cbs forecasts next season ...

[tmcats]

http://www.cbssports.com/college-basket ... ch-kansas/

ku #1 of course; cats #8; pokes in the cellar. brad left just in time evidently.

[hilltopwildcat]

LMAO!

[learnin]

We have 3 starters and a 6th man back from an NCAA team. I think we'll finish higher than 8. I wonder where CBS would have placed the Pokes if
Brad was still there? At any rate, yea, there was a reason he jumped at the Illinois job. There was a good chance that his stock would have fallen quite a bit next year.

[tmcats]

i have no reason to dis underwood other than he does come off as smug and snarky at times. it will be very interesting to see how he does in a true 'basketball' league competing against the likes of beilein and izzo. conzo martin's move to missouri won't make recruiting st. louis any easier either.

[WildcatEngineer]

Coach Underwood financially secured a respectable future for his wife, children, and grandchildren. I would have done the same thing. With that if I was an OSU fan, I would call him a liar and jerk for some of his public remarks. My question is with all the T Boone cash, a successful Football Team, why can't they be competitive for a MBB Coach?

I dislike preseason MBB Polls. My heart keeps coming up with reasons KU is not going to win the Big XII. My logic has after years realized they have consistent advantages. Now with that said ISU did win in Allen. WVU choked in Allen. And we were an open trey from upsetting them in Allen. There is a change in their MO. They did not play solid defense last year. And their front line is not dominant. So with my heart I predict Huggy will get it done this year and win the Big XII out right.

I could see us anywhere from 4th to 10th. NIT NIT NIT

[pulitzerdave]

PROVE IT! That's what I say about this perceived slight. So far, we haven't.

Fans are great at "projecting" how good we'll be. There's nothing wrong with that, it's what makes us fans and keeps us interested. But if we step back and look at this squad realistically, I understand this prediction.

We lost our two best, and most consistent players, as well as the leadership that they provided. One is in the NBA. That's hard to replace. What we're left with, as one poster pointed out, are three starters and a sixth man. OK. That's true, but that doesn't necessarily translate to another NCAA team. All three of these starters have certainly had their great moments and contributed to our 20-plus win season. However, they also showed periods of troubling inconsistency. All three must step up with major improvement over what we've seen in their first two years. Stokes needs to especially improve his assists/turnover ratio. Brown needs to improve his shooting percentage and shot selection. Wade needs to assert himself more offensively and not defer to teammates. Dean has the most NBA potential on this team and shouldn't defer to anyone. And all three need to embrace their new roles as leaders. Our sixth man, Snead, hit the freshman fall, and will need to rebound from that.

Our new recruits haven't played a single minute yet. Counting on any of them for major contributions to this team is always a big question mark. As none of them are above 3-star players, it's understandable that those who make these team predictions would not factor them in, or even mention them. That usually only happens when a team has recruited a 5-star player, or has a transfer that has already been successful in a D-1 program.

So when we look at this 8th place prediction, I don't think we can cry foul and show indignation. Maybe it's a little low, but maybe it isn't. There are some very good teams rated above us, teams with both more experience and more talent.

The truth will emerge only after this group begins playing. I think it could go either way. We will need a few major surprises with our recruits and vast improvement from our returning players. This team can ill afford internal controversy and injuries.

My prediction is 6th place, and a nervous hour during Selection Sunday. I hope it's better, but many things need to go right and learnin's force must reverse the fortunes of past disappointing years.

[xtrawildcat]

This CBS prediction is pretty poor imo. but with the league again losing all 5 players off the first team with three of those guys being point guards, Big 12 predictions for this year will be very tough and pretty meaningless.

Regarding KSU This is what we return from last year. Big 12 play only. (Same minutes as TT and Tx returns 58% of their minutes but this guy jumped both of them ahead of us)
KSU Returning Stats (Estimates only as I used per game rather than totals for the calculations)
Minutes 66%
Rebounds 43%
Assists 65%
Steals 69%
Turnovers 54%
Points 58%
The 7.6 rebounds from Iwunda is really the biggest loss. DJs injury really reduced his rebounding numbers in the second half of the Big 12 and I think his rebounding and rim protection will be more than adequately replaced by a combination of the new big guys. Sneed, Wainright and whoever else plays the three are going to have to rebound. Dean Wade is going to have to improve his rebounding but his rebounding was also reduced by injury in the second half of the Big 12 season. Sounds like Weber is telling everyone they will get minutes by rebounding so I think we'll be OK here. Might mean more Diarra and McQuirl at the one and two in order to get more rebounding.

I do not see scoring being a problem with the players we have returning and the new additions. Sneed should be better, I think Brown can improve on his 25% from three. Stokes shot 35% from three in Big 12 play so I expect the same this year with a little better finishing at the rim and mid range.
Dean Wade should be effective with whatever he decides to do on the offensive end and IMO everyone needs to just let him play his game. Lots of competition for all our returning players and that should be encouraging to all of us. If Dean Wade's ankle gets tweaked, Mawien, Sneed, or some other combination should be able to fill in. The ability to still compete when a key player is injured will be improved over last year.

We are bringing in a 6 9 post player who averaged 5.7 rebounds in 20 minutes a game vs DJ at 4.6 in 27 minutes a game in Big 12 play. Sallah started 35 games last year on a tournament team. This guys is not totally unknown.

Wes and Corlbe did not take care of the ball very well and our turnovers have a very good chance of being reduced and steals should be about the same.

I'm expecting a better team than last year and I am confident of finishing in the top half of the Big 12 and an invite to the tournament If we don't, we'll welcome a new coach the following year.

[pulitzerdave]

I really don't like to use stats as an indicator for what we will be capable of as a team. Each year, the dynamics change. The two things that concern me the most has been our inability to close out games, and our poor road record over the last 2-3 seasons. Unless we somehow fix that, we'll be in the bottom half of the conference again. We also need to reestablish the Octagon of Doom factor and have teams fear it.

[xtrawildcat]

I really don't like to use stats as an indicator for what we will be capable of as a team. Each year, the dynamics change. The two things that concern me the most has been our inability to close out games, and our poor road record over the last 2-3 seasons. Unless we somehow fix that, we'll be in the bottom half of the conference again. We also need to reestablish the Octagon of Doom factor and have teams fear it.

We did pretty well last year at the two things that are your biggest concern. Closing out games and winning Big 12 road games.
We closed out games at a 50/50 pace last year with Brown and Stokes at guard. Guess I don't see why we can't do that again with another year of experience at guard plus what look like more talented back ups than Corlbe.
Won four conference road games last year plus throw in the KU and TT debacles as ones we didn't win but didn't lose either.

We lost our best player in Iwunda but have a pretty good replacement in Sneed. We lost DJ who was injured after the KU game and will be able to replace his production with a selection of bigs including Sallah who started 35 games last year. Two promising juco recruits and several promising freshman.

Not sure why we should think Texas and TT should finish above us and so I don't.
Baylor maybe but they lost an all conference player and their best defender. We beat them twice last year.
OU maybe as I think they will bounce back but it will depend on how good Trae Young plays as a freshman.
KU probably just because but they'll have to fit some pieces together and they probably will.
WVU probably although the league is starting to catch up to Huggins pressure.

[IStillLikeHarv]

The answer to these way-too-early predictions is to say "Everyone who predicted Oklahoma and Texas for ninth and tenth place, raise your hands." -- followed by "OK, all you liars put your hands down!" because nobody predicted that finish for those two teams. That was extreme, but most years in college basketball have some major surprises.

My two cents is that replacing Iwundu will not be the major challenge. Yes, he was an early second round pick, but he was also a third team All Big 12 selection, and I think both selections were sound. Iwundu's NBA draft selection reflects special traits that are valued more in the NBA, including what the team feels he can do to help them compared to what they will have to pay him (with salary cap implications). Iwundu really wasn't as good as Frank Mason or Monty Morris or Juwan Evans as a college player. When you remember that Sneed played only 18 minutes per game to get his stats, I predict that the Wade/Sneed combo at the 4/3 this season will match the production of the Wade/Iwundu production overall, with some areas up and others down.

The bigger loss in my opinion is DJ, but as has been noted, that is mitigated by the drop in his production after his injury with 11 games to go (including tournament games). I don't expect any single player of the many available big men to match the healthy DJ, but I think over the course of the season the 5/4 combos will at least come close to matching the overall 5/4 combos (including minutes played by subs) from last season. I agree that it is unwise to count too much on any given "new" player, but I do think that the number of potential new contributors does raise the probability of having more quality depth this coming season, and lack of depth has been a major problem for at least the last two seasons.

My free prediction (and worth every penny of that) at this point is a fifth place finish if KSU can avoid major injuries to key players. The clear vulnerability for this team is that four players (Kam, Barry, Sneed, and Dean) have 98% of the minutes played at KSU on this roster. Dean and Kam in particular could be very difficult to replace because they are the only experienced players at a key position. All of the above predictions are subject to change for any valid reason, or for no reason at all!