Picks the Hogs to finish 9th in the SEC. And doesn’t even list Daniel Gafford as one of the top 15 freshmen in the SEC. Is this guy serious?
And I usually don’t try to think I know more than guys that get paid to do something. But, John Rothstein is noticeably bad at making predictions every single year. In the few years I’ve followed him, I I’ve never even seen him be remotely close to predicting things correctly. And I figured out what he does, he basically does interviews with coaches, and whoever he talks to and likes the most he usually goes with that to help his predictions, rather than actually evaluating the teams, he probably can’t name more than 3 players on the Razorbacks. He use to talk to Larry Brown a lot and list SMU as a top 10 team every year that Larry Brown was there. He was the same guy that was going on Bo’s show last year telling us we had no chance of making the tournament and no way SEC gets more than 3 teams in the tournament. Yet we made it in, and 5 teams in the SEC safely made the tournament. There has to be more qualified people out there that actually do their research.
I don’t agree with Arkansas being 9, but I suspect there will be a lot of differing orders on how the SEC is picked in the preseason. I don’t necessarily disagree with the teams in his top 4, but I might change the order. I think Arkansas will be in that mix, too.
As far as Gafford, it looks like 13 of the 15 guys he listed were ranked ahead of him by ESPN. But he should outperform some of those guys because he’ll more than likely get more PT off the bat.
I’m not a Rothstein apologist by any stretch, but last year he did pick Arkansas as his SEC sleeper on his preseason podcast when many weren’t overly high on the Hogs. And he brought up Jaylen, Daryl and Dustin as impact newcomers along with obviously Moses and Dusty returning.
I couldn’t find the link, but I remember even as a sleeper he still had us picked 6th or 7th. The year before that he had us picked like 11th. Even in the 14-15 season I remember him picking us like 6th. And the predictions aren’t the main problem I have with him. My main problem with him is he’s a regular on Bo’s show, Bo probably brings him on at least 3-4 times during the season and he’s always so negative. All of last year he kept telling us the SEC was fool’s gold, and there was no way this league got more than 3 teams in, and we would have to beat Florida, South Carolina, and probably go undefeated at home just to have a shot at making the tournament. He does stuff like this every single year, and is so smug about it.
Read the comments on his most of his tweets, he’s been called out by many fans as being a fanboy and playing favoritism when he makes his predictions. I’ll still never forget him getting so upset on the air and turning red, because the whole CBS staff making fun of him for telling NBA teams they were fools if they didn’t take Shabazz Napier as the 1st PG in the draft. And he made this prediction just because he was a Napier fanboy and Kevin Ollie gave him a lot of access to cover UConn. No scouts thought that Napier was the best PG in the draft, and they were right by a wide margin.
Fair enough, all that makes sense. I haven’t heard him on Bo, but I could see how he’d have that opinion based on his tweets.
Me and a writer friend of mine do have a running joke about how he tweets the same thing over and over again. The spiel gets a bit old.
My point was I think it’ll be difficult to have a consensus preseason poll because of the depth of the conference. Arkansas should be higher than 9th, but I could see them picked all over the board even by people who are tuned in.
Yea, no doubt. I think a pick anywhere from 4th-6th is a reasonable pick for the Hogs. I don’t expect anyone outside of Arkansas to think we can finish anywhere higher than 4th. Although, I’ve been vocal in saying I think we finish first, this is the most wide open SEC has been in a while, I think our experience with how hard it is to beat us at home is going to fair well for us this season.
I take predictions with a grain of salt! Play the games. The refs will make the difference in close games aginst is!
The SEC is getting stronger and the hogs will be at least 5th!
SEC looks like a scrum next season. I think reasonable people can have very different permutations in their predictions. Winning or losing a couple of close ones could make a significant change in the standings.
That said, nobody ever got rich betting against a strong, experienced backcourt in college basketball. We know that our guards are good and good in the clutch. The standings in the SEC were mainly about guards last season. Plus, a player like Jones that nobody outside of Arkansas knows about could make a huge difference in what our lineup looks like if he explodes on to the scene out of nowhere.
I noticed that Rothstein picked USC seventh last season in a conference that he thought had 3 NCAAT teams. Nobody realized how good Thornwell would be as a senior. Cue Macon, Barford, Beard…
No doubt Blu…I went right at him on twitter when I saw that yesterday. 9th?? That’s just plain disrespectful…Of course, he didn’t answer me when challenged. Whatta clown!!