• Hi Guest, want to participate in the discussions, keep track of read/unread posts and more? Create your free account and increase the benefits of your WyoNation.com experience today!

Early Season Thoughts

Pretty nice to be 5-0...I have been pleasantly surprised at the early returns.

As much as I want to drink the Kool-Aid, I'm not seeing a top 3 MWC team yet. The level of opponent is just really really poor. On the plus side...we are curb stomping the really bad teams.
 
307bball said:
Pretty nice to be 5-0...I have been pleasantly surprised at the early returns.

As much as I want to drink the Kool-Aid, I'm not seeing a top 3 MWC team yet. The level of opponent is just really really poor. On the plus side...we are curb stomping the really bad teams.
Click to expand...

We may not be top 3, who knows. What I can say is that Wyoming is every bit as good as CSU and they are picked to win the conference. I’ve watched them play. They struggled with Northern Colorado which is basically a lighter version of Wyoming and Wyoming also blew out Pine Bluffs by twice as many points as they did.

Utah St should be tough but they have one of the worst losses in the conference, at home to UC Davis who lost last night by 19 points to a school called Academy of Art.

Boise St. lost at home to Cal St Bakersfield their last game, which is a terrible loss.

Fresno St. lost to Cal last night which is a bad loss. Would be about the equivalent as if we lost at Washington.

San Diego St is always tough.

Don’t see anyone else left in the conference having a chance at the top 3 spots. So I think Wyoming can definitely have a chance at the top 3. The road win at Grand Canyon is as good of a road win as anyone in conference has so far.
 
seattlecowboy said:
307bball said:
Pretty nice to be 5-0...I have been pleasantly surprised at the early returns.

As much as I want to drink the Kool-Aid, I'm not seeing a top 3 MWC team yet. The level of opponent is just really really poor. On the plus side...we are curb stomping the really bad teams.
Click to expand...

We may not be top 3, who knows. What I can say is that Wyoming is every bit as good as CSU and they are picked to win the conference. I’ve watched them play. They struggled with Northern Colorado which is basically a lighter version of Wyoming and Wyoming also blew out Pine Bluffs by twice as many points as they did.

Utah St should be tough but they have one of the worst losses in the conference, at home to UC Davis who lost last night by 19 points to a school called Academy of Art.

Boise St. lost at home to Cal St Bakersfield their last game, which is a terrible loss.

Fresno St. lost to Cal last night which is a bad loss. Would be about the equivalent as if we lost at Washington.

San Diego St is always tough.

Don’t see anyone else left in the conference having a chance at the top 3 spots. So I think Wyoming can definitely have a chance at the top 3. The road win at Grand Canyon is as good of a road win as anyone in conference has so far.
Click to expand...

You might be right... Each win (even against bad teams) shows that they know how to win... That is big. If you know who you are and what each player's role is.. You will be an above average college team. Having a couple "special" guys takes it to the next level. My suspicion is that Linder is a really good coach and is getting the most out of his guys.

We might not be top three MW team yet, but we will definitely hang with them.
 
I can’t remember any Wyoming team winning by 40 or 50 against lower competition and winning on the road was rare regardless of the team. Something is brewing. Wish we had a solid big behind ike. Doesn’t need to be Ike but a true average big would help us a ton.
 
laxwyo said:
I can’t remember any Wyoming team winning by 40 or 50 against lower competition and winning on the road was rare regardless of the team. Something is brewing. Wish we had a solid big behind ike. Doesn’t need to be Ike but a true average big would help us a ton.
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more. Thompson has looked improved this year. He's rebounding much better and defending a little better. I think the coaches have the luxury to use him at the four now. I still feel like our MWC opponents will know how to exploit his weaknesses defensively.

The one place where we could use a little more is athleticism in the post. For whatever reason, Nelson isn't getting any time at all. I don't think he's a good fit offensively. He can't shoot very well from the outside and he can't score with his back to the basket.

Caden Powell joins next year and the redshirt will come off Barnhart. That will make a difference.

For now, that's the one place we could use another good athlete.
 
307bball said:
Pretty nice to be 5-0...I have been pleasantly surprised at the early returns.

As much as I want to drink the Kool-Aid, I'm not seeing a top 3 MWC team yet. The level of opponent is just really really poor. On the plus side...we are curb stomping the really bad teams.
Click to expand...

The level of opponents really poor?? What are you talking about? Three true road games against decent competition? You really are a ray of sunshine
 
laxwyo said:
I can’t remember any Wyoming team winning by 40 or 50 against lower competition and winning on the road was rare regardless of the team. Something is brewing. Wish we had a solid big behind ike. Doesn’t need to be Ike but a true average big would help us a ton.
Click to expand...

Last time we won games by that much or by 30 points or more multiple times was back in Dembo and Leckner’s senior year 87-88.

Haven’t really done it since. Not even the Marcus Bailey, Josh Davis teams did it.

We can definitely play with anyone in the MWC.
 
Well...the AZ game was definitely a harsh dose of reality. There is definitely a gap between merely solid, well-coached, "good" teams and teams in the elite category. I'm still of the opinion that this Wyoming team fits neatly into the MW somewhere just outside of the top three. I hate to say it, but the hated Rams are no joke and SDSU will be in that top three as well...can Wyoming be that third team?...it's definitely on the table. The '14-'15 Wyoming squad that made the MWC tourney run finished fourth .... that team had more talent overall and way more experience. they probably finish 2nd or 3rd that year if not for Nance getting mono at the end of that season.

I'll check in to this thread again after we play Stanford but I think we are getting a pretty good picture of this squad.
 
307bball said:
Well...the AZ game was definitely a harsh dose of reality. There is definitely a gap between merely solid, well-coached, "good" teams and teams in the elite category. I'm still of the opinion that this Wyoming team fits neatly into the MW somewhere just outside of the top three. I hate to say it, but the hated Rams are no joke and SDSU will be in that top three as well...can Wyoming be that third team?...it's definitely on the table. The '14-'15 Wyoming squad that made the MWC tourney run finished fourth .... that team had more talent overall and way more experience. they probably finish 2nd or 3rd that year if not for Nance getting mono at the end of that season.

I'll check in to this thread again after we play Stanford but I think we are getting a pretty good picture of this squad.
Click to expand...

San Diego St isn’t any better than Wyoming this year to be honest. They struggled at home last night with Cal St. Fullerton who Wyoming handled on the road pretty easily.

Still don’t see anyone in the MWC that is that much better than us. I don’t think using the Arizona game is a good measuring stick for conference play. CSU has a good offense but their defense isn’t that great. We will see how they do against Alabama. Think CSU got lucky that St. Mary’s played Utah St. in Logan the night right before playing in Fort Collins. Tough road swing to win both of those games for St. Mary’s.

I know Arizona would have beat any team in the MWC at home last night by any score they wanted to, not just us. They have been doing that to everyone, except Wichita St. who they were up 16 on then got lazy.

We will see, we may not finish top 3 but I don’t see anyone in conference that is a level above Wyoming.

Arizona is just on another level with Purdue ,Baylor, Gonzaga, Kansas, Illinois, Duke, UCLA. Maybe one or two other teams. That’s about it. Think Arizona and Purdue are the two best teams I have seen so far.

I think the better measuring stick for us will be the Christmas Tournament in Hawaii. Like you said, let’s look at the team after we play Stanford, Liberty, Northern Iowa, Vanderbilt or BYU. Better sense of where we are at before conference play.
 
seattlecowboy said:
307bball said:
Well...the AZ game was definitely a harsh dose of reality. There is definitely a gap between merely solid, well-coached, "good" teams and teams in the elite category. I'm still of the opinion that this Wyoming team fits neatly into the MW somewhere just outside of the top three. I hate to say it, but the hated Rams are no joke and SDSU will be in that top three as well...can Wyoming be that third team?...it's definitely on the table. The '14-'15 Wyoming squad that made the MWC tourney run finished fourth .... that team had more talent overall and way more experience. they probably finish 2nd or 3rd that year if not for Nance getting mono at the end of that season.

I'll check in to this thread again after we play Stanford but I think we are getting a pretty good picture of this squad.
Click to expand...

San Diego St isn’t any better than Wyoming this year to be honest. They struggled at home last night with Cal St. Fullerton who Wyoming handled on the road pretty easily.

Still don’t see anyone in the MWC that is that much better than us. I don’t think using the Arizona game is a good measuring stick for conference play. CSU has a good offense but their defense isn’t that great. We will see how they do against Alabama. Think CSU got lucky that St. Mary’s played Utah St. in Logan the night right before playing in Fort Collins. Tough road swing to win both of those games for St. Mary’s.

I know Arizona would have beat any team in the MWC at home last night by any score they wanted to, not just us. They have been doing that to everyone, except Wichita St. who they were up 16 on then got lazy.

We will see, we may not finish top 3 but I don’t see anyone in conference that is a level above Wyoming.

Arizona is just on another level with Purdue ,Baylor, Gonzaga, Kansas, Illinois, Duke, UCLA. Maybe one or two other teams. That’s about it. Think Arizona and Purdue are the two best teams I have seen so far.

I think the better measuring stick for us will be the Christmas Tournament in Hawaii. Like you said, let’s look at the team after we play Stanford, Liberty, Northern Iowa, Vanderbilt or BYU. Better sense of where we are at before conference play.
Click to expand...

I think that is fair. MWC basketball program strength is fairly flat this year. I realize as I project out...I have my rose colored glasses on. This Wyoming team could easily slip due to Injuries, Covid, or a lot of other reasons. We've figured out one way to play that I think will be pretty effective against 3/4 of the MWC...namely posting up Maldo and Ike and forcing opponents to load up to stop that. That strategy, coupled with the solid defense and rebounding that we've seen so far should propel us to some pretty good results....the problem is, if teams figure out a way to neutralize that ... and we can't evolve ... even the lower MWC teams will copycat that strategy and make life difficult. Not to mention the possibility of a young team losing focus for a couple weeks and dropping some games that they shouldn't. I suspect that Linder will do a good job of avoiding that, but I can't rule it out.
 
Zona was played on house money. Our net rating barely dropped and our SOS shot up. We just need to learn and move on. This young team is still one of the better teams in the league.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top