Texas 11-0 Sam Houston St. 9-0 Houston 10-1 Texas A & M 9-1 Texas-Arlington 8-1 Stephen F. Austin 8-1 Baylor 7-1 The Lone Star State is off to great college basketball season; which team do you think is the most surprising? Has most upside? And which will go the furthest?
I went to Baylor. I'm shocked at how well they've done. Only loss was to Washington State...a very good team...and Baylor was winning most of that game.
Texas and Texas A&M probably have the most upside since they have the best talent. As a SHSU alum, I'm pretty excited to see them 9-0 so far, which includes a win over Texas Tech. They even got a top 25 vote each of the last 2 weeks. They have a chance to be 17-0 before going in to a stretch that includes SFA and UTA within 1 week. That should be fun. I'm glad to see UH finally have some success again, especially with Dion Dowell. It was best for him to make the move and is working out for both schools.
SHSU was tourney bound last year wasn't it? I think TAMU has the most upside because Sloan and Roland are new to controlling the game, Jordan is a freshman, and Carter is adjusting to a new role of being the man. Texas has an ugly bench and I have yet to see someone challenge Abrams. Either team could beat the other though.
SHSU lost to Lamar in the 1st round of the SLC tourney last season (damn you, weslinder!) I think A&M is getting better. They should be among the unbeatens if they could have held on at Arizona. I think UT's bench is better than it's given credit for. Hopefully, Gary Johnson will get cleared to play, making them even better. UCLA shut down Abrams and UT still won. Augustin and James are getting better by the game. It's funny to say, but they're actually better without Kevin Durant.
And if SHSU keeps it up, there is no way Coach Marlin stays. Frankly, I can't believe he's still there. They were crap before him and have averaged close to 20 wins per since he got there, including 1 tournament appearance.
Don't forget about UTEP! 5-2 with losses to only A&M (and we led the vast majority of that game) and a verytough UNLV team... Edit: And we should be 6-2 after we dismantle SELa tonight...
Not funny to say. Same reason why TJ Ford made them better than Durant did. Durant was an amazing individual player but didn't impact the game as much. Now we see the other guys that didn't get the ball last year can play too.
See, I disagree with that last statement. Or at least the wording of it. It's not that they're better without Durant, but that they're better despite losing Durant. That team was really young last year, and still is very young this year, so it is only natural that a team of underclassmen would show a lot of improvement from one year to the next - even if they lose a great player like Durant.
You're right. However, I think (and Rick Barnes has said) that they're a better team without KD. They aren't as reliant on any one player as they were with him. He made them better and the experience doesn't hurt. But they play better team offense and defense now. Could be because they're a year older. Could be because they aren't relying on Durant to do it all as he did last year. Either way, they're a fun team to watch and might only get better if/when they get Gary Johnson in the fold.
The bad thing is that despite having an outstanding Memphis team, possible top-25 Houston and UAB teams, and a couple more solid teams, C-USA will probably only have 2 bids (3 at most) because the rest of the conference is utter crap.
