! Really lifted my attitude about the team. I'm really concerned about trying to win and have decent chemistry with 7 guys in the same class, but one thing I didn't take into account before listening to Bergeron is that he has years of experience building teams from brand new players. So that's nothing new to him. One thing I didn't know is that he has a Calipari connection as well. Well, we soon will see.
"All credit to my teammates, all glory to God."-- Chaz Williams
Re: 2019-20 season
https://kenpom.com/blog/preseason-ratin ... transfers/bobolink wrote: ↑Sun Oct 20, 2019 11:05 am KENPOM 2020 rankings at https://kenpom.com
240. Massachusetts
He has UMass by far the worst team in the A-10, e.g., 47 spots lower than Fordham. Not sure whether to temper my lofty expectations or shake my head at how awful Kenpom is. He has today's scrimmage opponent, Hofstra, at 125.
Almost everything that the KenPom model sees as bad (or at least highly volatile) happened in our off-season.Finally, there is no change on incoming freshmen. The top 30 or so have an impact on a team’s rating and beyond that the computer is mostly blind to newcomers. That’s not to say it can’t make some guesses, though. In fact, it’s kind of a fun challenge to predict the impact of recruiting classes without any information on the recruiting class itself. Things like basketball budget, conference affiliation, recent performance, and whether the coach is returning handle some of this. But history says you can also glean some information from what kinds of players have left a team.
My understanding is it's not that his model projects we're going to be that bad for certain. It's more that we're so highly unpredictable that as a result, we're lower in the ratings than predictably good teams.
It's basically a just safer bet to say we'll be bad and leave the chance we'll be good than to predict we'll be good knowing that the team's rating has a lot of volatility associated with it.
I'd take these preseason KenPom ratings with a heavy grain of salt. The ratings may be more reflective of how strong the team and conference are maybe by January (after the preseason rating have little influence).
Class of 2019 - @StatsMass
Re: 2019-20 season
Well I just ordered 5#s of salt and a 55 gallon drum of koolaid.
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Re: 2019-20 season
Wow.. scoreboard is a little blurry but it looks like that made it 62-60 with just over 9 minutes left..
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Re: 2019-20 season
Yep. Hofstra is a pretty solid teamTheInsider wrote: ↑Mon Oct 21, 2019 4:40 am Wow.. scoreboard is a little blurry but it looks like that made it 62-60 with just over 9 minutes left..
Re: 2019-20 season
^ They were 27-8 last year and made the NIT where they lost to NC State. They lost their top scorer (he was awesome @ 27 points a game) but have almost everyone else back. They also have transfers from Georgia and URI who are eligible this year. So while they aren't a powerhouse, they are very good.
From what I have seen in past years, parts of these scrimmages are sometimes pre-planned to let the coaches work on certain concepts. Such as agreeing to have the other play zone for half of the game so you can work your offense against it, etc. As long as we kept it close I can live with it and the final score isn't that important.
I would really like to hear how certain players did but that probably won't happen.
From what I have seen in past years, parts of these scrimmages are sometimes pre-planned to let the coaches work on certain concepts. Such as agreeing to have the other play zone for half of the game so you can work your offense against it, etc. As long as we kept it close I can live with it and the final score isn't that important.
I would really like to hear how certain players did but that probably won't happen.
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Re: 2019-20 season
Sage had on twitter that his sources said the team looked good and beat Hofstra. I know these games aren't exactly like games because coaches like to try things. But scoring more than a good team is encouraging. He also said that it looked like a team that will exceed many of the expectations.