Bear Down Wildcats

TucsonClip wrote:Koloko's offensive rebound percentage is impressive, but the defensive percentage is meh. I'm assuming by elite, were talking offensive percentage + block percentage.

~20% defensive rebounding is very good. It's not Ayton / Anderson / Zeus level (so yes, not elite) but it's very good, especially for a skinny three star freshman in his fourth year of organized basketball.

YoDeFoe wrote:

TucsonClip wrote:Koloko's offensive rebound percentage is impressive, but the defensive percentage is meh. I'm assuming by elite, were talking offensive percentage + block percentage.

~20% defensive rebounding is very good. It's not Ayton / Anderson / Zeus level (so yes, not elite) but it's very good, especially for a skinny three star freshman in his fourth year of organized basketball.

I suppose you are right. Zeke was 7th in the conference with a Dreb% of 20.3. I'm too used to the NBA percentages.

YoDeFoe wrote: * Jordan Brown
* Jemarl Baker
* Christian Koloko
* James Akinjo.

So... those guys are our floor raisers. Spiff touched on our primary ceiling raiser so let's explore those further.

* Azoulas Tubelis... incredible body control and hands for a dude who is 6'9" 240lbs. Bangs like a big, glides like a wing. Defends and rebounds well and can rip and run off a miss. Tubelis makes Arizona a faster, bigger, and ultimately more dangerous team. He's going to get a lot of opposing teams into foul trouble and feast at the foul line.

* Dalen Terry... length and passing from the wing, Terry averaged over 11 assists a game as a junior in high school and at 6'7" with a 7' wingspan, he has positional versatility to guard 1-4. Has put on some weight to what was a slight frame.

* Ben Mathurin... long, strong, with great touch and a knack for finishing at the rim. Should be an excellent role player scoring off of drives, cuts, and hopefully some catch and shoot opportunities. Needs to work on confidence in his jumper and more deliberate off ball movement.

* Kerr Krissa... intelligent ball handler, excellent passer, and just a monster shooter. He brings a Lauri-Markkanen-level of three point shooting after hitting 40% on 6.5 attempts per game in the NKL. Excellent off ball movement and has an "always ready" jumper that delivers both off the catch and the dribble from seemingly unlimited range. A dog on defense as well (locked up lotto pick Killian Hayes at the Basketball Without Borders event).

* Terrell Brown... undersized guard but a big time player, volume scorer and all around stat stuffer in the WAC last season. Loves to get to the rim, uses crafty dribble and a ton of toughness to play above his size. Terrific rebounder. Team player known for versatility, competitiveness, and maturity. Lacks three point shooting.

I think you take those four floor raisers and add in these five ceiling guys... this is a team with depth and versatility. The roster turnover will be tough to overcome but if these guys can develop some chemistry, I like our chances of making the tournament despite losing 7 of our top 8 players from last season.

YoDeFoe wrote:

YoDeFoe wrote: * Jordan Brown
* Jemarl Baker
* Christian Koloko
* James Akinjo.

So... those guys are our floor raisers. Spiff touched on our primary ceiling raiser so let's explore those further.

* Azoulas Tubelis... incredible body control and hands for a dude who is 6'9" 240lbs. Bangs like a big, glides like a wing. Defends and rebounds well and can rip and run off a miss. Tubelis makes Arizona a faster, bigger, and ultimately more dangerous team. He's going to get a lot of opposing teams into foul trouble and feast at the foul line.

* Dalen Terry... length and passing from the wing, Terry averaged over 11 assists a game as a junior in high school and at 6'7" with a 7' wingspan, he has positional versatility to guard 1-4. Has put on some weight to what was a slight frame.

* Ben Mathurin... long, strong, with great touch and a knack for finishing at the rim. Should be an excellent role player scoring off of drives, cuts, and hopefully some catch and shoot opportunities. Needs to work on confidence in his jumper and more deliberate off ball movement.

* Kerr Krissa... intelligent ball handler, excellent passer, and just a monster shooter. He brings a Lauri-Markkanen-level of three point shooting after hitting 40% on 6.5 attempts per game in the NKL. Excellent off ball movement and has an "always ready" jumper that delivers both off the catch and the dribble from seemingly unlimited range. A dog on defense as well (locked up lotto pick Killian Hayes at the Basketball Without Borders event).

* Terrell Brown... undersized guard but a big time player, volume scorer and all around stat stuffer in the WAC last season. Loves to get to the rim, uses crafty dribble and a ton of toughness to play above his size. Terrific rebounder. Team player known for versatility, competitiveness, and maturity. Lacks three point shooting.

I think you take those four floor raisers and add in these five ceiling guys... this is a team with depth and versatility. The roster turnover will be tough to overcome but if these guys can develop some chemistry, I like our chances of making the tournament despite losing 7 of our top 8 players from last season.

Is Mathurin similar to a Doutrive type?

billk78 wrote:Is Mathurin similar to a Doutrive type?

Yeah that's not a bad comp. Very similar body - Mathurin with a little better frame maybe. Mathurin should be a more disciplined and polished player than Doutrive as a freshmen, given his time with the NBA Academy. Especially so on defense (where Doutrive consistently looked lost and Mathurin often hangs his hat on his D). Both have seemingly unlimited confidence and energy (sometimes to a fault).

But yeah, similar size and length, similar knack for rebounding and scoring at the rim. Mathurin we hope is a better three point shooter (he's shown a lot of progress in the last 18mo).

Serious question: when was the last season Miller's team overachieved? Like, where we finished significantly better than the preseason forecasts.

I think the year we had Markkanen was a surprise. Much better than expected and that led to the disappointment of the loss in the 16

Beachcat97 wrote:Serious question: when was the last season Miller's team overachieved? Like, where we finished significantly better than the preseason forecasts.

Hard to overachieve in conference when you are usually picked first or second

As others have said, based on expectations, the probability of underachieving has always been much higher. Of course, it depends on what you base it on: PAC-12 title - mostly met this expectation, Final Four - underachieved.

azcat49 wrote:I think the year we had Markkanen was a surprise. Much better than expected and that led to the disappointment of the loss in the 16

The 2016-17 team (with Markkanen) started the season ranked 10th in the AP Poll, so...better than expected? Really? Feel like 10th in the country ended up being just about right. We were a #2 seed in the tourney and lost in the S16.

PHXCATS wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:Serious question: when was the last season Miller's team overachieved? Like, where we finished significantly better than the preseason forecasts.

Hard to overachieve in conference when you are usually picked first or second

It's a fair point, PHX, though it's also true the Pac has been weak AF lately. Getting better, sure, but in a lot of those years we were picked first or second, the Pac had very few bids and did not get far in the tourney.

In other words, it would've been possible to overachieve in one of those years, unless the only achievement we care about is our place in the Pac standings.

Beachcat97 wrote:

azcat49 wrote:I think the year we had Markkanen was a surprise. Much better than expected and that led to the disappointment of the loss in the 16

The 2016-17 team (with Markkanen) started the season ranked 10th in the AP Poll, so...better than expected? Really? Feel like 10th in the country ended up being just about right. We were a #2 seed in the tourney and lost in the S16.

Well if you thought LM would be that good than great for you. I was shocked he played at that level and that we beat UCLA in LA and beat Oregon in the PAC tourney. They far exceeded my expectations but did disappoint losing to Xavier. I think having us 10th was because we were so good the previous couple years

Wow
Also this is incredible

azcat49 wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:

azcat49 wrote:I think the year we had Markkanen was a surprise. Much better than expected and that led to the disappointment of the loss in the 16

The 2016-17 team (with Markkanen) started the season ranked 10th in the AP Poll, so...better than expected? Really? Feel like 10th in the country ended up being just about right. We were a #2 seed in the tourney and lost in the S16.

Well if you thought LM would be that good than great for you. I was shocked he played at that level and that we beat UCLA in LA and beat Oregon in the PAC tourney. They far exceeded my expectations but did disappoint losing to Xavier. I think having us 10th was because we were so good the previous couple years

We were told before that season, by many experts, that LM was a probable lottery pick, and that's where he ended up. So we were the 10th ranked team to begin the season, and we had LM, Kadeem, Rawle and Kobi Simmons. Did I expect to beat UCLA in LA? No, because they had Lonzo that year and were the #3 team in the country at that point. That was easily the most satisfying win of the 2016-17 season, for me at least.

I'd say that team did about as well as I thought they could: Pac reg season and tourney champs. Tough S16 loss to Xavier. That's pretty darn close to par for the course during the Miller era.

Anyone seen any decent Pac 12 forecasts? Links?

Beachcat97 wrote:Anyone seen any decent Pac 12 forecasts? Links?

Three Man Weave does a good job every season... here is this year's.

YoDeFoe wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:Anyone seen any decent Pac 12 forecasts? Links?

Three Man Weave does a good job every season... here is this year's.

Thanks, YDF!

Initial thoughts: no way ASU finishes 4th; I'm not convinced Stanford is good enough to finish 3rd; Oregon/UCLA is a toss-up, would be a little surprising if one of them didn't win the league; AZ feels like the biggest mystery team given the large number of new players; USC feels about right, down year for them; Colorado is might be a little underrated here at 8th.

YoDeFoe wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:Anyone seen any decent Pac 12 forecasts? Links?

Three Man Weave does a good job every season... here is this year's.

I will eat my foot if Akinjo isn’t on a 1st or 2nd Pac 12 team.

ChooChooCat wrote:

YoDeFoe wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:Anyone seen any decent Pac 12 forecasts? Links?

Three Man Weave does a good job every season... here is this year's.

I will eat my foot if Akinjo isn’t on a 1st or 2nd Pac 12 team.

I hear ya, but I really couldn't give a flying F about whether our guys earn these accolades. If Akinjo is 1st or 2nd team, it probably means he had a big season, which probably means we did a little better than people expected. That's all I care about.

I haven't seen any forecasts yet that have us in the top 3. The league feels more competitive 1st through 4th than in recent seasons.

ChooChooCat wrote:

YoDeFoe wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:Anyone seen any decent Pac 12 forecasts? Links?

Three Man Weave does a good job every season... here is this year's.

I will eat my foot if Akinjo isn’t on a 1st or 2nd Pac 12 team.

100%

I think most projections will have a hard time with this team given the turnover. That's part of what I posted earlier when I said that normally I'm doing a projection on our team about this time before the season tips... but this season I don't feel comfortable doing that.

The other part of that "process" for me in those two posts was that I think if you dig in on this team, it'll be a very competitive group. I can't imagine this team performing as poorly as 2018-19, which is the only recent team to lack an All Conference player. You look at that starting five (Coleman, Williams, Randolph, Luther, Jeter) and I think we're better at every position.

I think we get two all conf players... Akinjo + probably one of Tubelis and J. Brown.

Beachcat97 wrote:

azcat49 wrote:

Beachcat97 wrote:

azcat49 wrote:I think the year we had Markkanen was a surprise. Much better than expected and that led to the disappointment of the loss in the 16

The 2016-17 team (with Markkanen) started the season ranked 10th in the AP Poll, so...better than expected? Really? Feel like 10th in the country ended up being just about right. We were a #2 seed in the tourney and lost in the S16.

Well if you thought LM would be that good than great for you. I was shocked he played at that level and that we beat UCLA in LA and beat Oregon in the PAC tourney. They far exceeded my expectations but did disappoint losing to Xavier. I think having us 10th was because we were so good the previous couple years

We were told before that season, by many experts, that LM was a probable lottery pick, and that's where he ended up. So we were the 10th ranked team to begin the season, and we had LM, Kadeem, Rawle and Kobi Simmons. Did I expect to beat UCLA in LA? No, because they had Lonzo that year and were the #3 team in the country at that point. That was easily the most satisfying win of the 2016-17 season, for me at least.

I'd say that team did about as well as I thought they could: Pac reg season and tourney champs. Tough S16 loss to Xavier. That's pretty darn close to par for the course during the Miller era.

Oh man, I don’t remember anyone saying LM was a lotto pick pre season. In fact I remember he thought he would be here for two years. Oh well we are cutting hairs. I threw out an answer to your query and I guess we agree to disagree

3 weeks to Game 1? Cal Baptist, NAU, Montana, Grambling State, Sam Houston State and Northern Colorado?

Jefe wrote:3 weeks to Game 1? Cal Baptist, NAU, Montana, Grambling State, Sam Houston State and Northern Colorado?

If we are to play that many preseason games it will have to be sooner than 3 weeks.........we are scheduled to start PAC12 play exactly 1 month from today:

https://zonazealots.com/2020/10/29/pac- ... asketball/" target="_blank

I haven't seen the non-conference schedule released yet.

Jefe wrote:3 weeks to Game 1? Cal Baptist, NAU, Montana, Grambling State, Sam Houston State and Northern Colorado?

Inject that schedule into my veins! It’d be the least effective viagra ever.

Jefe wrote:3 weeks to Game 1? Cal Baptist, NAU, Montana, Grambling State, Sam Houston State and Northern Colorado?

Deserves an empty arena...

Jefe wrote:3 weeks to Game 1? Cal Baptist, NAU, Montana, Grambling State, Sam Houston State and Northern Colorado?

I would have bet that was probably the Cal Poly SLO schedule and not THE FRICKIN' UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA'S SCHEDULE!!!!

I thought we were at least playing 2 OOC games. Guess not. 4 weeks to game 1 then!

12/2 vs Colorado
12/19 @ Stanford

Why that big of a gap and no Utah? Utah plays UW 12/3 then ASPew on 12/22 & 2/7

KenPom dropped tonight:

* Oregon - 21
* UCLA - 28
* Stanford - 32
* Arizona St. - 36
* Arizona - 38
* USC - 48
* Utah - 52
* Colorado - 61
* Washington - 75
* Oregon St - 110
* Cal - 119
* Wash St. - 136

Reading the stuff on this thread, 38 seems awfully generous.

RichardCranium wrote:Reading the stuff on this thread, 38 seems awfully generous.

I think somewhere between 35-50 is about right.

However CBS sports has us at 70. Gonna be a lot of doubters that don’t know how much skill AT and Kerr bring to join Brown and Akinjo. I honestly think we could be a sneaky good 6 seed in the tourney (should it happen). Just depends on chemistry with this many newcomers.

84Cat wrote: ↑Sat Nov 07, 2020 9:17 am

Wishing the kid a speedy recovery.

I don't think he was expected to get many minutes this year. Maybe the time off and physical therapy will bring him back even stronger.

Preseason AP Poll released. We got 0 votes.

ASU- 18th
Oregon- 20th
UCLA- 22nd
Stanford- received some votes and theoretically 33rd

RichardCranium wrote: ↑Wed Nov 04, 2020 4:28 am Reading the stuff on this thread, 38 seems awfully generous.

Tend to agree. We are facing a drop off in talent at all 3 spots occupied by the frosh (Nico/Green/Nnaji) last year.

The recruiting hits (largely a function of the NCAA allegations) are catching up with us.

dmjcat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 12:27 pm

The recruiting hits (largely a function of the NCAA allegations) are catching up with us.

We literally have the #5 incoming class in the country...

ChooChooCat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 12:53 pm

dmjcat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 12:27 pm

The recruiting hits (largely a function of the NCAA allegations) are catching up with us.

We literally have the #5 incoming class in the country...

And we are literally ranked #38 by Kenpom. Reality sucks.

dmjcat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 1:13 pm

ChooChooCat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 12:53 pm

dmjcat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 12:27 pm

The recruiting hits (largely a function of the NCAA allegations) are catching up with us.

We literally have the #5 incoming class in the country...

And we are literally ranked #38 by Kenpom. Reality sucks.

ZOMG. Why even play the season dmj? We're only 38th place in Kenpom before a ball is even dribbled and it's all due to our shitty recruiting! OH NOOOOO!

dmjcat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 1:13 pm And we are literally ranked #38 by Kenpom. Reality sucks.

Some*thing* does.

dmjcat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 1:13 pm

ChooChooCat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 12:53 pm

dmjcat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 12:27 pm

The recruiting hits (largely a function of the NCAA allegations) are catching up with us.

We literally have the #5 incoming class in the country...

And we are literally ranked #38 by Kenpom. Reality sucks.

You understand the difference between recruiting ranking and team ranking right?

azgreg wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 2:11 pm

dmjcat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 1:13 pm

ChooChooCat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 12:53 pm

dmjcat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 12:27 pm

The recruiting hits (largely a function of the NCAA allegations) are catching up with us.

We literally have the #5 incoming class in the country...

And we are literally ranked #38 by Kenpom. Reality sucks.

You understand the difference between recruiting ranking and team ranking right?

I do........might want to check with Choo however.

dmjcat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 2:15 pm

azgreg wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 2:11 pm

dmjcat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 1:13 pm

ChooChooCat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 12:53 pm

dmjcat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 12:27 pm

The recruiting hits (largely a function of the NCAA allegations) are catching up with us.

We literally have the #5 incoming class in the country...

And we are literally ranked #38 by Kenpom. Reality sucks.

You understand the difference between recruiting ranking and team ranking right?

I do........might want to check with Choo however.

Your posting disagrees with you.

Might be in the minority here, but I am so ready for a roster with fewer OADs. For all the hype over last year's class, I'd argue only Zeke was a real difference maker. Josh had some nice games and moments. Nico was inconsistent AF and not really ready to start for a contender, imo. Let's see what Sean can do with a humbler group of guys, where all five starting spots should be up for grabs. We're under the radar this year, which is a weird place for us to be. Maybe it'll work to our advantage.

Imagine thinking preseason Kenpom rankings matter with as little players as we have returning.

ChooChooCat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 10:41 pm Imagine thinking preseason Kenpom rankings matter with as little players as we have returning.

Choo - any more preseason practice nuggets? Any guys in particular impressing or underwhelming?

goslingswagg wrote: ↑Tue Nov 10, 2020 7:41 am

ChooChooCat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 10:41 pm Imagine thinking preseason Kenpom rankings matter with as little players as we have returning.

Choo - any more preseason practice nuggets? Any guys in particular impressing or underwhelming?

Things I've been told and mind you it's still early:

"The fans are going to love Kerr."
"Akinjo is that dude, team goes as far as he takes them."
"Tubelis is a pro, may not be a one and done, depends how quickly he adjusts to the American game."
"J. Brown will be very solid all year."
"As of today T. Brown is likely a starter, he has adjusted well."

ChooChooCat wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 10:41 pm Imagine thinking preseason Kenpom rankings matter with as little players as we have returning.

#38 is fine for me in Kenpom. It's a tourney team ranking to begin with, and it's obviously early enough to move up.

We have a lot of interesting players, but none that jump out as automatically making us a top 20 team. We can totally get there, but I fully understand why we're not just put there at this point.