In Reply to: How the Bruins stand in the polls against other teams in the BIG posted by traprh on December 02, 2024 at 15:07:31
1) We weren't ready to play New Mexico - we didn't compete - Andrews was a total dud - really left a bad taste in the voters' mouths. imo they just put us aside and said okay, let's come back in a month and see what they might look like then. (makes perfect sense to me - early season polls are based so much on last year's teams - and last year's teams mean less and less all the time in this brave new world of massive team changeovers in college basketball)
2) The New Mexico non-effort was a huge learning point for this team. You could see Mick on the sideline during that game just sitting back and say8ing okay, this is what you think is bigtime college basketball effort? Wait til I get you back in the gym. We are a totally different team than showed against UNM.
3) Kyle and Mara are just now beginning to take that required step forward to be competitive at this (starting next weekend) new level of competition.
4) Looking ahead, there are other steps to be taken - and no doubt there will be some stubbed toes for those lessons to be learned. Kyle and Mara are looking a lot better (although Kyle is still feeling to me more like a third forward than an actual post) and we still just aren't prepared to stand up to a high level big and athletic front line imo. But at least we are showing some signs there may be hope for us to get to that point - competitive with up front, not necessarily better than. But we have to be able to hold our own in the paint, both on O and on D, to have a chance of winning against such teams.
mh has noted Arizona's tendency to play very strong early in the season, playing to a higher percentage of their potential early and not having as much room to grow. The Tournament is a crap shoot, no doubt. But at least it rewards the teams that are best at the end of the season. Voters imo have two tendencies that are unfoertunate - 1st they tend to get up or down on a team and they don't shake those early impressions enough as teams change over the court of a season, and 2nd they insist on considering the entire season, thus rewarding what a team was two, three, four, five months ago as opposed to focusing on what a team is NOW.
We aren't much of a much NOW. But given our coach and our personnel, we have a lot of potential to continue to grow and get better as the season goes along.
Last thought - there are two very significant differences between our men's and women's team -- 1) the women have the dominant center in the country and the men have nothing even close to that strength there; and 2) the women have Janiah Barker, the 6'4" junior transfer from Texas A&M - an outstanding big who is already showing her strength as a post when Betts sits and we at this point have really only hopes we can have a second (or even a first) center capable of filling the needs of that position.
IOW, the women are extremely strong from the inside out; their front line is the center of gravity of the team and the foundation of its strength. The men, by contrast, have lots of talent on the outside but their biggest weakness is in the middle. I Leo Dailey and Bilodeau is certainly a talented if not terribly quick and athletic player but if that's what we have, we aren't going to be able to do very much at all.
Which is exactly where the current polls place us in terms of the B1G.
But we can expect to get better which is what makes this season so interesting.
We have the potential to grow and become pretty good. But we have yet to show we can get there yet