Our Schedule is about to get brutal

[Jason94]

One thing that is an issue is that we were done zero favors with our schedule coming into the conference. We start with USC at home which is a very winnable game as USC has been awful so far this season, but follow that with Mizzou on the road, a team that is 9-1 with their lone loss being to Kansas. They are not great but it will be difficult to beat them at their place. What follows is potentially spirit breaking if we aren't able to turn things around in a hurry:

at UT
Ark
Bama
at UGA
Uk
at aTm
at Bama
Ole Miss
UT
at UF.

That is 10 consecutive games where we will be the underdog, and in 8 of those cases have less than a 1 in 4 chance of winning. We need to come out of the final 3 OOC games with some real momentum, because it will be difficult to correct whatever is ailing our team against this schedule. Note that this is 5 games against top 10 kenpom teams and a 6th against Arkansas, which is 14th currently. The worst team we face in that stretch by a large margin is UGA, and that is on the road.

[quasidiehardvandyfan]

That is a brutal stretch, even if we were fielding a competitive team. What I'm quickly learning with this team is there are no gimmes. I wouldn't be surprised if we play South Carolina as close as we do Arkansas.

[commadore]

That is a brutal stretch, even if we were fielding a competitive team. What I'm quickly learning with this team is there are no gimmes. I wouldn't be surprised if we play South Carolina as close as we do Arkansas.

Or as bad.

[dore74]

What a disappointing start to the season this must be for the team and the coaches. It sounds like Stack may be on the hot seat to boot. I suspect that Saturday's game in Chicago against NCSt could be pivotal to the remainder of the season (the streak of games referenced above as well). There likely will be a lot of pressure on everyone involved with additional trouble coming from its timing right after exams. Here's hoping this begins a turnaround...

[buffy]

Generally a Stack fan, but at this point, it just doesn't feel like there's a good plan. Well, actually, it seems like the plan from jumpstreet was to get a lot of long athletic guys to pressure teams defensively and then let players dribble penetrate and pass out for open threes. In the preseason, CJS sounded like he had what he wanted to do that.

Except, after 4 years of recruits, we're not longer or more athletic than most teams. So that crap doesn't work. We keep trying to play a create offense without players that can create (only Scottie could). We have some players that can shoot. A good coach can take kids with some sure enough skills and put them in an offense that can generate buckets. Except, it doesn't look like our coach can do this or he's hell bent on running an offense that relies on players we don't have. Are we trying to win games or are we trying to sell a narrative to recruits that we're preparing them for the NBA? Just doesn't make much sense.

It's early in the season, and generally, Stack's team improve significantly through the year, but how many years should it take to build a team good enough to go to the tournament? I'm not sure. But I don't know what to make of some of these dog turd performances. I'm wishing them well. Still have my support. Just confused.

[Nashmann]

Buffy you said it all!!! FOUR YEARS!!!! No offense to speak of.

[quasidiehardvandyfan]

Well said. I'm quite confused by the lineups, lack of playing the freshman, insistence on playing walk-ons over said freshmen, saying we don't want cupcake matchups out of conference, yet having the hubris to sit out Jordan Wright** and have it backfire against Grambling and downplay these losses as if they don't matter - and maybe they wouldn't as much if we weren't about to go through the gauntlet Jason has outlined. The forecast is bleak.

** he said postgame in the prior game that Wright should be good to go against Grambling, so I'm assuming this was a precautionary sit out and if push came to shove, Wright could have played some minutes in a pinch.