Now that the season and conference tournament has ended, I am curious to see how you think your team finished based upon your preseason expectations.

Memphis: in my opinion we exceeded expectations. Penny, especially at the end, really progressed as a coach I feel like. There definitely seemed to be a better continuity on the floor during the last couple of months.

What say you?

Obviously some are still playing in meaningful games but just curious if the seeds you received is what you hoped for

Overall Temple exceeded expectations. 3rd place in the American and an invite to the dance were hoped for but not expected this year. How would the Owls react to the lame duck/coach in waiting situation? As unstable as it could have been the opposite happened and we’ve been relatively successful. Now a win or two this week and we’ll build a Dunphy statue...

Think it was a "what could have been" season for Memphis. Several poor finishes really hurt. TT collapse & loss to Charleston standout to me as what could have been enough to make the NCAA tourney because those games as wins would have improved team confidence & poll standing much earlier. I understand Penny is a Memphis hero & most every Tiger supporter is almost afraid to say anything negative but if Penny could have coached the first half of the season as he did the last half, the finish would surely have been better. I give Penny a C- for the first half of the season & an A- for the 2nd half (B overall). And he will have a big challenge next season with the high expectations of a strong recruiting year but the loss of leadership on the floor. Add that Penny is the responsible party for tripled attendance & a top 5-6 recruiting class coming in, the tiger program has great potential to continue its upward path. Should add Penny improving the schedule led directly to the NIT invite. And that should serve to ECU, Tulane that improving the schedule will help them & the conference.

Exceeded


I knew UC would compete at the top of the league, just because they have every single year in this league. And I knew Jarron Cumberland was an Alpha, who is coming to sleep with your women and steal your souls. But I didn't expect Keith Williams to make such a huge jump, or that Nysier Brooks would become such a reliable defender and enforcer in the paint. Tre Scott's jumper also surprised me.


28-6 is just amazing. Jacob Evans was supposed to be on this team. Mick built it around Jake being a senior and a leader on this team. When he left, it left UC with so many questions to be answered and guys just stepped up to fill those gaps.


Justin Jenifer blew me away. Who would have ever thought he'd be one of the most efficient 3 point shooters in the country. He rarely takes a bad 3 and makes them at an insane rate.


Mick just keeps proving year after year that he is an excellent coach.

To tha moon excited. I know we were preseason favorites, but to make the NCAAs as an at-large is still amazing. Charge on.

(03-18-2019 10:00 AM)Atlanta Wrote:  Think it was a "what could have been" season for Memphis. Several poor finishes really hurt. TT collapse & loss to Charleston standout to me as what could have been enough to make the NCAA tourney because those games as wins would have improved team confidence & poll standing much earlier. I understand Penny is a Memphis hero & most every Tiger supporter is almost afraid to say anything negative but if Penny could have coached the first half of the season as he did the last half, the finish would surely have been better. I give Penny a C- for the first half of the season & an A- for the 2nd half (B overall). And he will have a big challenge next season with the high expectations of a strong recruiting year but the loss of leadership on the floor. Add that Penny is the responsible party for tripled attendance & a top 5-6 recruiting class coming in, the tiger program has great potential to continue its upward path. Should add Penny improving the schedule led directly to the NIT invite. And that should serve to ECU, Tulane that improving the schedule will help them & the conference.

Well said. You saved me the trouble of writing pretty much the same thing.

(03-18-2019 10:29 AM)cotton1991 Wrote:  

(03-18-2019 10:00 AM)Atlanta Wrote:  Think it was a "what could have been" season for Memphis. Several poor finishes really hurt. TT collapse & loss to Charleston standout to me as what could have been enough to make the NCAA tourney because those games as wins would have improved team confidence & poll standing much earlier. I understand Penny is a Memphis hero & most every Tiger supporter is almost afraid to say anything negative but if Penny could have coached the first half of the season as he did the last half, the finish would surely have been better. I give Penny a C- for the first half of the season & an A- for the 2nd half (B overall). And he will have a big challenge next season with the high expectations of a strong recruiting year but the loss of leadership on the floor. Add that Penny is the responsible party for tripled attendance & a top 5-6 recruiting class coming in, the tiger program has great potential to continue its upward path. Should add Penny improving the schedule led directly to the NIT invite. And that should serve to ECU, Tulane that improving the schedule will help them & the conference.

Well said. You saved me the trouble of writing pretty much the same thing.

I have a different take. At the beginning of the season, I would have been thrilled with an NIT bid. I didn't think there was any chance in hell we would make the NCAAT. The fact we came so close is testament to the turnaround.

Plus, we had a SOS in the 30s, vs. something around 120 last year. And a KP/Sagarin ranking of about 160 last year, vs. 50-60 or so, now.

I don't view it as missed opportunity. I think it took awhile for the players to buy into Penny's game plan, and come around to playing as a team, vs. hero ball.

Tulsa gets a D. We may have been predicted to finish 9th in the preseason, but expectations within the program and the fanbase were significantly higher than that. Haith even went so far as to say “We’ve got our best, most talented roster we’ve had since we’ve been here.”

I predicted 23-11 with an NIT appearance. We finished 18-14 with no postseason for the 3rd straight year and our best player graduating. The highlights were home wins over KState and Oklahoma State. The lowlight was a 21-point beatdown at home to Wichita. Or maybe the time we went to Utah and shot 5/30 from three. Or maybe the time we blew a 6-point lead in the last minute against Cincinnati. There were many.

Reading the tea leaves, I suspect that Haith will be back next year. If he is, I think we can bet on a 17-win season and no postseason next year.

Lost 3 year starter Rob Gray, one of the top 10 scorers in Houston basketball history
Lost 2 year starter Devin Davis, last year 3rd leading scorer and leading rebounder
All preseason predictions had us 2nd/3rd behind UCF/Cincinnati

First share of a conference championship in 28 years
First outright conference championship in my lifetime
First time in the Top 10 of the AP poll since 1984
Highest NCAA tourney seed since 1984

Very pleased so far. Let's see how we do next weekend.

Uc pretty much right on my expectations. Thought they'd win the league or finish second to Houston. Honestly thought 4 losses might be enough so Credit Houston. Won the conference tournament. Thought they'd be a 6-10 type seed, ended up a 7. Happy with UC. They lived up to my expectations for them.

(03-18-2019 11:13 AM)TripleA Wrote:  

(03-18-2019 10:29 AM)cotton1991 Wrote:  

(03-18-2019 10:00 AM)Atlanta Wrote:  Think it was a "what could have been" season for Memphis. Several poor finishes really hurt. TT collapse & loss to Charleston standout to me as what could have been enough to make the NCAA tourney because those games as wins would have improved team confidence & poll standing much earlier. I understand Penny is a Memphis hero & most every Tiger supporter is almost afraid to say anything negative but if Penny could have coached the first half of the season as he did the last half, the finish would surely have been better. I give Penny a C- for the first half of the season & an A- for the 2nd half (B overall). And he will have a big challenge next season with the high expectations of a strong recruiting year but the loss of leadership on the floor. Add that Penny is the responsible party for tripled attendance & a top 5-6 recruiting class coming in, the tiger program has great potential to continue its upward path. Should add Penny improving the schedule led directly to the NIT invite. And that should serve to ECU, Tulane that improving the schedule will help them & the conference.

Well said. You saved me the trouble of writing pretty much the same thing.

I have a different take. At the beginning of the season, I would have been thrilled with an NIT bid. I didn't think there was any chance in hell we would make the NCAAT. The fact we came so close is testament to the turnaround.

Plus, we had a SOS in the 30s, vs. something around 120 last year. And a KP/Sagarin ranking of about 160 last year, vs. 50-60 or so, now.

I don't view it as missed opportunity. I think it took awhile for the players to buy into Penny's game plan, and come around to playing as a team, vs. hero ball.

I don't disagree at all with your take. Just compared to the first half of the season, the second half was so much better. Penny can coach and players like Harris are going to excel under his coaching. Let alone the new guys we bring in.

Pre-Season: Actually about right. I thought we would be top half and get NIT or NCAA.

December/Early January Expectations: We ended way better. At that point, I was just hoping for .500.

Cincinnati definitely exceeded expectations. Keith Williams, Justin Jenifer, Tre Scott, and Nysier Brooks all performed better than I expected. I expected Jarron Cumberland to average 16-17 ppg, so he exceeded expectations as well. The only player that didn't make a leap like I expected was Cane Broome, but he has still been a valuable spark off the bench and has made some clutch shots. Preseason I thought we were a 23-24 win type of team that might find itself on the bubble, so I'm very happy.

(03-18-2019 11:40 AM)cotton1991 Wrote:  Penny can coach and players like Harris are going to excel under his coaching. Let alone the new guys we bring in.

This.

I am ecstatic about the future. When PH has an entire roster full of his 4/5 star guys that play hard and buy into his system, we are looking at several fun seasons ahead. High level non-conf games, competing for AAC champs and deep NCAA tournament runs.

As for the league as a whole, I would say we slightly exceeded expectations. I was worried we would be a 2-bid league with all the key players we lost (Rob Gray, Gary Clark, Landry Shamet, etc). I was counting on Cincinnati and UCF to make it, with Houston and Temple on the bubble and Memphis, UConn, Wichita State, and Tulsa competing for NIT bids. I probably would have predicted 3 NCAA teams and 2 NIT teams, so 4 and 2 is a win, especially considering the improvement USF and ECU are showing under their new coaches.

(03-18-2019 11:56 AM)MemTigers1998 Wrote:  

(03-18-2019 11:40 AM)cotton1991 Wrote:  Penny can coach and players like Harris are going to excel under his coaching. Let alone the new guys we bring in.

This.

I am ecstatic about the future. When PH has an entire roster full of his 4/5 star guys that play hard and buy into his system, we are looking at several fun seasons ahead. High level non-conf games, competing for AAC champs and deep NCAA tournament runs.

I had to laugh when fans of other teams were calling for Penny to be a bust. There was a lot of "okay he can recruit, but can he coach?" and "he won't be able to recruit once the guys he coached in high school are gone." I don't know why anyone would believe the recruiting pipeline will automatically dry up -- even once his kids are out of high school, the connections are established and Penny is the kind of guy kids want to play for.

Honestly, the path Penny took into coaching makes perfect sense. We've seen other NBA guys take over college programs, but how many of them coached AAU and have the kind of recruiting connections Penny does? If I was a retiring NBA player who wanted to get into being a college head coach, I would seriously consider coaching AAU over being an assistant college coach.

UH definitely exceeded expectations IMO, same reasons as others already said. Is a great testament to the work ethic CKS expects of his players and getting them to believe in themselves when others say "you're not good enough".

(03-18-2019 12:16 PM)Coog Engineer Wrote:  UH definitely exceeded expectations IMO, same reasons as others already said. Is a great testament to the work ethic CKS expects of his players and getting them to believe in themselves when others say "you're not good enough".

For my money, Coach Sampson is the best coach in the league, followed by Gregg Marshall and Mick Cronin. I think Penny and Hurley will end up on that level too, but it's too early to say definitively.

WSU was below my initial expectations. I thought they would play like they have over the last six weeks much, much earlier in the season. With really only 1.5 players with Division 1 experience, I should have known better.

And there are a few "what if" questions too. Not losing to Louisiana Tech to start the season and then losing 10-point leads in the 2nd half against Davidson and Alabama, and of course Temple too. And I'm thinking of the big first half lead we had vs Memphis at home. A few breaks and we would have been a bubble team.

And if we beat Cincy on Saturday, I think we beat Houston. But of course we also had three last-shot victories against SMU, UConn and Tulane . . .