Expectations for this season

[jnut]

Mine are huge!!!!!! ;D

[ghostofdylan]

Top five finish in the Horizon League.

[uwmplanner]

I expect great effort from the team on a nightly basis and the wins will take care of themselves. But if I had to guess 20+ wins and a top 3 finish in conference.

[BBFran]

I expect us to be in the mix. Butler is still clearly better than every other team, on paper at least, but the league is just too strong overall for them to go undefeated again. I think a couple other teams will be in the scramble up there. I think we can be one of them. We have depth and options we have not had the last four years. We have a true point guard (no offense to Ricky, who did yeoman's work playing slightly out of position), we have Tone back, and we have significant height. All the newcomers can play (not sure they all will, but they all can). The team has good chemistry and got a great head start with the summer practices and the trip to Italy.

There is also stability in the Athletic office -- a HUGE factor. People will never full appreciate the remarkable job that Rob and his staff did down the stretch last year while some truly bizarre things were going on that almost seemed designed and timed to cause the team to fail.

I'm excited. This will be a fun year.

[JG Panthers]

I expect a top 5 finish in conference

I would like to see 20 wins and a top 3 finish

Best case scenario would be 23 wins and conference championship...

[uwmplanner]

Oct 11, 2010 9:46:07 GMT -6 BBFran said:

I expect us to be in the mix. Butler is still clearly better than every other team, on paper at least, but the league is just too strong overall for them to go undefeated again. I think a couple other teams will be in the scramble up there. I think we can be one of them. We have depth and options we have not had the last four years. We have a true point guard (no offense to Ricky, who did yeoman's work playing slightly out of position), we have Tone back, and we have significant height. All the newcomers can play (not sure they all will, but they all can). The team has good chemistry and got a great head start with the summer practices and the trip to Italy.

There is also stability in the Athletic office -- a HUGE factor. People will never full appreciate the remarkable job that Rob and his staff did down the stretch last year while some truly bizarre things were going on that almost seemed designed and timed to cause the team to fail.

I'm excited. This will be a fun year.

Stability? Did I miss the annoucement that we actually hired an AD? I know last year was a mess but until we have a leader in the department I would hardly call it stable.

[uwm97]

20-23 wins, top three finish in the Horizon League. Average over 70 pts/game. Minimum HL tournament semis.

[BBFran]

Stability? Did I miss the annoucement that we actually hired an AD? I know last year was a mess but until we have a leader in the department I would hardly call it stable.[/quote]

The search for a new AD is about to start. Meanwhile, Dave Gilbert is very capable and morale is much improved in the department. I understand what you are saying, that until we have a new AD in place there's some uncertainty, but the atmosphere is night and day from last spring.

[panthersteve]

Expectations for this year are improvement over prior, hopefully 20 wins and top 3 finish...not to kick the can down the road but what I am even more excited about is the year after... there is some real solid recruiting traction here with the likes of Kyle Kelm, JJ Panoske, Evan Richard and bringing James Haarsma back. In other words we are now getting more solid 4 year Wisconsin HS recruits and this should bode well. Then we mix in the occasional JUCO to fill a special need or a transfer like Kaylon and we have a real solid thing going. There is stability in the program as far as the coaching staff. What is most encouraging to me is that we seem to be building it incrementally the right way. Huge progress over the first couple years of the current regime.

[uwmplanner]

Oct 11, 2010 13:00:46 GMT -6 BBFran said:

Stability? Did I miss the annoucement that we actually hired an AD? I know last year was a mess but until we have a leader in the department I would hardly call it stable.

The search for a new AD is about to start. Meanwhile, Dave Gilbert is very capable and morale is much improved in the department. I understand what you are saying, that until we have a new AD in place there's some uncertainty, but the atmosphere is night and day from last spring. [/quote]

Its good to hear things are improving. I didn't mean to be so cynical earlier, I just felt not having a full time AD leads to some uncertainty in the department.

[PantherU]

Well, we're not out of the woods yet. Dave will be off to Washington with Carlos (I don't know when), and we are never totally stable until we replace Carlos and Dave for his full-time gig as head of the Foundation.

However, there's a period of relative peace right now. Most of the people have put their grudges aside and are doing their jobs.

[Pantherholic]

Oct 11, 2010 12:16:18 GMT -6 uwm97 said:

20-23 wins, top three finish in the Horizon League....Minimum HL tournament semis.

+1

[Super King]

Back to the original purpose of the thread:

Regardless of AD situation, UWM has the deepest, biggest team it's ever fielded. Whenever you're a mid-major and can boast eight different players who are 6'7" or higher, you have an immediate and unquantifiable advantage over other teams. The problem is that the Horizon League as a whole is absolutely massive; Cleveland State, Butler, Detroit, and even Valparaiso boast very large basketball players, making the advantage mean slightly less. From my standpoint, this will mean smaller teams like Green Bay and Wright State, who have traditionally hung around with the big boys, will fade away, being unable ultimately to compete with the sheer size the rest of the league can boast.

In my eyes, the Horizon League is a four-team conference this season: Butler, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Cleveland State, and the order of finish is really up for grabs. Valpo is close, but there's just not enough experience for them to make a run in a league that has a shot to be this year's Atlantic 10. Given the newfound spotlight on the team, depending on how well Detroit does, the H-League could very well put two teams in position to be considered for at-large tournament bids. That would be huge.

But UWM has depth, at every position save point guard, that I don't think any other team in the league can match. Ryan Haggerty, Tony Meier, and Mitchell Carter could all make very strong arguments to be in the starting lineup by season's end, and one of our biggest weak points is that two of our most potent scorers -- Ja'Rob and Tone -- play the same position and could steal minutes from each other. UWM also has the distinct advantage, like Butler did last year and the Panthers did in 2005, of having already played four full games, allowing them a better opportunity to sort out the rotation and develop some of the key on-court relationships that are necessary for their success.

Given these factors, and the steady improvement in record that the Panthers have seen for the last three years, a 22-25 win season is a perfectly reasonable expectation. The Horizon League championship game is a perfectly reasonable expectation. And honestly, an NCAA tournament bid is also a perfectly reasonable expectation. My tentative picks for conference finish:

1. Butler
2. Milwaukee
3. Detroit
4. Cleveland State
5. Wright State
6. Valparaiso
7. UIC
8. Green Bay
9. Loyola
10. Youngstown State

1-4 and 5-8 could be in any other order. The Horizon League has the propensity for six teams to finish with at least 20 wins, and maybe more than one to finish with 25. Milwaukee could be one of them.

[uwmfutbol]

I know my expectations are too high, but NCAAs/NIT or bust.

[JG Panthers]

Overall good post Super King, but I'm curious how the Panthers can win 25 regular season games this year...