There has been much discussion here regarding the need and importance of crafting an OOC schedule that is commensurate with the team's experience level and expectations. Last season, the consensus seemed to feel that the lowly-rated schedule was justified for two reasons. First, we had so many players essentially competing for the first time at the collegiate level (in addition to the true freshmen, you would have to include Jun, Garrret, Benny and Stretch who each played sparingly if at all against college competition). And second, there was little if any expectation of last year's team reaching the NCAA or NIT tournaments, so a cupcake OOC schedule was not going to likely bite them in the ass come March.
So are we in a different boat this year? I tend to think we are. It's hard to fathom that less was expected from a team with a returning first team all A10 player and the A10 rookie of the year than a team without these players. Nevertheless, the hope has to be that the departures of JB and Max will result in addition by subtraction. This is not to undermine the scoring abilities of either of these players or the need to somehow make up this scoring. However, it is safe to say that both of these players "needed their shots" and were guilty at times of taking more than their share of ill-advised ones as a result. There's little question that Jun should and will often have the ball in his hands and his ability to score while simultaneously setting up others will be a key on offense. The expectation, at least my own, ought to be a much more favorable shot selection by the team as a whole. On defense, the competence level ought to be greater though we may be lacking Stretch's shot blocking prowess. Still, our bigs may do a better job of defensive positioning which would be a nice trade-ff for a few less blocked shots. The rest of the defense strikes me as more than competent defenders as long as they truly buy-in to play solid individual and team defense. There were too many times where I felt that JB and Max were either unwilling defenders, unable defenders, or at times, both. The 2024-25 Revs will need to be more proactive on defense, looking to aggressively force turnovers more often than in past years under AC. This assumes that added depth has arrived which will likely be answered by whether a number of transfers can play solid defense.
Bringing this full circle to the OOC schedule, the team can easily take the stance that they're starting all over again without JB, Max and Stretch (theoretically, Antoine and Benny as well) so it should schedule a ton of home games against subpar opponents and hope that 11-2 this time helps translate to a better conference season. However, I for one am hoping this is not the case. The VI tournament is a nice start against a better field when compared to last season's MTE. The 2024-25 Revs deserve a more balanced OOC schedule, one whose SOS is not in the 300's but is instead in the 150-200 range.
Topic closed
jf wrote: