2012-2013 A10 pre-season thread

[hawkhill]

Originally Posted by stophorseabuse

Exactly how I see it spider, though 3 road wins could ice it. SLU has the schedule for that. Having road games at fordham, ri, and/or Duquesne would give a team a HUGE edge this year.

I agree with both of you in terms of getting 3 raod wins and defending the home court gets you near the top of the heap. The Hawks have every opportunity to be favored in every home game next year)- Fordham,Butler, GW,URI,Richmond,St Bona , Temple and X. I could see 4 "road" wins out of this group (especially since one game is on a neutral court) Fordham, Charlotte,Dayton, Duquesne,Lasalle - not predicting which ones. Lucky to win on the road vs Umass, St Lou, or VCU but would surely take them!

One thing about our non con schedule- some good teams, but no games with a lot of juice (especially at the Fieldhouse)to get the fan base revved up. Our best games are at nova, at Creighton, at Drexel, and Notre Dame and either FSU or BYU in Brooklyn.
There are exactly 3 games to get excited about on campus- Xavier, Temple and Butler (with little revenge matches vs Iona,American, and Harvard)
.

[A10BBall]

Originally Posted by SpiderDave19

No reason Umass should struggle, except the fact that there are about 8other teams that have no reason why they should struggle. And that's who Umass will be playing most nights.

Umass should have a very good team and maybe the best player in the league. But it won't be even remotely surprising if they lose a game to anyone other than maybe Duquesne, Charlotte, or Fordham - especially on the road.

Exactly... Anyone in the probably the top 10 can be each other..

Case in point.. The #9 on this list swept the #2 team on this list last year and neither school really lost anything...

This is going to be a slugfest

[FlyingElvis]

I like Saint Joseph's going into this year. I was very impressed with the young talent they had last year.

[spicebosh]

UD is tough to gage, I think they will be good solely bc of Dillard, heck of a player. Toss in an improved Kavs and you have a nice senior combo there. The unknowns are Sanford and Matt D, have more confidence Matt D is a player than Sanford. Also Benson with his knee, we will see how he does, even though it only takes a 6 months to get back sometimes it takes a full year to get all your movement back. Could take them a few months to gel like X the past few years. Miller has a year under his belt, I am hesitant to put them in top 3 bc of the defense they played last year but I wouldnt be shocked if they are a top 3 team.

[FlyingElvis]

The two new guys that I most anticipate seeing for UD are Devon Scott and Vee Sanford. Devon Scott fills some of the void left by Chris Wright, IMO. We lacked the explosive, athletic forward last year, and that's exactly what Devon is. Vee's offense has been talked up by Archie Miller a lot. I was unexpectedly impressed with the little I saw of him at last year's pre-season scrimmage too. He's creative and athletic driving to the basket. Archie says he can shoot.

I'm still not sure what to expect of us as a team this season. I'm not sure where our overall talent level stands against the better teams in the league because we have so much new blood and the league is revamped with VCU and Butler. We absolutely have to play a better brand of defense than we saw last year. It used to be our trademark under BG. Kevin Dillard is a blue-chipper in this league. Khari Price, his frosh back-up is a complete unknown to me at this point.

[paulxu]

Katz likes St. Louis.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-bask...ege-basketball

I'll just be happy if they don't find a way to sneak Conklin back in the lineup.

[Flyer75]

I'm not sure if SLU will win the league or not, but they will be right there all year long battling for it. Katz is right, they have very good guard play. I'd take Dillard over anyone one guard they have, but until I see Vee Sanford play a few games, I'd have to say SLU has the advantage over UD at the guard spot as a whole, for now.

[SquidLegs]

X should be better in the middle next year. Their returners must be the worst collection of stiffs (Robinson and Taylor) I have ever seen at X, but I think Jalen Reynolds and Isaiah Philmore will help them.

[MudFlap]

Originally Posted by SquidLegs

X should be better in the middle next year. Their returners must be the worst collection of stiffs (Robinson and Taylor) I have ever seen at X, but I think Jalen Reynolds and Isaiah Philmore will help them.

UD guys said the same about Love and McLean, Brown, Crawford, etc.,etc. so guess we'll see.

[X-man47]

The Muskies have the top incoming class in the league. However they could either be very average or very good this season depending upon how quickly that incoming talent develops. Other questionmarks bearing on how Xavier does this year include how good Philmore is, and how much players like Robinson, Taylor, Dee Davis, and Martin improve over last season. Wells needs to also continue to get better but frankly, he is about the only known quantity on this year's team.

My best guess is that the Muskies struggle early, particularly with their typically difficult nonconference slate of games. But the freshmen will have begun to be sophomores by the start of league play, and that could mean that Xavier finishes as one of the top three or four teams along with SLU, VCU (possibly), and perhaps UMass and St Joe's. The league is going to be unusually tough this year, I think, and with no clear standouts, very difficult to predict. It promises to be an interesting season to say the least.

[MudFlap]

You guys better behave since Bobo is Chairman of the selection committee this year (Just kidding, Flyers fans):


http://www.cbssports.com/collegebask...ens-tournament

[FlyingElvis]

Originally Posted by X-man47

The Muskies have the top incoming class in the league.

On paper at least.

[Blue Blobster]

Originally Posted by FlyingElvis

On paper at least.

What, and you think YOUR recruiting class can hold a candle to ours? thats laughable. Xavier HAS the better/best recruiting class. There is no major recruiting service that says otherwise. On paper, and when games start to be played, on the floor.

[Flyer75]

Originally Posted by Blue Blobster

What, and you think YOUR recruiting class can hold a candle to ours? thats laughable. Xavier HAS the better/best recruiting class. There is no major recruiting service that says otherwise. On paper, and when games start to be played, on the floor.

I don't recall where he said that. Do you dispute that you have the best incoming class on paper only for now?? That's all we know....you had the best class on paper also with the Griff, Canty, Latham, and Davis. Sometimes highly ranked classes work out, a lot of times they don't. Sometimes under the radar classes work out sometimes they don't.

It's funny how fans react when something even remotely negative might be said about their team. You assumed that Flying E, by saying what he did, was conversely also giving some ringing endorsement to UD's class as being better. Maybe he thinks VCU's is better......

[DistrictBaller]

LOL, I'm a VCU fan and I don't think our class is better than Xavier's. I think we have a pretty good class that's among the better ones in the A-10, but not the best. Semaj Christon is a beast.

VCU's been great at developing players over their careers here. Our 2 first-round NBA draft picks since 2009 were both 2-stars with little fanfare. All of our final four guys were all 3-stars or lower except for Jamie Skeen who was a 4-star Wake Forest transfer. We usually develop great teams with 2 and 3-star talent for the most part. Getting a couple of 4-stars only happened this past year.

It's an interesting conversation, but on paper, I don't think anyone holds a candle to Xavier right now. It'll be fun to see how these classes all pan out. There very well could be be a 2/3 star guy in one of these classes who makes some of these 4-star/5-star guys look average when it's all said and done.