2023-2024 MBB computer projections thread

[MJ271]

This is the best lineup as of today and should be getting the majority of minutes in January. As you said though it is a long season injuries happen, specific matchups, and/or there may come a time where TJ decides a role shake up may be needed and the top 8 will change. I fully expect we see Biliew and Watson keep working in practice and get on the the floor in meaningful minutes in Feb/March to help this year's team.

Over the past couple of years, TJ has also shown a tendency to evolve the lineup quite a bit as the season has worn on.

Last season Watson played fewer than 10 minutes in each of the "big" P6 non-conference games, played 4 minutes against Western Michigan, then 7 and 3 against Baylor and OU to start conference play. Then he had 7 straight games playing at least 10 minutes, then 5 straight playing fewer than 10 minutes (plus a few additional DNPs), and finally 4 straight to end the season where he played more than 10 minutes. Some of that variation was due to injuries, but some was also due to simply identifying different combinations of players that were working over the course of the year.

Even though there's a pretty clear top 8 right now (assuming a healthy Ward), I do think that Otz and company change things up enough that both Watson and Biliew will get meaningful, important minutes at some point during Big 12 play.

 

[Cyclonepride]

Woof, this thread.

So let me see if I understand things correctly:

Last year we sucked because we didn't know if we could score 50 points in a game.

This year we suck because we are beating people by 50 pts a game.

amiright?

You forgot that we're only beating people by 50 because we don't empty the bench

 

[VeloClone]

Woof, this thread.

So let me see if I understand things correctly:

Last year we sucked because we didn't know if we could score 50 points in a game.

This year we suck because we are beating people by 50 pts a game.

amiright?

I guess I don't see anyone saying we suck, only that we really don't know what we have because we have been beaten by the few teams that are NET Q2A and above we have played and have only beaten scrub teams like PVA&M, FLA&M, Grambling, Iowa, Green Bay, and DePaul.

 

[inCyteful]

I guess I don't see anyone saying we suck, only that we really don't know what we have because we have been beaten by the few teams that are NET Q2A and above we have played and have only beaten scrub teams like PVA&M, FLA&M, Grambling, Iowa, Green Bay, and DePaul.

Well yes, I was using a little hyperbole.

They point I hoped to make was that if our biggest problem is not getting a couple of players 3-5 minutes more per game, I think we are going to be ok.

 

[LLCoolCY]

Over the past couple of years, TJ has also shown a tendency to evolve the lineup quite a bit as the season has worn on.

Last season Watson played fewer than 10 minutes in each of the "big" P6 non-conference games, played 4 minutes against Western Michigan, then 7 and 3 against Baylor and OU to start conference play. Then he had 7 straight games playing at least 10 minutes, then 5 straight playing fewer than 10 minutes (plus a few additional DNPs), and finally 4 straight to end the season where he played more than 10 minutes. Some of that variation was due to injuries, but some was also due to simply identifying different combinations of players that were working over the course of the year.

Even though there's a pretty clear top 8 right now (assuming a healthy Ward), I do think that Otz and company change things up enough that both Watson and Biliew will get meaningful, important minutes at some point during Big 12 play.

I'll just add that Ward was a DNP for most of the year to the point many speculated he would be transferring out until the final 5-6 games. During the late run he game he got the staffs trust, stayed, and presumably has a starting role waiting for him once he gets healthy.
It's not a given that Watson and Biliew will get a major role since this is a different and deeper team but very possible considering their talent. Just want to caution people that a rotation on Jan 1st can be very different by March 1st.

 

[bosco]

January is a gauntlet, though...

at Oklahoma
v. Houston
v. Oklahoma State
at BYU
at TCU
v. Kansas State
v. Kansas

Going 4-3 against that would be awesome.

I think 3-4 would be a "par."

Anything under that is a bit disappointing to concerning.

Anything more would be wow.

In the par scenario to get 3 wins I suspect 1 of those wins will have to be an "upset".

I assume wins vs OSU and KSU. The other 5 we will be underdogs. I'm not opposed to your scenario but looking at where will the wins come from even your par scenario with a modest number of wins puts in perspective how daunting this league is.

 

[Gunnerclone]

This happens every year.

Every offseason we talk ourselves into being 10+ deep.

Then reality hits.

Guys get hurt. Guys don't turn out to be as good as we hoped or don't live up to the practice hype. A guy decides he wants to redshirt to develop or save a year of eligibility for later.

The college basketball season is short compared to the NBA, and single elimination in the postseason puts a premium on each and every possession relative to seven-game series. TJ is going to have his best men out there. Fatigue isn't as much of an issue as we might think it is... these guys are 18-25 and in the best shape of their lives. They play two games per week for no more than 40 minutes, and that 40 minutes features no less than eight timeouts for the media plus what the teams call with a 20-minute halftime.

Plenty of breaks in there for a guy in appropriate shape to go hard for 80 minutes per week.

I think we're trending towards playing eight in the Big 12 when things really matter...

Lipsey
Gilbert
Momcilovic
King
Ward
---
J-Pav
Jiggy Curt
Big Rob

...and that's it. And that's fine and that's great!

8 is the magic number imo.

 

[MJ271]

I'll just add that Ward was a DNP for most of the year to the point many speculated he would be transferring out until the final 5-6 games. During the late run he game he got the staffs trust, stayed, and presumably has a starting role waiting for him once he gets healthy.
It's not a given that Watson and Biliew will get a major role since this is a different and deeper team but very possible considering their talent. Just want to caution people that a rotation on Jan 1st can be very different by March 1st.

Yeah, I was going to mention him, too, but then I was trying to how much injuries contributed to that (I think they did some, but it wasn't the only reason for his disappearance). I'll even add in, too, that a lot of Ward's non-conference minutes came at the 4 last season. That seems weird with how the season shaped up, but it definitely goes to show how a team can dramatically change over the course of the season, and even over a month or two.

 

[bosco]

It is but the second half does let off some.

Here it is based on Torvik win expectation by game for Iowa State...

View attachment 120966

You can see there is an upward trend in the moving average of win expectation over time.

Those last five in particular are a great chance to make a hard charge to finish strong.

Going to be a tricky coaching task for TJ and the staff to keep the team together early. They could easily start 1-4 in the Big 12 and still be one of the better teams in the conference this year.

I find that Torvik has us favored vs KU interesting. If you look at the Houston game and the KU game the difference between the % is very large compared to the difference between those 2 team ratings.

They must have a metric that takes into account the burning white hate for KU.

 

[CyPunch]

Yeah they have played bad in some of their cake walk games. I think part of that from what I have seen when watching them is their starters have all been playing huge minutes and against the lesser teams they have kind of sleepwalked through a lot of the game.

Watching "them"

 

[CyPunch]

Kansas did not play well in that game at all

If people are upset about Tamin playing 30 minutes instead of 25 in buy games, I can only imagine the meltdown if we are in a 1 point battle with Eastern Illinois with 5 minutes to play like KU was.

 

[NENick]

I find that Torvik has us favored vs KU interesting. If you look at the Houston game and the KU game the difference between the % is very large compared to the difference between those 2 team ratings.

I posted a while back that 6-1 is possible. Optimistic? Absolutely!
Overly optimistic? Maybe.
I honestly believe at least one of these 2 will be a Cyclone victory.

 

[t-noah]

Meh Tj will have the boys ready. I got tired of reading post after post of "I'm so scared of Iowa, they are so good, Fran is a great coach"
Ok so I'm exaggerating a little but there are plenty of posts headed that way.

Not scared of Iowa at all...just disappointed at how ISU freaking underperforms for this game (football included)

Iowa who?

 

[t-noah]

With a couple of exceptions, "Front-9" of ISU schedule could be a mine field, if NET numbers stay close to the current level … That’s good news for Quad opportunities, but might not look pretty in W-L column.

(NET as of 12/7)
(16) at Oklahoma
(2) Houston
(164) Oklahoma State
(1) at BYU
(44) at TCU
(96) Kansas State
(15) Kansas
(6) at Baylor
(63) at Texas

I think if you can come through that at anything 4-5 or better, you should be really excited about the potential.

Tough schedule. I wonder what the '99-00 team thought of their schedule?

Don't get me wrong, we aren't that team. I don't think. It would be nice to see us play well against some good competition after the Florida Tourney.

 

[cydnote]

Who had it on their bingo card that the top 3 Big Twelve teams repping the NET would be two newcomers and us at this point on the schedule?
Also, can we preserve our #5 rating without pitching a shutout tonight?

 

[Sigmapolis]

Not a great night for the Big 12 last night. But we're up to #5 without preseason bias!

 

[NoCreativity]

Anyone know why the Big 12 is starting so late this year? We usually have games on the 31st or 1st and the Oklahoma game isn't until January 6th.

We have no meaningful games for month, then we need to cram 18 games against the toughest competition in the country into 60 days.

 

[Cyclonepride]

Anyone know why the Big 12 is starting so late this year? We usually have games on the 31st or 1st and the Oklahoma game isn't until January 6th.

We have no meaningful games for month, then we need to cram 18 games against the toughest competition in the country into 60 days.

Good question. I thought maybe we were an outlier, but apparently not.

 

[Clone95]

Anyone know why the Big 12 is starting so late this year? We usually have games on the 31st or 1st and the Oklahoma game isn't until January 6th.

We have no meaningful games for month, then we need to cram 18 games against the toughest competition in the country into 60 days.

We don't have the Big 12/SEC challenge game in January, so everyone has one more non-con before conference season, this year. Not that we couldn't have fit it in with the old schedule, but that could be the reason.

Selfishly, I like that we only have one week between Jan 1 and March that doesn't have 2 ISU games, but having 2 would probably be appreciated by the coaches.

 

[NoCreativity]

We don't have the Big 12/SEC challenge game in January, so everyone has one more non-con before conference season, this year. Not that we couldn't have fit it in with the old schedule, but that could be the reason.

Selfishly, I like that we only have one week between Jan 1 and March that doesn't have 2 ISU games, but having 2 would probably be appreciated by the coaches.

I forgot about the SEC challenge games, that could be the main reason. It's just brutal sitting around here with no meaningful basketball.

The Iowa game seems like ages ago already and we are still 16 days away from Oklahoma.