About what I expected

[uwm3204]

I agree 100% with what jimmy just said. But D. Ford does need to step up a little more and actually do something productive, that way we wouldnt need McCoy down low as much!

[germanathens]

Jimmy,

Tenn. Tech is good team. Last year they finished well-ahead of the majority of our conference in the RPI. They have a "crackerbox gym." We play horrid in those conditions (see Valpo, Manhattan, Air Force, Loyola, etc). They are a mid major that is attempting to break into the elite status. A Sweet 16 elite mid major program is visiting their cracker box gym. It will be packed, loud and Tenn Tech will be playing like its their conference tournament. If we win that game, we will need to play perfect. If Tenn Tech shoots the 3 like Valpo did last year, we already lost the game.

Hawaii and St. Louis were not easy wins. In fact, in both games we pulled away in the final half. They could just have easily gone the other way. These games will not be easy; luckily its on our homecourt.

Wyoming is almost impossible to beat at their stadium. It's famous with college basketball for being a tough environment. Any team that wins there has to play perfect. Plus, its part of a long western road trip, which rarely goes well for the Panthers.

UWM could be defeated by UWGB. It always happens, even in our best seasons. I do not expect us to go undefeated in conference, its very unrealistic. At best we escape with two losses...that's just the reality of the Horizon League.

We could also win every game for the rest of the season. If Joah or Tigert are injured, we could finish without another win.

I think all of us have had unrealistic expectations for the Panthers. Last season we were crushed by Madison, embarassed at Valpo, and luckily escaped with some close victories. That's Mid Major basketball. Those of us who have followed UWM for many years can realize that this is common, we probably wont sweep Tenn Tech, Wyoming, St. Louis, Montana and Hawaii. If we finish 3-2 in that series we have a very tough team that will be in the post season.

Later,
UWMfreak

[fan]

Thank you Freak.

I don't understand how 2.5 errors can be made so frequently.

1. Just because a Horizon league team loses or struggles against a lower class team doesn't mean they CAN'T beat us. Conference basketball means anything can happen. Do you remember losing to YSU 2 years ago?

1.5. You claim that we will improve upon our current team as the year goes on (as we will of course). Are you holding the other team's improvements constant for a reason? Is there a reason they couldn't improve more than us?

2. We did shoot 22% or whatever in the Memphis game. We will in all likelihood shoot bad again in at least 1 future game, so discounting this portion as a one-time deal is a mistake.

PS. How many games in Joah's career has he scored over 30? or even 40?

I defer to Freak's assessments of the non-conference games as I find them to be very accurate.

[dutchpthr]

once again Freak releasing his amazing amount of college hoops knowledge on us all to bring things to a realistic level.

thank you Freak.

[JimmyLemke]

In response to fan:

How many games has Tucker been the number one option? One. Against Memphis.

The bad shooting is a problem yes. But the "trees" had a little something to do with forcing shots.

To Freak:

I think that calling those five games at 3-2 is being slightly pessimistic.

I think it is reasonable, but you're being too hard on your team. And a little too lenient with the opponents.

[bball30]

Jimmy you have no clue

You have yet to learn the life of the mid major

GO PANTHERS

[teddyp00]

I understand the points that Freak made, but if we go 3-2 in these 5 games than we will not finish in the top 2 in the horizon or make the NCAA tourny. Again we have St. Louis and Hawaii at home, Wyoming is NOT a good team, and if all our seniors have a hard time playing at a smaller mid-majors home court then that sure does not say much for having an experienced team does it? I believe that Loyola and Detroit have stronger teams than all 4 of these teams.

[brettpanther17]

I disagree teddyp, If you look at the Hawaii game last year for the bracket buster, they are a very good team, we did not take control of the game until we came out in the second half and started shooting well against them. Can we take all 5 of these games? Yes we can, anything is possible... Is it likely? I guess more of our questions will be answered when we see the next game against upper iowa, granted they arent good by any means but we'll see what kind of confidence our guys have... Im not ruling out the fact of 5-0 but im just saying it is unlikely to play that well in all 5 of those games.
Go Panthers