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Remainder of Season Outlook

3

307bball

Well-known member
So what happens the rest of this season?

First...up until this point, not much to cheer about. Only three games into conference play so it's a small sample size to extrapolate from but here goes. I think this team is much better at home...most teams are, but this team really needs to play in Laramie to have a chance. Do we win any road games for the rest of the season? I predict we go 0-fer away from Laramie the rest of the way.

Based on going toe-to-toe with UNM and SDSU at the AA, I think we will win some games at home, but how many? One thing that worries me is that both the UNM and SDSU games were winnable and mistakes down the stretch cost us. If this is our pattern, than any game that is tight in the last three minutes is probably a loss. That leaves home games with big leads as the most likely place to pick up wins for the rest of the season. I could see the pokes get hot and coast to a victory or three, but I doubt they can do it on the road. That leaves 7 "winnable" games left on the schedule. I think the guys get more healthy as the season continues (how can it get worse?). I also think they actually win a close one or two.

I predict that we go 5-2 at home the rest of the way and just get to double-digit victories for the season. What a letdown this has been.
 
I think Wenzel went down and that changes things for the worse, even more. I think we'll win 4-5 conference games. Might steal a road win somewhere
 
307bball said:
So what happens the rest of this season?

First...up until this point, not much to cheer about. Only three games into conference play so it's a small sample size to extrapolate from but here goes. I think this team is much better at home...most teams are, but this team really needs to play in Laramie to have a chance. Do we win any road games for the rest of the season? I predict we go 0-fer away from Laramie the rest of the way.

Based on going toe-to-toe with UNM and SDSU at the AA, I think we will win some games at home, but how many? One thing that worries me is that both the UNM and SDSU games were winnable and mistakes down the stretch cost us. If this is our pattern, than any game that is tight in the last three minutes is probably a loss. That leaves home games with big leads as the most likely place to pick up wins for the rest of the season. I could see the pokes get hot and coast to a victory or three, but I doubt they can do it on the road. That leaves 7 "winnable" games left on the schedule. I think the guys get more healthy as the season continues (how can it get worse?). I also think they actually win a close one or two.

I predict that we go 5-2 at home the rest of the way and just get to double-digit victories for the season. What a letdown this has been.
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There is way too much talent on this team not to win a single road conference game. Unless I'm totally wrong about Linder, he will have these guys ready to play every game.
I don't like to point this out: The team looks far more energetic without Thompson. It's rare when his shooting makes the difference. The rest of his game is easily replaced. With Anderson and Reynolds, we have an excellent guard tandem who can't shoot free throws.

To me, the letdown is Ike's health. This is 2 seasons he's missed due to injury. Some players are just injury prone and now it's time to find his replacement. Hard to do, I know. But we can't count on him. He was the one player on the team who is irreplaceable. All the weaknesses on this team are exposed when he's not out there. So, it's a lost season. The conference is too strong for us to make a big tournament run. Keeping these guys motivated will be a major challenge for this staff.
 
It's OK to point out that the team sucks with Thompson and is OK with Thompson on the bench. We've known Thompson is not good for 5 years, but somehow Linder thought it was a good idea to feature Thompson this season. And then Linder wonders why we suck. Doesn't reflect well on Linder.
 
bladerunnr said:
There is way too much talent on this team not to win a single road conference game.
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From a talent standpoint...absolutely. From a eye-test standpoint....not so much. They look disconnected and hesitant away from home so far.
bladerunnr said:
Unless I'm totally wrong about Linder, he will have these guys ready to play every game.
I don't like to point this out: The team looks far more energetic without Thompson. It's rare when his shooting makes the difference. The rest of his game is easily replaced. With Anderson and Reynolds, we have an excellent guard tandem who can't shoot free throws.

To me, the letdown is Ike's health. This is 2 seasons he's missed due to injury. Some players are just injury prone and now it's time to find his replacement. Hard to do, I know. But we can't count on him. He was the one player on the team who is irreplaceable. All the weaknesses on this team are exposed when he's not out there. So, it's a lost season. The conference is too strong for us to make a big tournament run. Keeping these guys motivated will be a major challenge for this staff.
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big big big challenge!
 
I generally agree with most of what was stated. The worst part and as a fan who was more excited for this season than any other ever - I hate to say it but I’m going to struggle to find the motivation to attend games here on out. We don’t really have anything to play for other than to potentially ruin other MWC teams’ tournament hopes. I’ll probably still make it to several games but it’s a bummer that I’ll have to force myself (and my wife) to go. Linder needs to prepare for Edwards’ esque empty arenas.
 
The caveat with any of these "look ahead" type of posts....I have zero inside knowledge and nothing would make me happier than if I were wrong. Looking at the body of work thus far and predicting a continued disappointing season does not make anybody a "hater".
 
I’ve never seen a bigger disaster of a sports season in my whole time loving the pokes. This easily beats last years football team expectations vs results
 
Nobody's really ever a hater, just snakebit on watching winning basketball not mediocre basketball. It gets really old when we make a ncaa every 15 years, I'd love to see a repeat winning season, but we are Wyoming it's what we expect year in and year out, i don't see a win anytime soon and that scares me
 
At this point I think I'll predict we get one win at home in the remaining games and lose all the rest and we finish with a new record for lowest win total in a season.

One thing that is extra frustrating about this is I believe it's at least a 2 more year setback. Even if we keep all the core pieces of the team, drop the dead weight off the team, everybody's healthy next season, and we bounce back, we are bound to have a terrible non-conference schedule in terms of quality. No one will want to schedule us after this terrible year and I doubt we get any sort of decent non-conference tourny unless it was already previously committed before this season. It's pretty much guaranteed to tank recruiting as well. So unfortunately I think we are at least 2 years a way from really recovering from this year and that's assuming that we do recover some next year
 
I hope we see a lot more of Barnhart and Powell for the rest of the year. And less Agbonkpolo. Getting those guys some PT could pay off next year.
 
flyfishwyo said:
I hope we see a lot more of Barnhart and Powell for the rest of the year. And less Agbonkpolo. Getting those guys some PT could pay off next year.
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Agree. While neither of those guys are physically ready, let’s at least get them accustomed to the speed and physicality of the division 1 game. Barnhart plays hard when he is out there (although not pretty at times).
 
Agree about Barnhart. Let him play

What kills me is other than Anderson and Reynolds no one can even dribble it well enough to get close to the hoop for a high percentage shot! Otoh we allow dribble penetration all the way to the hoop constantly. We are so overmatched it’s not funny
 
OrediggerPoke said:
flyfishwyo said:
I hope we see a lot more of Barnhart and Powell for the rest of the year. And less Agbonkpolo. Getting those guys some PT could pay off next year.
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Agree. While neither of those guys are physically ready, let’s at least get them accustomed to the speed and physicality of the division 1 game. Barnhart plays hard when he is out there (although not pretty at times).
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Powell seems to have good instincts and play aggressively. He just needs his coordination to catch up with his body.
 
And why is it with all this practice practice practice does Maldo still dribble off his foot at inopportune moments grrrr so annoying
 
I watch the Pokes every year. I know I am seeing things from the perspective of having crazy high preseason expectations, but this feels like one of the worst years in recent memory. At this point in the season we're doing as bad as the last year of Edwards' tenure (when we went on the short MWC tourney run in 2020). Having this bad of a non-conference season isn't like us, even in off years. It's a bad year. It's over. All I care about at this point is that I hope we don't lose any dudes to the portal.
 
Z-money said:
I watch the Pokes every year. I know I am seeing things from the perspective of having crazy high preseason expectations, but this feels like one of the worst years in recent memory. At this point in the season we're doing as bad as the last year of Edwards' tenure (when we went on the short MWC tourney run in 2020). Having this bad of a non-conference season isn't like us, even in off years. It's a bad year. It's over. All I care about at this point is that I hope we don't lose any dudes to the portal.
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If we just traded everybody for the "average" college basketball player....would we be worse?
 
Subcanis said:
8 straight.

There’s more than injuries/illness at play.
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This is pretty much my opinion. We have played poorly all year. The injuries seem to blame, but the pokes have been losing games that they should win since like the 3rd game of the season. Very frustrating. This was supposed to be the year where we could *afford* to lose people because we were finally deep. For the first time I can remember. That’s not how it worked out
 
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