Villanova to Face UC Riverside in 76 Classic

Why is Nova padding their schedule with these cupcakes?  It’s a lose-lose situation.  If Nova wins the whole damn thing, nobody cares.  If they lose, they look terrible.  Jay Wright is the anti-John Chaney when it comes to scheduling. 

I understand the Big East is tough, but how is this going to make us a better team?

Boston College and Oklahoma aren’t necessarily cupcakes.

Everyone at ESPN is picking Nova to win this thing, except Dana O’Neil: http://ht.ly/5VjA1

They scheduled this tourney when Taylor King transferred in to let him play near home.They also didn’t know the field when they committed to play in it — nobody really does. You play one of these tourneys every year though because they’re good exposure.

…and Diamond Leung

Nova vs Santa Clara
vs BC / St Louis in semifinals 
vs OK / New Mexico in Championship  

Not a bad trip to DisneyLand early in the season. 

And I was so sure the trip to Amsterdam was Taylor King related….lol 

At least we can say our very young team will be well-traveled by the time the season gets interesting.  
We will be ready for those Sweet 16 / Elite 8 games in the West Region.

whoops…meant to say UC-Riverside in first round while we get over jet lag.

Who do you want in round 2, Barney?

Good points.  I guess I more frustrated about Nova’s trend in scheduling weak OOC competition (outside of the Big 5, which I think is great).  How do we stack up against other Big East schools, like UCONN?

Neither is New Mexico.  I take back my comments

John Chaney had to schedule tough out of conference teams, the A 10 was horrible back then.
No shame playing BC and Oklahoma.

The season is officially over!  Andy Katz just picked us to win something.

oklahoma will not be a good team, I’d be more worried about new mexico/BC… Not a great field obviously, but it’ll be good for the young squad

The answer should be…the better team…lol
But let’s face it, we always like to put a beating on BC when we can and we haven’t seen them in awhile. (2006 NCAA tourney?)   They sound even younger than us so it will be interesting if they can get by St Louis.   

Alford’s New Mexico team seems like the one we want in the Finals. 

I am curious if we have offered any California kids for 2013…..I don’t think so though. 
If we did then this tourney may give them an early chance to see us. , 

We still have 1 OOC to reveal and I am hoping for Bucknell or Drexel. 
Bucknell is poised for a great mid-major season and a tournament bid and Drexel would give us a better fight than St Joes or LaSalle. 
I like Bruiser Flint.  I think he does a decent job with Drexel and they over came some tough off the court issues to win 21 games last year. 

 According to Andy Katz..our starting center’s name is Mustafa Yarou

BE teams don’t need real hard non conference schedules. Some say that if they’re on the bubble, they’ll regret not having played better teams early to boost their chances of selection. I disagree. If they’d lose some of those games, they wouldn’t even make the bubble after losing too many BE games.

That’s because Dana and Jay are friends.  From what I’ve heard from more than one source, Jay has been telling people (including Father Peter) ”don’t expect much”  this season.  Maybe he’s trying to embrace the underdog role a little bit–get his team to play with a chip.

Look at Long Beach State’s non-conference schedule. I wonder if anyone here would prefer that line-up to what Nova does?

Yeah but look at UCONN last year.  In my opinion, playing MSU and Kentucky hepled prepare them.  I’m not saying their schedule should be loaded with powers, but playing one or two big games aganist top teir programs can really help a team understand where they stand and what they need to work on. 

I also don’t buy the argument that the Big East is so tough (physically) that the team will get tired by the end of the year if they play good teams OOC.  These guys could play 50 games if they had to.  

This wouldn’t surprise me at all.  Jay is also buddies with Jeff Goodman (formerly FOX, now with CBS), watch and see if he takes a similar stance…

Obviously it would be nice to schedule some tough opponents.  I think if they can get 2 matches against power conferences schools in this tourney that is pretty good.  As Mr.  Ewart said, teams don’t know the other teams when they sign up for the exempt tournaments.  If it works out Nova could see BC, OU/WSU, Mizzou, Temple, St Joes (who should be much better).  If they can add another 1-2 average or above average game, that is a fine schedule for me.  

Even as a Big East fan, I can’t stand how 9-9 pretty much guarantees you an NCAA berth even though you can win 6-7-8 games against below average teams.  I think you still need 2-3 really good out of conference wins to back your 9-9.

I hope Jay is wrong, but I tend to agree that we shouldn’t expect much.  Way too much hope is put on freshmen based on what they did as an 18 year old in high school when they were typically one of the best on the court.  They get to college and especially in the Big East and they are just 1 of 10 on the court.  An overwhelming majority of guys need a lot of games if not a full season to adjust.  We’ve probably been spoiled over the last 5-6 years!  But hey, I’d rather be a fan of a team with lofty expectations than say a Seton Hall or Rutgers!!!!

I’m a UNM fan and I come in peace!

Wanted to gauge Nova objectively and get a fair assessment of this years squad and the expectation of fans. I’d appreciate your guys’ comments.

There’s a consensus in ABQ that UNM and Nova will meet in the championship. A lot of us feel it should be a good game. But there seems to be a lot of question marks in the air about each team and I hope to clear some of that up. This is a bit of a scout report for your consideration:

UNM returns everyone but point guard, Dairese Gary who graduated. UNM had an OK ’10 – ’11 season, ending up 9-9 in conference. Last year’s squad was heavily burdened with Freshmen and it took a little bit for us to get comfortable. In the ladder part of the MWC schedule, UNM ended up making it back to .500, beating BYU twice — one at home, and one in Provo by 18 when BYU was ranked #3. It was the second season in a row that UNM swept BYU.

Key players to watch: Drew Gordon, who averages a double-double. Philip McDonald, the team’s leading three point shooter. Kendal Williams, Freshman MWC POY. Incoming freshmen include Kory Alford, Hugh Greenwood, Jarion Henry and Dominique Dunning.

Expectations for UNM: we are the team to beat in the MWC this year. We’re expected to win the conference and get back into the tourney. The growing pains we experienced last season diminished towards the end and if Gary hadn’t blown his ACL against BYU in the semi-final of the MWC, it’s likely we would have beat them for a third time. We look to replace Gary with Demetrius Walker, ASU transfer who has a similar playing style, although taller.

The UNM bench is very deep, we play just about everyone. The roster is 15 long and we have the ability to cover 2+ per spot. Towards the end of last season, we were able to rotate players without noticing a drop off. It gave us the distinct ability to wear out other teams.

It’s important to note that Steve Alford and Co. haven’t brought in freshmen that can’t play at the level they’re expected. We will have quite a few freshmen and soph. this year, but I don’t want to give the indication that they are unable to play as expected. Greenwood should be a particular note in this case, since he’s playing quite well right now for the U19 Australian olympic team.

Hope this was fun for you guys to read. I look forward to seeing what everyone has to say about Nova! Also, feel free to visit us at thelobolair.com if you’d like to chat with us. We welcome other schools with open arms!

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Is that Alfords kid. Walker is the one who was in the book about California AAU . He was 6 foot 3 at age 12 and they said he was the next Lebron and he is still 6-3