The Billy G factor and the improvements from year 1 to year 2 his teams have shown in the past as a positive looking forward to the season.

And if you want to remain in “angry fan mode” just remember most outlets kept UNC in the top 30 when they lost 7 of their top 8 three years ago (after that championsip).

UK will have 27 or 28 W in March and rank in the Top 10 (or so) if all are healthy and eligible, as I expect.

I have no problem with the pollsters taking a cautionary stance on UK’s place in the rankings … for all the reasons Tru lists.

One can only hope that UNC takes UK that lightly :)

I think you’ll find both were NR in preseason polls but finished #2 in the nation.

It doesn’t matter who makes these numbers or if they are done by committee, but at the end of the game, the positions should reflect at least these numbers offensively along with a dominate defense to win. We must protect the ball, hold our opponents in the 60s and keep them under 40 boards. We don’t need as many threes if we get a lot of fast breaks and make our free throws.

PG/LG 10 ppg, 6 apg, 2 topg, 6 rpg, 75% FT
SG/Wing 18 ppg, 4apg, 2 topg, 6 rbg, 85% FT
SFWing 13 ppg, 5apg, 2 topg,10 rpg, 75% FT
PF/Post 18 ppg, 4 apg, 2 topg, 10 rpg, 75% FT
C/Post 13 ppg, 4 apg, 2 topg, 10 rpg, 75% FT

Totals: 72 ppg, 23 apg, 10 topg, 42 rbg, 77% FT

Looking at our roster is this possible? I think so. What do you think?

I can’t say that I get too bent out of shape by preseason prognostications such as this. As Tru points out, there are far too many questions about this team to justify any kind of a high ranking (I would consider anything top-20 to be “high” in this instance).

Sure, we expect this team to come together and play much better than the squad last year, with more depth, more experience for the key guys, and to replace collectively what was lost with Joe, Ramel, and Derrick. But as Tru points out, those expectations come with a healthy dose of Blue, and outside analysts will not necessarily agree that everything will come together the way we hope it will. And that’s okay, because unlike football, where a team is ranked at the beginning of the season has absolutely nothing to do with where it plays at the end of the season – it’s determined on the court.

If UK truly is a top 20 team, it will be there by the end of the season (or earlier).

I’m not too sure that setting the expectation high for the assist/turnover ratio for the whole team is not such a bad idea. Last yeaar Joe and Ramel accounted for 183 TO and 165 assists and they were the best we had. On the whole team, only Meeks and Jasper had more assists than than turnovers. Our foul shooting also hurt us. Hitting over 75% as a team should be our goal. Improve the areas (turnovers, assists, foul shooting) and the rebounding and we should be a very good team. Don’t and it will be a long season. Having five positions that average in the double figures also will help us in areas where we were limited last year.It will make us harder to defend.

Obviously these are arbitrary numbers, but just out rebounding a team will not necessarily mean we will win the game. We won several games last year even though we were out rebounded. If our dense holds up, we simply have to score more points. The easiest way to do that if you don’t have a lot of great shooters is to get fast breaks, cut the number of turnovers, increase the number of assists and hit your FTs.

Postseason rankings.

Priceless.

2 NC, 4 FF, 9 E8, 11 S16 in 14 years. The best UK era since 1946 to 59 (no games in 53) no doubt.

Gillispie must show he can do that. SO FAR in his career, he has 1 S16 in 6 years.