Official Season Predictions

[slider]

Non-conf: 8-5
Conference (regular season): 10-8
Overall Record: 20-15
Season: Finish 4th in Pac-12 regular season. Win 2 games in Pac-12 tourney and make NCAAT as 7 seed. Exit in first round.

Most surprising player: Dustin Thomas. He scores ~9pts/game off the bench and starts half-way thru the conf schedule. Also Xavier Talton
Most Disappointing player: XJ
Bold prediction: We beat either Okie State or Kansas but lose to a no-name in non-conf. Dinwiddie has a good but not great season but still goes pro.

Other: The non-conference schedule leads to many questioning Boyle. XJ and Scott do not warrant NBA looks after this season

 

[Daaah]

I'm with slider except I think we finish 5th in the pac12 and come in the ncaaT as a 11 seed.

 

[SECOBuffsFan]

Non-Conference - 10-3
Conference - 13-5
Finish 3rd in Pac 12 and lose Conference Championship to Arizona
Enter NCAAT as a 6 seed and lose in the Sweet 16

 

[HawaiiBUFF]

Non-Conference Wins: @Baylor, UTM, WYO, JKST, ARST, UCSB, HARV, @CSU, ELON, OKST, UGA
Non-Conference Losses: KU, @AFA
Conference Wins: ORST, ORE, WSU, @WSU, UW, UCLA, USC, @USC, UA, ASU, @ASU, UTAH, @UTAH, @CAL
Conference Losses: @UW, @UCLA, @UA, @STAN

Non-Conference Record: 11-2 (Home 9-1 / Away 2-1)
Conference Record: 14-4 (Home 9-0 / Away 5-4)

Overall Regular Season Record: 25-6 (14-4)
Pac-12 Tourney: 2-1 (First week bye)

Overall Regular Season + Pac-12 Tourney Record: 27-7 (14-4)

Maybe it's a homer record, but I really believe that Tad is sand bagging the media/fans with all of his negative talk. He is trying to keep our team focused. Also we are only going to get better as the season goes on.

 

[Quattro]

[N] Baylor - W
[H] UT Martin - W
[H] Wyoming - W
[H] Jackson State - W
[H] Arkansas State - W
[H] UC Santa Barbara - W
[H] Harvard - W
[A] Air Force - W
[A] Colorado State - W
[H] Kansas - W
[H] Elon - W
[N] Oklahoma State - L
[H] Georgia - W
[H] Oregon State - W
[H] Oregon - W
[A] Washington State - W
[A] Washington - L
[H] UCLA - W
[H] USC - W
[A] Arizona - L
[A] Arizona State - W
[H] Utah - W
[H] Washington State - W
[H] Washington - W
[A] UCLA - L
[A] USC - W
[H] Arizona State - W
[H] Arziona - W
[A] Utah - W
[A] Stanford - W
[A] California - L

26-5 [14-4]

Best Newcomer: Dustin Thomas
Best Player: Spencer Dinwidde
Most Disappointing Player: Jaron Hopkins

I now wait for people to tell me these are too optimistic blah, blah, blah

#RollTad

 

[Medford M.]

20-15 would be absolutely terrible.

 

[tante]

Non-conf: 10-3
Conference (regular season): 12-6 3rd in PAC:12
Lose in conference championship game to Arizona
Overall Record: 24-10
Season: Finish 3th in Pac-12 regular season. Win 2 games in Pac-12 tourney and make NCAAT as 4 seed. Make Sweet 16, lose to 1 seed kentucky.


Best newcomer: Dustin Thomas
Best Player: Jam Scott
Most Disappointing player: Spencer
Bold prediction: We beat Baylor and Kansas, but lose to Oklahoma State, Harvard and Colorado State.

 

[Quattro]

20-15 would be absolutely terrible.

Yeah I can't really agree with anything he said other than Spencer will be gone after this year.

 

[slider]

Yeah I can't really agree with anything he said other than Spencer will be gone after this year.

We'll see.:smile2: I hope I'm wrong

 

[Quattro]

We'll see.:smile2: I hope I'm wrong

I would love to see your game-by-game breakdown, as well as your logic. There are some tough non-conference games no doubt. I think we beat Baylor because **** Bailor. But outside of Bailor, Harvard, KU, and OSU I don't see what's so difficult about our OOC schedule this year, 8 of the 13 games are at home where have had a .863 win% under Boyle and the only 'hostile' road environment will be CSU, and they won't be worth much this year. I can see us losing to both KU and OSU pretty easily but I think the great environment at The Keg feeds the players and we win a close game against KU. Nothing has pointed to neither XJ or Spencer not getting dramatically better (XJ from reports and Dinwiddie from the US team). 10-8 also wouldn't get us 4th place in the Pac 12 and anyway you slice it, 20-15 would be an awful year and would kill 2015 recruiting. For a team that is returning four starters and has upgraded the talent level in a big way, I don't understand the 20-15 prediction at all.

 

[BuffTE41]

In the OOC we'll go 2-2 against KU, Baylor, Harvard and Okie State.

22-8 Heading into the conference tournament as the third seed. The team gets hot and wins the conference tournament heading into the NCAAT at 25-8 as a 6 seed. Win three games in the tournament and go to the Elite-8 28-9 final record.

-Spencer Dinwiddie goes as a lottery pick to the NBA
-Dustin Thomas makes the all-freshman Pac-12 team

 

[Gary Indiana]

22-8 Heading into the conference tournament as the third seed.

If we go 22-8 I would think that we would probably be closer to a second seed in the Pac tourney, no? What school, besides 'Zona, do you see having a record better than 22-8?

 

[CVilleBuff]

Some of you are setting yourselves up for bitter disappointment IMO. Not the schedule for a ridiculously sexy record.

 

[wyobuff]

Non-conf: 11-2, With losses to ku/osu and csu/harvard
Conference 13-5; good for 4th
Bow out in semi finals
Overall Record: 25-7
Season: Finish 4th overall in conf regular season, lose in the pac 12 semis.

Best newcomer: Wes Gordon (though not "technically" a newcomer)
Best Player: XJ - This kid has too much swag to not be
Best off the bench: XT

Mayor to the NBA as pick #9-13, Jam & XJ stay for 1 more year.

Dancing as a 6 seed, lose in the round of 16.

For those of you talking about tad sandbagging, he does this every year.

 

[J.R. Ewing]

Non-conf: 9-4
Conference (regular season): 12-6
Overall Record: 22-11
Season: Finish 3rd in Pac-12 regular season. Disappointing exit in Pac-12 tourney and make NCAAT as 5 seed. Sweet 16 exit.

 

[slider]

Some of you are setting yourselves up for bitter disappointment IMO. Not the schedule for a ridiculously sexy record.

Prediction. Ready, set, go

 

[slider]

I would love to see your game-by-game breakdown, as well as your logic. There are some tough non-conference games no doubt. I think we beat Baylor because **** Bailor. But outside of Bailor, Harvard, KU, and OSU I don't see what's so difficult about our OOC schedule this year, 8 of the 13 games are at home where have had a .863 win% under Boyle and the only 'hostile' road environment will be CSU, and they won't be worth much this year. I can see us losing to both KU and OSU pretty easily but I think the great environment at The Keg feeds the players and we win a close game against KU. Nothing has pointed to neither XJ or Spencer not getting dramatically better (XJ from reports and Dinwiddie from the US team). 10-8 also wouldn't get us 4th place in the Pac 12 and anyway you slice it, 20-15 would be an awful year and would kill 2015 recruiting. For a team that is returning four starters and has upgraded the talent level in a big way, I don't understand the 20-15 prediction at all.

Non-conf losses: Baylor, Okie State, two out of Harvard, AF, CSU, and Kansas, one other shocker (5 Losses)
Conf-losses- 9 away games for 5-6 losses. Home losses to UCLA and possibly Arizona. Then drop at least one vs Wazzou, Oregon State, Utah (we always do) 8 Losses

My logic:
Road games are hard to win in cbb.
Boyle hasn't finished higher than 5th? regular season
Hard non-conf
Hard non-conf also means we are not "up" for an easier game and will drop a couple we shouldn't (we always do)

 

[Buffnik]

I hate to do predictions and I rarely participate.

But I'm going to stick my neck out because I truly believe that this year is going to be a revelation.

Non-Conference:

Of the 13 games, I just don't see the Buffs losing to anyone from among UTM, Jackson State, Arkansas State, UCSB, AFA, Elon or Georgia. Buffs outclass all of those teams too much. 7-0.

Then we've got a handful of games that are tough ones based on rivalry or opposing talent: Wyoming, @CSU, Harvard. I believe we're too tough at home to lose either of those 2 games and too much more talented than CSU this year to lay an egg in FoCo like we did in 2011. 3-0

Last, we've got our heavyweight fights. Neutrals against Baylor and Oklahoma State plus Kansas at home. Friday night is the swing game. Are the Buffs ready for a title bout on the first night? Is Baylor? No way I'm picking against the Buffs, though. 2-1.

So, I've got us going 12-1 against a very highly rated non-conference schedule. This leads us into Pac-12 play.

Pac-12 Games:

18 games with 9 home and 9 away. We get Oregon / Oregon State as "home only" and Cal / Stanford as "away only".

In our 3 years in the Pac-12, our home / road records have been as follows:

2011-12: 8-1 at home / 3-6 on road
2012-13: 6-3 at home / 4-5 on road

This is the year that the Buffs protect home court while also breaking through with a winning record on the road. 9-0 / 5-4 to go 14-4 in Pac-12 play, which will be good enough to win the regular season conference title.

Prediction: 26-5 heading into post-season play on our way to the first 30-win season in program history.

 

[HawaiiBUFF]

If we go 22-8 I would think that we would probably be closer to a second seed in the Pac tourney, no? What school, besides 'Zona, do you see having a record better than 22-8?

If we go 22-8 and we should be seriously worried what happened to our team for one game...we play 31 games this year...

 

[Shldr2Shldr]

I hate to do predictions and I rarely participate.

But I'm going to stick my neck out because I truly believe that this year is going to be a revelation.

Non-Conference:

Of the 13 games, I just don't see the Buffs losing to anyone from among UTM, Jackson State, Arkansas State, UCSB, AFA, Elon or Georgia. Buffs outclass all of those teams too much. 7-0.

Then we've got a handful of games that are tough ones based on rivalry or opposing talent: Wyoming, @CSU, Harvard. I believe we're too tough at home to lose either of those 2 games and too much more talented than CSU this year to lay an egg in FoCo like we did in 2011. 3-0

Last, we've got our heavyweight fights. Neutrals against Baylor and Oklahoma State plus Kansas at home. Friday night is the swing game. Are the Buffs ready for a title bout on the first night? Is Baylor? No way I'm picking against the Buffs, though. 2-1.

So, I've got us going 12-1 against a very highly rated non-conference schedule. This leads us into Pac-12 play.

Pac-12 Games:

18 games with 9 home and 9 away. We get Oregon / Oregon State as "home only" and Cal / Stanford as "away only".

In our 3 years in the Pac-12, our home / road records have been as follows:

2011-12: 8-1 at home / 3-6 on road
2012-13: 6-3 at home / 4-5 on road

This is the year that the Buffs protect home court while also breaking through with a winning record on the road. 9-0 / 5-4 to go 14-4 in Pac-12 play, which will be good enough to win the regular season conference title.

Prediction: 26-5 heading into post-season play on our way to the first 30-win season in program history.

I take it you are in the camp that believes Tad is sandbagging this week then.

 

[Buffnik]

I take it you are in the camp that believes Tad is sandbagging this week then.

Absolutely. He needed to make them play team defense and attack the glass. He's got a great offensive team and he's trying to get it to develop toughness and a defensive identity. In some ways it is similar to his first team that had so much offensive firepower but didn't fight every night, was inconsistent, and couldn't win on the road. He's been stressing out that this year's squad would have the same struggles as that team. But he's now in his 4th year in this system. Every player on the roster was recruited by Tad. We are not going to see the same problems. And I believe we are going to see defense and grit like last season (probably not to the level of 2011-12) along with an offense that's as good as 2010-11.

He was just trying to get the team's attention. He got it. Get your popcorn out.

 

[CVilleBuff]

Prediction. Ready, set, go

OOC: 10-3
Pac-12: 12-6

22-9. That's my optimistic prediction. More likely to be on the 20-21 side of that than 23-24 (regular season), IMO. I think the Pac-12 is going to be stronger than expected and catch people off-guard. It's the mid-tier of the Pac-12 that is going to prove better than many believe. Very few automatic road W's left in the Pac-12 and that makes gaudy conference records harder to obtain. Especially with a young team, I'm not convinced that our road troubles are going to be put behind us.

 

[wyobuff]

OOC: 10-3
Pac-12: 12-6

22-9. That's my optimistic prediction. More likely to be on the 20-21 side of that than 23-24 (regular season), IMO. I think the Pac-12 is going to be stronger than expected and catch people off-guard. It's the mid-tier of the Pac-12 that is going to prove better than many believe. Very few automatic road W's left in the Pac-12 and that makes gaudy conference records harder to obtain. Especially with a young team, I'm not convinced that our road troubles are going to be put behind us.

We even had trouble picking up those automatic road W's last year (utah)

 

[tante]

We even had trouble picking up those automatic road W's last year (utah)

I am naive but don't think that happens this year. We are deep for the first time ever.

 

[Quattro]

We even had trouble picking up those automatic road W's last year (utah)

We also have loads more talent than last year and an actual bench this year. Another big thing is there are some stats that say Ski should have a big rebound year. Now that's not to say we won't drop any road games we shouldn't, but we have more working in favor than last year.

 

[Darth Snow]

I hate to do predictions and I rarely participate.

But I'm going to stick my neck out because I truly believe that this year is going to be a revelation.

Non-Conference:

Of the 13 games, I just don't see the Buffs losing to anyone from among UTM, Jackson State, Arkansas State, UCSB, AFA, Elon or Georgia. Buffs outclass all of those teams too much. 7-0.

Then we've got a handful of games that are tough ones based on rivalry or opposing talent: Wyoming, @CSU, Harvard. I believe we're too tough at home to lose either of those 2 games and too much more talented than CSU this year to lay an egg in FoCo like we did in 2011. 3-0

Last, we've got our heavyweight fights. Neutrals against Baylor and Oklahoma State plus Kansas at home. Friday night is the swing game. Are the Buffs ready for a title bout on the first night? Is Baylor? No way I'm picking against the Buffs, though. 2-1.

So, I've got us going 12-1 against a very highly rated non-conference schedule. This leads us into Pac-12 play.

Pac-12 Games:

18 games with 9 home and 9 away. We get Oregon / Oregon State as "home only" and Cal / Stanford as "away only".

In our 3 years in the Pac-12, our home / road records have been as follows:

2011-12: 8-1 at home / 3-6 on road
2012-13: 6-3 at home / 4-5 on road

This is the year that the Buffs protect home court while also breaking through with a winning record on the road. 9-0 / 5-4 to go 14-4 in Pac-12 play, which will be good enough to win the regular season conference title.

Prediction: 26-5 heading into post-season play on our way to the first 30-win season in program history.

Nik... too much koolaid. Basically add a loss to every single segment you are talking about except road. 21 wins in reg season (I could see it being a lot worse with injuries)

we make a little noise in the P12 tourney, and hopefully win one in the madness. an uptick (barely) in performance on paper, but a gigantic uptick in actual performance from last year due to the SOS.

 

[CVilleBuff]

Depth is important given what we had last year, but I think people can overrate depth in basketball. Just my 2 cents

 

[Da Lama]

Regular Season: 22-9
Pac12 Tourney: 2-1
Enter NCAA Tourney @ 24-10, 7 Seed
1-1 in tourney
Final Record: 25-11


[N] Baylor - L​
[H] UT Martin - W
[H] Wyoming - W
[H] Jackson State - W
[H] Arkansas State - W
[H] UC Santa Barbara - W
[H] Harvard - W
[A] Air Force - W
[A] Colorado State - W
[H] Kansas - L
[H] Elon - W
[N] Oklahoma State - L
[H] Georgia - W
[H] Oregon State - W
[H] Oregon - W
[A] Washington State - W
[A] Washington - L
[H] UCLA - W
[H] USC - W
[A] Arizona - L
[A] Arizona State - L
[H] Utah - W
[H] Washington State - W
[H] Washington - W
[A] UCLA - L
[A] USC - W
[H] Arizona State - W
[H] Arziona - W
[A] Utah - W
[A] Stanford - L
[A] California - L

 

[Buffnik]

Depth is important given what we had last year, but I think people can overrate depth in basketball. Just my 2 cents

Sure. But it's the starting lineup that's the best it has been. Finally they have live bodies to practice against. If we end up 7-deep for the post-season, I won't worry about it. There are limits to how much a guy like Ski is going to improve his game if he's not practicing against a Pac-12 level athlete. A lot of times, I think that's what separates a program like Arizona where a talent like Chol was pretty much practice fodder last season.

 

[Quattro]

Non-conf losses: Baylor, Okie State, two out of Harvard, AF, CSU, and Kansas, one other shocker (5 Losses)
Conf-losses- 9 away games for 5-6 losses. Home losses to UCLA and possibly Arizona. Then drop at least one vs Wazzou, Oregon State, Utah (we always do) 8 Losses

My logic:
Road games are hard to win in cbb. [1]
Boyle hasn't finished higher than 5th? regular season [2]
Hard non-conf [3]
Hard non-conf also means we are not "up" for an easier game and will drop a couple we shouldn't (we always do) [3]

1. No argument here. If we had been more consistent last year we would have had a much better road record (ie. beating Stanford then laying a egg against Cal last year) and this year with a improved starting lineup and a much improved bench we will be a much more consistent team
2. True, but he's also never had this much talent across the board and he also has a bench to work with along with NBA players (potentially) in The Mayor, XJ, and Scott
3. Kansas, Baylor, Oklahoma State, and Harvard? Absolutely. The rest? Not seeing what is so difficult about it. Yes we go on the road to AF and CSU, but we out talent both of those teams by a lot and they both lost a lot of players who were big time contributors last year. Otherwise, the rest of our games are at home and I expect to win every game at home at this point. I'd also like to point out that Tad has a excellent netural court record
4. Based on Tad's comments recently I really doubt he's going to allow the team to get complacent for any game. Even if we do come out flat, which will happen, we have 9 legit options, odds are that one of them is going to get hot during the game

I still do not understand you logic though. Five OOC loses? Dude, I get that football has been down but you are being way, way over-negative on this team and are way underestimating the talent level of this team, especially the starting 5. People talk about how it may take time for us to get going full go, well then what the hell are they expecting from CSU and AF who lost a **** ton? Them to come out firing on all cylinders from the get-go? It's not a one-way street, people and the perpetual negativity from fans is really annoying, basketball isn't football. It hasn't been letting you down for the last 8 years, it's been out performing expectations since Tad stepped on campus.

Are people also forgetting we are being coached by the same man who took a CU team to the NCAA tournament after losing 75% of their scoring from the year before and beat UNLV and had it not been for a Canadian having the game of his life almost took down Bailor?