After I posted my predictions before you posted yours, it's funny that your recent predictions are almost the same as my predictions. You might as well stop too but since you are not stopping, why should I?
In today's portal & NIL world, would losing starters sting as much as it used to in the pre-portal & NIL world? Probably not.
Derrick White was nowhere to be found near the kind of awards that Elijah Malone has done especially the award that goes to the best D3, D2, and NAIA player in the WHOLE COUNTRY. That is not a dig at White by any means. I'm sure Malone was the D2 player of the year as well and in that case, he's definitely better than a good number of D1 players out there. You don't see a 6'10" 280 pound basketball player in Boulder very often and you would have better luck finding that big and tall hairy creature roaming out in the wild. Malone played in 139 games over four years with at least 116 starts.
Elijah Malone - Men's Basketball - Grace College Athletics
Elijah Malone (50) Center - CAREER 2023-24 SENIOR - Cemented his status as one of the best players in school history with a record-breaking campaign … was selected
gclancers.com
Andrej Jakimovski has played in 120 games at Washington State. And we have Trevor Baskin, the D2 guy from Colorado Mesa, who has appeared in 93 games. He's 6'9" too.
That's over 300 games played in and over 250 career starts between three players. Yes two of them will have to adjust to a higher classification but they garnered some postseason honors especially Malone being the top non-D1 player in the country. Those two know how to get the job done relative to their competition and with that experience, they can figure out how to get it done at the Big 12 level.
Yes losing five starters and a sixth man would be of serious concern and result in a worse record for sure but we got Tad Boyle and at least half of those positions have been filled with three players through the transfer portal with a lot of playing experience. And why should you doubt Tad Boyle who just sent three players to the NBA via the draft this week? Surely there are a few other current CU players who are ready to step up to the challenge.
Over at the Big 12 Preview football thread that I created, you just laughed at the suggestion of doing the same thing for basketball. Maybe you ought to stop right now and work on that Big 12 basketball thread and present the hard numbers that back your talk I have seen from you all offseason long.
And back to the season prediction, there are at least six Big 12 games CU should win at home and then you have one at OSU on the road. That's seven wins minimum. There are four other road games that are winnable but if the Buffs can take half of those, that's NINE WINS IN CONFERENCE PLAY for a 9-11 record. And if we pull off an upset against Kansas or someone like that, that's a .500 record in our first year of Big 12 play.
Again, you were the one who were talking all season about how bad this upcoming season was going to be and that was before the conference schedule was released then you came up with similar predictions that I posted. Now just wait for the rest of the schedule and also the full schedule to see how it flows.
’s!
