Pre-season previews

[tya1]

A couple of recent internet basketball website predictions.

One of them predicts the top four of the conference as UTC, Wofford, Furman, and ETSU. They pick VMI 5th and UNCG 6th. This writer has doubts as to how the Paladins will replace Mounce and Gurley although he likes Hunter and Bothwell returning at guard and the Furman offensive system.

Bob Richey lost a lot of talent and scoring from last year, particularly in the frontcourt, but he’s proven in his four years in Greenville that his 4/5 spaced out motion offense is one of the elite systems in the all of midmajordom (per shotquality, the Paladins were behind only Alabama in “3 and rim” rate offensively).

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The other says the top four will be Furman, UTC, Wofford, and ETSU. They actually divide the SoCon into three tiers . UNCG and Mercer are also in the first tier, VMI by itself in the second tier and the Citadel, Samford and WCU in the bottom group. The author of this prediction seems to be a really big fan of Richey's -

I could write a 3,000-word preview waxing poetic on Furman head coach Bob Richey, but I’ll try to boil it down into a few sentences. Bob Richey is one of the premier coaches in college basketball, at any level, period. All four seasons during his tenure the Paladins have ranked inside KenPom’s top 100. The total number of top 100 finishes in the other 21 seasons represented in KenPom? ZERO.

Richey’s offense is a thing of beauty. His teams spread the floor and make sure to get a quality shot each and every possession. The Paladins have ranked inside the top 20 of 3PA rate all four years under Richey, and, incredibly, have ranked inside the top ten in 2PFG% each year as well.

LINK

[apaladin]

Agree with the first. FU lost a lot of talent. Got some coming back too for sure. Will be interesting in the preseason to see who steps up.

[cavedweller2]

Will UNCG bounce back after losing their coach and several players?

[Furmanoid]

Can the writers just go ahead and declare us conference champs based on offensive beauty and a some good stats? It’s the dang scoreboard that always holds us back. The offense does seem to open up shots, many of them 3’s. The problem has been a tendency to go ice cold for long stretches at just the wrong time. Hopefully we have stumbled onto some really good, technically sound, consistent shooters. I’ll be very interested to see the DII transfer guy. He appears to be proven technology.

[tya1]

Matt Norlander, who writes on college basketball for CBS is releasing his rankings of all 358 D1 teams. Yesterday he revealed his rankings of teams from #201-358. Today he lists teams from #69-200. He ranks the Paladins at #97 and Chattanooga at #98 and thinks those will be the top 2 contenders in the SoCon this year. The rest of his rankings - #128 Mercer, #134 Wofford, #164 ETSU, #170 UNCG, #201 VMI, #267 Samford, #286 Citadel, #298 Western Carolina.

97. Furman: If Bob Richey's younger guys can adapt as quickly as the teams he's had the past three seasons, then the Paladins will be the top team in the SoCon. Richey has embraced a lot of next-next-level analytics and it's helped him build one of the better mid-majors. Mike Bothwell is a physical guard who scores with an array of moves.

[tya1]

Sports Illustrated picked the Paladins (#128 overall) to finish second in the SoCon behind Chattanooga(# 115 ). They are ahead of ETSU, Wofford, UNCG, Mercer, Samford, VMI, The Citadel, and Western Carolina. They have Samford a bit higher and VMI lower than some other predictions.

In another article they pick Niko Medved as one of the top ten rising coaches in college hoops and Bob Richey as one of ten other rising coaches.

[apaladin]

ETSU is prolly too low. They will have a new team of transfers.

[tya1]

ETSU is prolly too low. They will have a new team of transfers.

Not really. They lost about seven players who transferred away, including their star freshman Monsanto - leading rebounder and second leading scorer. They did bring in two transfers but mainly they signed six freshmen as replacements.

[apaladin]

ETSU is prolly too low. They will have a new team of transfers.

Not really. They lost about seven players who transferred away, including their star freshman Monsanto - leading rebounder and second leading scorer. They did bring in two transfers but mainly they signed six freshmen as replacements.

That’s unusual for them.

[tya1]

ETSU is prolly too low. They will have a new team of transfers.

Not really. They lost about seven players who transferred away, including their star freshman Monsanto - leading rebounder and second leading scorer. They did bring in two transfers but mainly they signed six freshmen as replacements.

That’s unusual for them.

ETSU's new coach was an assistant to Rick Barnes at Tennessee. He has no connection to ETSU's former coach Forbes or his recruiting philosophy that I know of.

[furpop16]

Taking a stab at collecting FU rankings mentioned above as well as prognostications of the Usual Suspects (KenPom, Sagarin, & Massey):

CBS (Norlander) - 97
Sports Illustrated - 128
KenPom - 118 (finished last season at 96)
Sagarin - ---- (awaiting 1st game; finished last season at 87)
Massey - 115 (last I checked on Mar 6 finished last season at 101)
ESPN BPI - ---- (awaiting 1st game; finished last season at 96)
NCAA NET - --- (not out until mid-Jan; finished last season at 80)

[furpop16]

CBS (Norlander) - 97
Sports Illustrated - 128
KenPom - 118 (finished last season at 96)
Sagarin - ---- (awaiting 1st game; finished last season at 87)
Massey - 115 (last I checked on Mar 6 finished last season at 101)
ESPN BPI - ---- (awaiting 1st game; finished last season at 96)
NCAA NET - --- (not out until mid-Jan; finished last season at 80).

So Sagarin has us starting at 95 - better than both KenPom & Massey - but that's consistent as Sagarin had us finishing better last season among the three of them as well. To be sure, each of those three - Sagarin, Massey, & KenPom - has us starting out this season with a numeric rating/ranking behind where we finished last season.

All except ESPN BPI, which has us starting at 75, a much improved index than our last season finish at 96. Especially odd with the departure of Gurley, which (to me) would suggest a considerable negative impact to our position in a "power index".

Anyone care to guess why ESPN BPI is hot on the Paladin's "power index"? Do they know something we don't?

[youwouldno]

The pre-season computing rankings use a range of approaches - some do a basic regression that ignores any specific changes in personnel. Pomeroy does factor in attrition.

[furpop16]

The pre-season computing rankings use a range of approaches - some do a basic regression that ignores any specific changes in personnel. Pomeroy does factor in attrition.

Which would explain why the ESPN BPI would have us improved relative to last year. Would be interesting to understand their methodology, as such improvement also resulted in our leapfrogging 21 other teams. Our regression line appears steeper than the others - would be fun to know why.