Will your team be better or worse next year?

[Snaggletooth]

Not trying to troll here but this is crazy thinking in my opinion. WSU wasn't in the Top 25 this season most of the year

Do you even think before you speak? 19 Week Season

Top 25 - 7 Weeks
Top 26 to 31 - 7 Weeks
Unranked - 5 Weeks (all 5 during the early 1 weekend).

WSU after that built their way back where they bounced from 22 to 30 from week to week due to poll mechanics.

and they were simply not very good with Fred out.

WSU was missing Fred, Shamet, Grady and connor. What team wouldn't struggle with that many players out.

You might still be in the upper 2-3 of the Valley

LOL, WSU will be the best team in the MVC.

but there will be a precipitous drop in your talent level.

If you want to argue drop off in experience, I will grant that. Talent? You need to pay attention - Marshall has been increasing the talent level each year of the program.

[Wufan]

You are being very defensive about tearing down WSU. Why can't we be defensive supporting our team? Both of us are arguing theoretical arguments. Yes we lose Fred and Ron, yes we will have a drop off. It will be a different look. There is the talent there to be a Top 25 team. You don't agree, that's fine. Neither of us are wrong or right at this point. I have just as many arguments to say we will be a Top 25 team as you have arguments to say we wont be.

I was not being defensive of "tearing you down". I was complimentary and said you will most likely win the conference. Not all Redbird fans want to "tear down WSU"....just some of the Shocker fan base (not you).

I do agree you have top end talent on paper. We will see how it translates on the court and how your team adjusts to life without FVV and Baker.

You think they will adjust quickly and be top 25 most of the year
I think it will take some time and won't happen until sometime in conference season. New leadership can take some time to develop, so does confidence without your floor general and on-court coach. Like losing your QB in Football...takes time to recover.

We will see what happens.

WSU will be down on experience. They won't look the same and they may or may not perform well, but there's enough talent there to spend most of the year in the polls depending on early returns.

I imagine the Redbirds will continue to be very dangerous but will fail to produce a record/ranking that demonstrates that.

[shockalot]

Frankly, we should all pay alot less attention to the polls. They have become less and less meaningful and more and more biased for the P5 same old same olds. Whether WSU, or any other "outside the inner circle" team is in the polls for most or part of the season doesn't really tell you much. The analytical metric rankings are much closer to reflecting reality, especially Kenpom, in my opinion, and RPI being the worst.
But to the point of this thread, WSU will, as others have said, be different, still plenty of talent, possibly more at least in some dimensions than last year, but much less experience and that will probably make a difference at least in how strong they look comparative to recent years for the first half of the season. If they pull together the necessary team chemistry, continued player development, and avoid serious injuries, they should be in the same realm they have been at for the last several years. If those things don't go well, then they will slip some, but not so much as to not be likely to get to the NCAA tournament again.
My take on the rest of the MVC is that ISUr should be at least a little better, MSU should be significantly better, Bradley should be much better, SIU might be a little better or about the same, ditto for InSU, and everyone else will be a little less good, like UNI, or a lot less good like UE.

[2livewu]

WSU Will be down for sure. Not a top 25 team. Will be capable of beating a lot of top 25 teams though. With much of the Valley down though, and keeping in mind that WSU was 20 points better than almost every Valley team last year, they could be 15 points per game worse and still be 16-2 in the league. WSU will be solid, probably down, but a LOT of upside. Could be really, really good at the end of the year. REALLY good.

With the Valley down as a whole, just can't see enough teams getting to them to take the crown but I guess anything is possible. ISUr seems the most likely challenger, and a real threat at that IF they can keep all the remaining pieces in Normal.

WSU will be completely different, and if they can't shoot (like this year) then they will lose more games for sure. Just maybe not too many games in conference. Anything worse than 14-4 and something went terribly wrong. If they CAN shoot it a little, then it's going to be another long and sad year for the rest of the Valley.

[BirdsEyeView]

WSU Will be down for sure. Not a top 25 team. Will be capable of beating a lot of top 25 teams though. With much of the Valley down though, and keeping in mind that WSU was 20 points better than almost every Valley team last year, they could be 15 points per game worse and still be 16-2 in the league. WSU will be solid, probably down, but a LOT of upside. Could be really, really good at the end of the year. REALLY good.

With the Valley down as a whole, just can't see enough teams getting to them to take the crown but I guess anything is possible. ISUr seems the most likely challenger, and a real threat at that IF they can keep all the remaining pieces in Normal.

WSU will be completely different, and if they can't shoot (like this year) then they will lose more games for sure. Just maybe not too many games in conference. Anything worse than 14-4 and something went terribly wrong. If they CAN shoot it a little, then it's going to be another long and sad year for the rest of the Valley.

My argument exactly. Finally a realistic Shocker fan.

[musiccitybulldog]

Better

[BuBrave2006]

Bradley should be much better IMO. Good (not great) recruits coming in, solid players coming back, two of which made the All-Freshman team. We will be much deeper next year as well and won't have to play our starters 35+ minutes and may be able to actually play consistently in the last 8 minutes of games. Still a year or two a way, but optimistically, we should be able to compete to not play on Thursday next year.

[wgslaw]

WSU has not lost this much talent since 2011-2012 season ended. That team finished 16-2 in the Valley and was a 5 seed in the NCAA tournament. Lost the following year were then seniors Greg Stultz (7’ center), all conference, Joe Ragland (PG), all conference, Toure Murray (SG), all defense, Ben Smith (SF), all defense and David Kyles (SG). All these guys played for years in Europe except for Murray who bounced back and forth between the NBA and the development league. Next year I guess you could say the team took a step back as it started as a 9 seed in the NCAA tournament before losing in the final four. WSU will have an absolute boat load of talent in 2016-2017-probably the most I have seen. I would suggest caution in predicting any demise for WSU in 2016-2017.

[BuBrave2006]

WSU has not lost this much talent since 2011-2012 season ended. That team finished 16-2 in the Valley and was a 5 seed in the NCAA tournament. Lost the following year were then seniors Greg Stultz (7’ center), all conference, Joe Ragland (PG), all conference, Toure Murray (SG), all defense, Ben Smith (SF), all defense and David Kyles (SG). All these guys played for years in Europe except for Murray who bounced back and forth between the NBA and the development league. Next year I guess you could say the team took a step back as it started as a 9 seed in the NCAA tournament before losing in the final four. WSU will have an absolute boat load of talent in 2016-2017-probably the most I have seen. I would suggest caution in predicting any demise for WSU in 2016-2017.

So what you are implying is that this incoming 2016 class has as much talent as the players that came in 12-13 with Early, Armstead, FVV and Baker?? Sure they they lost a ton of talent that year but they also had three all Americans and a fifth year transfer PG starter coming in for the first time. I highly doubt Wichita will have that kind of talent coming in next season.

[glm38]

I feel the Bears will definitely be better. How much better is the question. We should be to 2 or 3. I have a sick feeling our coach will have difficulty integrating and getting the most out of his players. And that we'll be just good enough to escape the play in game.