I've had low expectations, I don't entirely know why since I like McMillan and the players. Maybe protecting myself a bit and not trying to put unfair expectations on the team.

So, for me, to see either 50% or 70% after 3 SEC games - I'm thrilled. This is exciting.

Looking at our remaining home schedule - I see 5 winnable games. Maybe favored in all 5. Get ALL of those, that's 8 wins. Need great crowds - LOTS of students would really help.

Looking at the road schedule is a bit intimating. I see 2 winnable games. Get both those, and the above home wins, that's 10 in conference.

It never works out this way, but if we can hold serve in the winnable/gameswearefovered matchups, maybe we do this. We beat Auburn on the road and I think I'm still a bit low on my expectations, but they are higher than they have ever been since the season started.

This is strange, but the MORE we win, the more the Mgbako loss hurts me. Due to my lower expectations, I thought even with him we had an uphill climb so his loss maybe, to me at the time, didn't imact my expectations - perhaps impacted making the NIT.

Great start to conference play!

The Mgbako loss doesn't bother me much because the Mgbako we had wasn't going to help us in these physical games and we never saw him at full strength so in a way we don't really know what we're missing.

Plus it could be a huge and unexpected boost to have him next season.

I'm still at like 50/50 for the tournament but it's hard to explain why exactly. Just feel like a rough patch is still coming at some point maybe. I'll instantly jump up to like 90% if we get either of these next two though.

Win 3 outta next 5 then I think we can really talk NCAAs

Either of the next two? If we win the next one we are virtually a lock and are looking at 7-0 start

JJxvi said:

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Either of the next two? If we win the next one we are virtually a lock and are looking at 7-0 start

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If we beat Tennessee you think we will be favored in Austin? I don't think that will be the case. And Mississippi State will not be easy. Hubbard can play. I'll bet that even if we beat Tennessee we will not reach 7-0.

I bet if we make the Final Four we still end up losing!

50/50 right now imo. It'd be maybe 10% higher with a healthy Mgbako.

A split this week with @UT s d @tu would be very helpful

My problem is my mind still doesn't know how we can be good enough to make the tourney in a tough league. I mean, late hire, zero recruiting time, zero returning players (Holloway maybe) so no real culture, no real home court - all that crap.

My heart and eyes on the other hand think we might be a really good team. I've never seen a shooter like Dominguez, Agee reminds me of some of my favorite Aggie "bigs", 10 deep, hustle & heart.

I'll stick with 50/50 but this will be a special year regardless.

GrayMatter said:

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bobinator said:

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Well yeah, that's why I said either. If we win at Tennessee we're just legitimately good and we need to start talking about this team differently.

Beating Texas would be less about that and more about a sign from the gods that maybe we're onto something. We've won in Austin once in the last like 40 years.

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I feel like we keep moving the goal post for this team. If we start the season and beat LSU then we'll be okay. If we win 1 out of our first 2 that will be something. If we beat Auburn at their place, our season will be something. If we beat Oklahoma, then we'll really have something.

I'm not saying you're doing that, but we have to stop moving the goal post.

Everybody raise their hand if you thought we'd be 3-0 at the beginning of conference play?

Buzz left and this isn't last year's team so stop expecting these guys to fit into last year's mold. I know this time last year, we were lamenting the lack of offense and we so badly wanted a guy that can flat out shoot. Now we have one and a lunch pail kind of guy who is relentless and savy in the low post.

We have pieces and if everybody starts getting better, I dont know if anyone here knows exactly what our ceiling is.

I know in a sense we're all just waiting for the other shoe to drop, but so far, we've been pretty dang decent. It's okay to admit that.

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I'm not sure the point you're trying to make. The question wasn't whether the season has exceeded preseason expectations thus far. That is a resounding yes. No one is arguing that. The question is how far this team can go given what we've seen so far. No one I've seen on this board is saying they need to make the tourney for the season to be a success.

Not that it matters, but Lunardi has us as a bubble team.

JAC97 said:

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Not that it matters, but Lunardi has us as a bubble team.

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It does not matter.

We have 15 games left. The way I see it, we have 3 groups of games:

Winnable Home Games We Have To Win:
- vs Miss St (1/21)
- vs South Carolina (1/24)
- vs Mizzou (2/11)
- vs Ole Miss (2/18)
- vs Texas (2/28)

Toss Up Games We Would Need To Grind But Doable:
- @ Texas (1/17)
- vs Florida (2/7)
- @ OU (2/21)
- vs Kentucky (3/3)
- @ LSU (3/7)

Expect To Lose, But You Never Know:
- @ Tennessee (1/13)
- @ Georgia (1/31)
- @ Alabama (2/4)
- @ Vandy (2/14)
- @ Arkansas (2/26)

So we have to make Reed a fortress. If we win all 5 from the 1st group, we are at 8 wins. Grind out 2-3 in the 2nd group and we are at 10-11 wins. Which I am in agreement should be enough to get us in the tourney. Shock 1 or 2 in the 3rd group and we could get a better seed. Gets even better with a deep run in the SEC tournament (although we've seen that not make a difference before [see 2021-22 season]).

What a job Bucky has done with this group of players in his first season. I will admit I thought it was a meh hire, but a sound one given who we could realistically get. My expectations were not high with how much portal work was going to have to be done. Happy to be proven wrong thus far.

This conference has a lot of parity and anyone is capable of beating anyone on any given night. Hopefully starting with us tomorrow night. BTHO Tennessee!

If I had to out odds on it right now, I'd say 45% to make the tournament. This has been a high-variance team, in my opinion. I'm encouraged by the first three games, so the arrow is pointing up. The Auburn win could be huge for the resume if they start playing like they did Saturday against Arkansas. Going to need another one or two resume wins, depending on who the opponent is.

bobinator said:

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The Mgbako loss doesn't bother me much because the Mgbako we had wasn't going to help us in these physical games and we never saw him at full strength so in a way we don't really know what we're missing.

Plus it could be a huge and unexpected boost to have him next season.

I'm still at like 50/50 for the tournament but it's hard to explain why exactly. Just feel like a rough patch is still coming at some point maybe. I'll instantly jump up to like 90% if we get either of these next two though.

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Good point I dont think he was ever 100% healthy and I would expect him to come back next season. A year of recovery and offseason I think we will get the real Mac next year.

I think if you get to 9-9 you are in but 10-8 seals the deal, but the thing to do is keep winning you dont leave it up to guys sitting in a conference room.

I'd circle that Arkansas game in the major upset category. Could more easily influence the rhythm of that game than the others in that category, imo.

i sure wish we had that game at home

jeremy said:

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Im loving watching the team with zero expectations.

Last year was stressful because we had so many seniors, we should have won most games. But we sucked so bad on offense it was stressful.

This year is just fun!

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This is where I am at as well. My expectations have been pretty minimal since some of our early season struggles, so the success we're having has been a lot of fun! The growth of the team is noticeable and that's about all I was hoping for. To be winning some of these games and giving ourselves a chance at the postseason is awesome.

I think those first two rectangles will pose more of a problem than the last two.

We haven't really truly handled any P5 team except for Florida State (whose best performance to-date is in a loss to Florida)... Which means probably unlikely that we go 5-0 in those home affairs.

I think Florida and Tennessee are kind of in a tier of their own of how likely we are to beat either of them. There's paths to victory there, but there a lot more difficult to tread than the other three.

You can turn a game with Alabama and Vandy into a fast paced three point contest which is likely to go their way but not all that far fetched that it could go ours, and like you said Arkansas is a much easier team to rattle than the others.

I'd probably put State in that first category. A loss to them at home would be one we would have to make up for with one or maybe even two wins in one of the higher groupings.

For instance, Texas absolved themselves for losing to State at home by beating Bama on the road. I'm not sure a win @LSU would fully make up for losing that one at home, but @LSU and @OU probably would.

Yeah I think if we're going to do it it's going to involve stealing an extra one or two from the right two categories.

If we're nitpicking I'd also probably move Kentucky into the second group for a couple of reasons. Not only would we currently be favored in that game so it's not really "stealing" one, it's also our last home game of the season against a team that currently looks likely to also be near the bubble which seems to carry extra weight with the committee.

Home crowds vs UK seem to fill Reed with blue shirts.

Perfect year to cast off guessing to just sound smart…

If we're going to do a "black out" game this season it should be that one so the blue shirts don't stand out as much as they do against Maroon/White. Plus it's the last home of the year, let's get weird with it.