heading into conference

[abdullah_sharif]

we all knew it was going to be an up and down year. with that said, my expectations have not been met.. with a freshmen/newcomer laden team i really dont care about the wins and losses, but rather the level of play and improvement on the court. looking at the american and the level of play conference-wide so far, im not sure we win 5 games in conference.

a couple of random thoughts:

***. regardless of being newcomers, ive only given two standing ovations for mtxe level effort this year.. one was the dive on the ground play that lead to the layin and the other during a run against baylor. this has to be the lowest since early in turgeon’s tenure.

***. knowing how hard it is to maintain success and what we lost, i would have entertained other schools offers in the offseason.. not saying i would have left, but i would have listened more than in the past. i had this exact discussion with another division 1 coach with no ties to wichita state - he said eight years is usually the pinnacle of what a coach is going to do at a school before mean reversion. i know we stepped up our conference affiliation, so we can use that as an excuse for now.

***. imho we havent seen play angry much yet. i hope we do, but the majority of this group seems like clones of the country club squad we had last year.

***. i know that coach has a ****-ton of offensive plays for the guys to learn.. being ranked #232 in points scored per game and #141 in offensive efficiency doesnt bother me at this point as long as we see continued improvement through the remainder of the season.

***. with that said, we could be better defensively as that is mental.. we are ranked #119 in points allowed and have the 102nd best defensive rating. other stats of note are our ranking of 223rd in defensive rebounding, 278th in steals, and 227th in blocks. throw in 316th in offensive field goal percentage (imo good defense creates easy buckets) this is where i really miss the fire and intensity of coach jans.

***. this year is a rebuilding year for sure.. but how long is coach’s leash?


poll: how many conference wins in 2018-19?

[asiseeit]

I was at 9-11 before JE's injury. If he returns at least 90% in a couple weeks we could still get there.
I am mostly a realist but part time optimist. I have not lost hope that these very possible things come
true by AAC tournament time. One, JE returns soon and just keeps getting better. Two, ES gets hot.
Three, SHJ and MM save their best for last. While JE sits another center steps up his game. I know
that I am in the minority on this one but I still believe in AM ( and Santa ). DD is another player ready
to burst out. Anything could happen in the tournament - it's why they play the games.

[Shocktoberfest]

I'm pessimistic right now. I voted 3-5 because I can't help but feel like we could easily be 0-5 out of the gate. That is a tough stretch for a team that now does not have JE for a while. Ugh!

[choida]

I don't see it this year... Lord hope I'm wrong... The stars just aren't aligned this year.

[1989]

The injury to JE hurts us a lot especially when you look at the +/- numbers for JE. The one hope we have of winning games and being competitive this year is the fact that our conference is not very good this year. We have to remember that we aren’t the only program going through some struggles.

[pie n eye]

Interesting. I was under the impression that the American was outperforming pre-season expectations so far but I haven’t paid much attention to the rankings or anything.

[1989]

We may or may not be outperforming preseason expectations, but that doesn’t make our league very good. Houston and Cincy are legit. Temple and UCF are both solid and Uconn under their new coach looks very good to me. Everyone else is a winnable game. Doesn’t mean we will win a lot because at this point WSU, especially without JE, is a winnable game for anyone. My only point is that we aren’t some big scary conference. If you have to have a rebuilding year in a big conference in 2019, hope that that conference is either the American or PAC 12.

[pinstripers]

A 500 conference record would be huge.

[WstateU]

That's what he said!

https://media.giphy.com/media/1TSUKO...yKAP/giphy.gif

[ShockerFever]

A 500 conference record would be huge.

Really going out on a limb there.

[ShockTalk]

abdullah_sharif , did you seriously ask that last question? How long is coach's leash?!?!?! We couldn't come up with enough funds to oust our baseball coach and he's never been successful at WSU or as a head coach. And while paying off GM, just where are any funds coming from to pay the next coach to take us to the promise land (assuming we have the talent or ability to hire one that can do that).

[ShockerFever]

abdullah_sharif , did you seriously ask that last question? How long is coach's leash?!?!?! We couldn't come up with enough funds to oust our baseball coach and he's never been successful at WSU or as a head coach. And while paying off GM, just where are any funds coming from to pay the next coach to take us to the promise land (assuming we have the talent or ability to hire one that can do that).

I was puzzled by the statement as well. I assumed he meant how long was coach's leash with some players or something. If it seriously was questioning Marshall's leash as head coach of Wichita State, this guy should probably get locked away in a mental institution for some time.

[ShockTalk]

1989 posted:

We may or may not be outperforming preseason expectations, but that doesn’t make our league very good. Houston and Cincy are legit. Temple and UCF are both solid and Uconn under their new coach looks very good to me. Everyone else is a winnable game. Doesn’t mean we will win a lot because at this point WSU, especially without JE, is a winnable game for anyone. My only point is that we aren’t some big scary conference. If you have to have a rebuilding year in a big conference in 2019, hope that that conference is either the American or PAC 12.

I haven't looked that close at the other "winnable game" teams, but let's just take a look at Memphis.

Their rotation of 9 players consist of : 5 Seniors (4 JUCO with 2 1st Team NJCAA), I Junior (major player on last year's NJCAA champion team and was a RS freshman at K-St who played almost as many minutes at K St as a RS Freshman as SHJ played last year for us), and 3 Freshmen, all rated higher than any freshmen we have, one past on us so, we went with another who ended up transferring from us, and the 3rd is the highest rated of the 3. Total D-I minutes: 5,997 among 6 players. WSU 2,293 of which 86% is 1 player.

For me, winning any game against Memphis will be a big thing regardless of what people think about the Marshall vs Hardaway thing.

[1989]

Winning any game against any of the teams in the AAC, especially the big name brand teams like Memphis, Uconn, etc...would be big for this group. The point that I am making is that the teams in our league outside of those top 5 that I mentioned have some serious issues. You don’t go 7-5 (memphis’s record) by being a good team with no significant flaws.

[ShockTalk]

My range of wins for the team is a high of 11 and no lower than 5 (hopefully).

On the high side: Tulane, ECU, and SMU sweep for 6, Memphis Tulsa, UConn, and USF split for 4, and sneak a win somewhere from Houston, Cincy, Temple, and UCF

Low side: No fewer than 4 wins from Tulane, ECU, and SMU, 1 from Memphis, Tulsa, UConn, and USF group, and 0 from the rest.

I came in at 7 wins: 5 from Tulane, ECU, and SMU, 2 from Memphis, Tulsa, UConn, and USF group, and 0 from the rest. We might pull 1 more win between the first 2 groups, but that still puts me in the 6-8 range.

[ShockingButTrue]

I hope we finish above .500. That would be an achievement.

[Aargh]

I'm hoping we finish above ECU, USF, and Tulane. 6-12 was required to do that last year, and 6 W's is what I got when I went through this year's schedule.

[WSUwatcher]

***... this year is a rebuilding year for sure.. but how long is coach’s leash?

As others have noted, if this refers to how long WSU is going to stick with Marshall, (a) it may be the goofiest question since we used to hear regularly from Dofo, and (b) the answer is "as long as he wants it to be," which (c) is exactly right.

I like Chris Jans's fire and intensity too, but the idea that CJ was or is any more intense or competitive than 3G is laughable at best. Just for perspective, the last previous school to move up from the Valley, the infamous Creighton, carried over most of its team to the Enormous East and was highly competitive behind Dougie Mac as a senior (they actually were better in league play at 14-4 than they had been the year before in their MVC finale). But that team mostly moved on and was followed by a 14-19 (4-14 conference) squad that nevertheless quite properly didn't land coach McDermott on the hot seat, and they haven't failed to win at least 20 games in the three seasons since.

McDermott is no Gregg Marshall, so the idea that Marshall is likely to do worse in the American that McDermott did in moving up a notch, or that he's going to end up in trouble with either WSU's fans or administration based on whatever happens this year -- even with Echenique now limited for a while -- is beyond farfetched. Like a couple of time zones beyond far.

[Topshock]

While I agree with your statement. I have been thinking that, even though I'm sure it won't happen with Boatright, that the smart play would be to not automatically extend the GM contract another year every year. Let it count down from 7 for awhile.

[ShockTalk]

Premature. And not smart.