If you are not pre-season Top 10....

[SubGod22]

And I'd be surprised if Shaq redshirts.

[Rlh04d]

Whoever gets Andrew Wiggins will be preseason #1, except for us. If we get him, we'll probably be top 5 though.

Kentucky will be preseason #1 if they get him or not. They still have the #1 recruit at every other position coming in.

[AZ Shocker]

OMG....are some you of joking.....Wichita St. WILL BE Pre-Season Top-10 next year. Early (HELLO!!), Baker, Van Fleet and Cotton is enough to get the voters right there. I mean....as long as they watched the tourney. Lol

[kcshocker11]

we'll see where we finish in the final season rankings on tuesday. top ten, i would think ('better be top 5, actually). we are bringing in a center who.. aw.. forget it..

Probably just outside of the top 25. The pundits will say we didnt meet the eye test:wsu_posters::poster_wsu::poster_shocks::trium phant:

[1972Shocker]

Definititon of expert:

ex = has been and spurt = a drip of water.

[Rocky Mountain Shock]

No way we're preseason top 10. We might return practically everyone from a F4 team, but they will point to losing The Beast and Armstead as reasons to keep us out. Nevermind we're adding a top 10 Juco guy to replace The Beast and a top 100 point guard after a very solid freshman year. I do think we'll be preseason top 25, but barely.

[SHOCKvalue]

With apologies to KCShox's MO, I'm going to have to say I wouldn't take a bet on us being top 10 preseason next year. Top 25? Sure!

I wouldn't get my hopes up on a top 5 finish even THIS year.

[SubGod22]

Best case scenario in my mind would be 20-25 range. I just don't see the media giving us any better than that. Remember, the preseason rankings don't come out for 6-7 months. Plenty of time to forget how good we were, are, and will be. Enough time to go back to thinking we were just a nice little story who benefited from an "easy" region.

[MadaboutWu]

I'll make an optimistic guess at 15-18. Could easily see us between 19-25. I don't see us missing the poll. Mostly I really don't care, but it does kind of matter the way poll dynamics work and the early season publicity would be nice.

[SubGod22]

I know in the grand scheme of your season polls don't matter. But when you're ranked you get talked about. Your highlights are on SC. You get your game on the scroll during every televised game. Recruits see those things. Other journalists see those things. More people end up watching you and writing about you. Recruits see those things.

And as the previous post said, it gives you a little more room for error when you start out in it as opposed to having to work your way in. And if you start off strong, you can position yourself in the Top 15 or so early and one loss won't kill you. Plus people see that stuff. Recruits see that stuff.

[1972Shocker]

I don't know, nor do I really care that much, where we will be ranked in the pre-season next year. Having the guys come into the season with a little chip on their shoulder is not necessarily a bad thing.

I would be careful to underestmate the loss of Carl and Malcolm. Carl was the Heart of this team and Malcolm its Soul. What makes a particular team greater than the sum if its parts. That's always hard to know for sure, but I think players who are the heart and soul of the team have a lot to do with that.

[SubGod22]

I don't know, nor do I really care that much, where we will be ranked in the pre-season next year. Having the guys come into the season with a little chip on their shoulder is not necessarily a bad thing.

I would be careful to underestmate the loss of Carl and Malcolm. Carl was the Heart of this team and Malcolm its Soul. What makes a particular team greater than the sum if its parts. That's always hard to know for sure, but I think players who are the heart and soul of the team have a lot to do with that.

I don't disagree with that. But don't sleep on Baker and the impact he had on THIS team and the one he'll have on next years team. Him, Wessel and Cotton are your warriors that will lead by example and keep the intensity level high. We have leaders.

I'm not worried.

[MadaboutWu]

I'm not worried either, I expect success and would be disappointed if we don't win the valley and get an at-large bid (say top 40 rpi), but I'm not sure that we are going to be a top-25 team because of the losses of MA and CH.

FVV has really big shoes to fill. I loved FVV's development this season--one of the best things to watch all season--but I don't think it projects into FVV doing as a sophomore what MA did for us as a fifth year senior. Quite likely by junior year. Something overlooked is that a lot of time FVV ran the point he had MA playing the 2 and acting as a kind of second pg.

A related issue is do Bowles or Baker effectively replace FVV's minutes as back-up point guard or are those 10-15 minutes a slight decrease in what we had from FVV, who was a very quick study and did an excellent job in his role. And Baker at the point takes him out of his natural spot where we are going to want his offense. So the effects can ripple.

On the other hand I wouldn't be very surprised if we are better next year (not than our final 4 run but than our regular season), but I'm in the agnostic camp and say it is hard to know. I guess I'm focusing on the pessimistic side because it is underrepresented and there are big question marks for the confidence with which people are predicting really big results like top 15 (not talking the preseason beauty pageant which is obviously just about guessing media perceptions/biases).

[1972Shocker]

I think Ron's impact on this team was real but was more tangible than intangible. He gave us a legitimate threat from the outside that had to be honored. That had a signficant impact of teams ability to just pack it in tight and are us to beat them from the outside. Tekele's improvement as a shooter certainly helped that as well.

Furthermore, Ron is a very good rebounder, defender, ballhandler and passer. So he brings a boatload of tangibels to the table. On top of that he plays hard and tough. Then we have Evan Wessell who I think is kind of cross between Ron, Tekele and Graham Hatch.

Question is who will be the Heart and Soul of this team next year. Not sure Cleanthony is that kind of personality. Not sure what kind of intangibles Kadeem Coleby will bring to the table. I think Tekele and Evan have that kind of mentality but Tekele hardly ever says anything. It will be different for sure and very interesting to see how next year's team comes together.

[MadaboutWu]

Watching the still very young back court develop over the next three years is going to be awesome.