Canesbro31
Sophomore
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2018
- Messages
- 558
Would love to hear some opinions.
Just because we win are remaining games does not mean that the teams ahead of us are going to lose their remaining contests.
The best we can hope for is a eighth or ninth seed, outside change at a 7th, which gives us hope to win in the first round. We most likely will face a top four team next and I doubt we will advance any further. We have more bad losses than good wins, just do not see us getting into the tournament,
possibly a second win puts us on the bubble.
Highly unlikely we win the remaining 5 ACC games, then again you have picked us to win every single game we have playedIn fairness, to the question. I do think Miami will win the rest of their regular season games, however, that is not enough to get an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. Miami would have to win the ACC tournament to get into the NCAA tournament. Given the abnormally down year for the teams in the ACC combined with the underperformance of Florida and UCONN (two teams Miami lost too in the non-conference) along with Temple and Missouri State (two teams Miami beat in the non-conference) does not help our resume. Beating Illinois helps, especially if they win the Big Ten but that is not enough. Ending the regular season at 18-12 is a decent record but it is not enough. I do think Miami will win two games in the ACC tournament but that would then take our record to 20-13. Unfortunately, a 20-13 record screams NIT to me.
Actually, I would prefer Miami go to the NIT and win the NIT this year. Going to the NCAA tournament is good but Miami is hovering around the last four in territory, which means they would probably have to play a play-in game first then fly to another city for another NCAA tournament game or games during the first weekend. Two cities and possibly 3 games in a 6 day period with a 9 man team. Miami would probably get a #1 seed in the NIT so they will have few home games before going to MSG for the Championship game. That would be 2 games a week for the next three weeks.
It would be a great motivational tool for next season as we can all take about how Miami got snubbed from the NCAA tournament last season. Winning the NIT would be a good preparation for a deep run in the NCAA tournament next season.
1-2% chance this year, but we should have a great team next year on paperWould love to hear some opinions.
I’m not sure it’s fair to say any of the three of them have regressed. Lykes was playing hurt in November and from mid January on, but in that short window he was healthy he played some great games (Admittedly Duke was not one of them). Sam and DJ have been asked to log more minutes than anyone, and Sam has been playing with a bad knee since mid-January. He has to go through a lengthy routine to get the knee loose before joining the rest of the team for halftime warmups. It’s no coincidence that Sam played his best game in weeks after getting a night off. With DJ you can absolutely see the fatigue in his suddenly poor free throw shooting.A bit tired of getting downvoted, but a couple of surprising wins against very bad teams, with lotsa ugly moments, and we are talking NCAA? And Sam is the cats meow? He and DJ have regressed this year, as has Lykes. Frenetic is the word, for those athletic Canes that play with energy.
Best I can point out though is that with more healthy bodies, the competition for playing time (Lykes, Wong, Walker, Beverly, Kam) among the younger energetic mobile guys with some talent (not always executed) seems to keep them from trying to play hero a bit too much (too many shots and bad shots a la newton and Arod) and they seem to pass a bit more and otherwise are more shot-selective. This is GOOD!
On the other hand, confidence with DJ and Sam, who has been frozen, is disconcerting. DJ is a known quantity/quality having a very bad run of games; Sam is perhaps the second best long shooter on the team. In practice he sinks more 3pointers than anyone even DJ game after game Ive seen. But now wont shoot, although he did take one in last game and sunk it, was nice to see. Hoping for more and hope Im wrong.