Some observations: <LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.wholehogsports.com/news/2017 … ence-bask/”>http://www.wholehogsports.com/news/2017/aug/21/6-observations-arkansas-2017-18-nonconference-bask/</LINK_TEXT>
Nolan had a name for this type of schedule. “Get Coach Fired” schedule. Great for fans, but stressful on the coach.
Challenge your team! Cupcakes don’t help you get any better. I like the the schedule and hope they play well. I’d sure like to have our hogs beat the Tar heels
If they win 9-10 of those 13, they’ll have played well. Any more, then they’ll probably be ranked or close to it.
I hope we didn’t overschedule. The SEC could get a positive SOS feedback this season with the vast majority of the conference in the top 100, which would mean that the nonconference schedule doesn’t have to be as challenging to achieve a final SOS mark. Most difficult isn’t necessarily the best schedule. You’ve got to win some games, too. It doesn’t do much good to challenge your team if you play your way out of the tourney before January.
The good news is that we can immediately put five guys on the court with big-game experience who aren’t going to be intimidated by any environment. The bad news is that, if this team is going to be top-32 type good again, multiple guys who either weren’t here last year or didn’t contribute much will need to be major producers. How quickly will that happen?
That was my point. It is good for fan attendance. Not as good for the season, unless you win 9 or 10 non-conference games. The other issue is that many of the tough games are early, starting with Bucknell, when team chemistry not what it will be eventually.
Yes, but wouldn’t that be an issue for those teams as well?
Not necessarily. As Jimmy pointed out in his excellent article, Bucknell, for instance, returns its top-nine scorers from a really good team. Their roles are fairly well set on day 1. We lost our best shooter and our two best defenders. We’re going to have to work out who gets shots after Macon and Barford. Learning the rotations in this defense takes a while as well, especially for the frosh. This system also depends more on the bench than most, and the bench has almost zero experience. I remember the Reid-Hood-Bradley teams losing multiple games against Oklahoma teams in November that they were clearly better than by March.
Niles has explained this well in his response. On the flip side, we play Bucknell at home. That may help us a bit.
The overscheduling concern is valid. In addition to the big games, they’ve got 5 mid-majors on the schedule who finished with a top-77 RPI last year. Last year’s schedule had 2.
I’d think 20 regular-season wins puts this team in position to be a tourney team, if the SEC is as deep/good as it looks like it could be on paper.