Expectations

As mentioned in other threads, the likes of ESPN and Examiner have given their opinions of the Pilots and what might be expected this season.
With the season approaching, my question to the Pilot Nation is what are your expectations?? I would think both as a team and any individuals would be good conversation.
Will the team eclipse their win total from last year? Is the departure of Douglas really going to hurt? Is the non conference schedule one which can challenge yet add victories to the tally? That sort of thing.
As much as I enjoy college football and the beginning of fall, I cant wait to see the WCC battle it out this year. This conference is going to be full of close games, upsets, and imho a tight race to the title. Agree? Disagree?

UP’s first practice will be held either October 12 or 13. There will be no “midnight madness” or outdoor game like at GU ...... it will be a simple practice of the fundamentals….and all practices are open to the public. I suppose we can speculate on the Pilots' chances before then, but I believe it's a "wait-and-see" season for the Pilots.

Yes, we will win more games than 2011-12!

Tim's departure will not really hurt us in the long run because it opened up a slot for Oskars (the "s" at the end of his name is silent); a young man who could end up starting before the end of his freshman season if he can distribute the AND score as well as we think he’s capable of doing.

GU, BYU, SMC, LMU.....after that, it's all guesswork.

USF with all its new players, including a potential all-WCC transfer from UCLA, is the wildcard. Some think they won't do well, but I wouldn't underestimate them. I believe SCU, the winner of zero WCC game last year, has the nucleus for a good year with the return of one suspended and one injured veteran. My question for both USF and SCU is their coaching. Walters can recruit, but he's such an ass; do his players enjoy playing for him (this is not the NBA, the kids are supposed to enjoy their college experience)? SCU’s Keating is a great guy, but can he coach….he hasn’t proven it! PU seems to be the consensus last place team entering the preseason, which is probably true on paper. USD; man, I just don't know. I think we all really like Coach Grier, but he's sure had some unusual problems in his short tenure. I think it’s anybody’s guess how they’ll do…I know they always give UP trouble.

As I said, UP is a "wait-and-see" team. Our big men are talented, and our wings and guards are hard workers and excellent teammates….but as a team, are we athletic or fast enough to compete for 4th or 5th place in the WCC?

Prediction: we will NOT have to participate in the Wednesday play-in game in Las Vegas in March.

Well after 96 views and just one comment, either DD has it right and we will have to wait and see or my choice of topic has very low expectations.
Pepperdine, USD, SCU, USF are all wild card teams. USD played strong towards the end of the year and have some key players coming back. SCU will return Foster and Traz and could surprise some people. USF is a huge unknown with the loss of six scholarship players but they, at least on paper, seem to have refilled nicely. Im just glad there are a host of games on ESPN channels as well as what should be a solid Comcast lineup.
One thing I can speculate on is that this season will be filled with exciting games.

I really don't yet know what to expect this year... we will have Barker back, but no Douglas. I think that by the end of last year, Carr was proving capable as PG (and was doing much better that Douglas).

I think the key issues will be PG and the bigs... if Carr, Reinfelds & Ahern can hold down the PG role, we will be well ahead of last year. If Barker & van der Mars progress as Sophomores, they should be a force in the paint. Cason needs to step up and perform... We will have some depth this year, thankfully.

I absolutely think we will win more games this year, due to both being better/progress and a slightly lighter OOC schedule. I am not ready to throw out a number of wins guess yet (I need to see some practice first)...

The WCC will be very tough again this year... and as stated above, after GU, SMC & BYU, it is a hard call. I agree in thinking that we skip the opening round at the WCC tournament... maybe even by a few seeds!

GO PILOTS!

oldtimer wrote:Well after 96 views and just one comment, either DD has it right and we will have to wait and see or my choice of topic has very low expectations.

Oh, it's a good topic, it's just too EARLY in the year for most of us to wrap our heads around it!

I think it's imperative we keep this thread going, but we're about six weeks from getting Rev'd up for the 2012-13 season.

Rev'd up? I see what you did there...

I really think our season is going to be very roller coaster esque... It all depends on development at nearly every position. The coaching staff and Nicholas are bout the only sure things on our roster right now....

I coud very easily see us placing where most "experts" prognosticate, but at the the same time based on glimpses (a la Bailey's improvement toward the end of the year, VDM starting strong, etc.), we could really surprise some people as well. I don't think we are going to necessarily contend for the WCC, but I think we have the potential to cause some of those upper tier squads some trouble...

I also do not know what to expect. Our players will hopefully be improved, but so may the rest of the league. Will we make up ground, keep even, or fall behind? Another question is, will the first change in our coaching staff have any impact?

I agree with the general consensus that there are a LOT of question marks.

Thinking about last season's performance, and how it compares with the '10-'11 campaign, I think only one returning player made a significant improvement over the previous season: Ryan Nicholas. Mitrovic was considerably worse than the year before. Douglas was worse. Waterford was injured. Riley was a wash. Thielke barely played. Barker was injured. Rodgers was a non-factor. Some of those guys had standout games, but in terms of the season as a whole, only Nicholas had a significantly better year in '11-'12 than he did in '10-'11. So, in short, we lost our best players to graduation, and the best returners, for the most part, were either no better or actually worse than they had been.

So, it seems that the chances of '12-'13 being better than '11-'12 hinge on the significant improvement of several returning players, rather than just one (as happened last year). I think there is a good chance of that happening, because more of our returners were forced into playing large roles last year, and therefore have a year of top-level Division I experience under their belts. Last year, we leaned heavily on several guys who hadn't played much in '10-'11, due to that year's large and impressive senior class.

I think the returners best situated to make big improvements over last year are Van der mars and Kevin Bailey. Even if that happens, I think at least one of these other returners will also really really have to step up in a consistent way in order for us to be taken seriously in the WCC: Riley, Cason, Rodgers, and Barker.

Yes, a couple of the freshmen might make big contributions. But if a few of the returners don't make big improvements, we will not be better as a team.