Weird because I could have sworn he said potentially great, not already great or have been great.

Great is maybe unlikely but look at where we were three weeks ago to where we are now and it's pretty obvious watching us there's still a lot more in there.

This is why it was so important not to bury ourselves in non-conference like some of Buzz's teams did. We're already in good shape but if we can beat SMU we'll be in GREAT shape.

Method Man said:

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Ball Fan said:

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It was reported earlier in Summer that Clemence will have a year of eligibility after this season.

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Hopefully, after a year in the system, he will start making layups.

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Hey man, let's keep our expectations low.

The Marksman said:

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Our best basketball is still ahead of us

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I mean it better be or we're in big trouble.

It's encouraging to have boatraced FSU on a neutral ish court that should have favored the Noles and to have beaten Pitt at their place right after they buzzer beat tOSU.

That said, FSU is hot garbage and Pitt appears to be an NIT-at-best team at this point. They are our signature win to date, and rank 98th in Torvik today.

Now that our roster is finally healthy and Bucky has one of his zone defenses installed, we are way better than we were.

It remains to be seen how we will stack up against the better teams on our schedule, and whether we can get an NCAAT bid.

Big opportunity vs SMU in Arlington this weekend. They are on par with Okie Lite. This should really show us how much we've improved.

Potentially great to me means potentially a sweet 16 team. I just don't see that potential with this team. If we beat SMU nonconference will be okay. If we lose to SMU we will have 0 nonconference quad 1 or 2 wins that is not good shape in nonconference. That would likely take a well over .500 conference record to squeak in to the big dance.

If we lose this game we don't have to be "well over .500." If we are just one game over .500 I think you're in the field and it's not even close. (with the standard disclaimer that how you lose games matters, we can't lose to every good team by 50 points.)

I agree that "great" is probably a long shot, but I was pointing out that he didn't say we were already there or anything so basing it on games we've already played, especially games without Mgbako doesn't necessarily mean anything for our potential.

I don't think we're very likely to be a great team because to me a great team is one that can play almost any kind of basketball at a high level and I think there's certain types of teams that we're just not going to be able to handle. We're also EXTREMELY three-point dependent and I don't see that changing much no matter how much we keep improving unless Mgbako has some kind of inside game we haven't seen at all yet.

If Bucky makes NCAAT bid in Year 1, would it be the most impressive Year 1 of any Aggie hoops coach to date, given he got hired late and had exactly 1 player on the roster to start with? Still not expecting him to quite pull that off but to have scratched together a roster and staff like he did to make this even a conversation topic is pretty cool.

Who is the Chris Walker equivalent playing starter level minutes this year?

Yeah.

Bucky is the first hire we've had in the portal era. I'm not a fan of what the portal has turned into in college athletics, but rebuilding can be done overnight now

Kinda unfair to compare now to prior coaches because outside of freshman they had to work with what they were left

Beat SMU and go 10-8 in conference play and we should be in but I still think that's a pretty tall order . I'd call it possible but not probable. Would love to eat those words in about 8 weeks and be able to say I was too pessimistic .

halfastros81 said:

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Beat SMU and go 10-8 in conference play and we should be in but I still think that's a pretty tall order . I'd call it possible but not probable. Would love to eat those words in about 8 weeks and be able to say I was too pessimistic .

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Tall order?

If we do that, it would be beyond probable that we make the tournament. At 21-10 and 10-8 in conference I say we'd be comfortably in. Probably as a 7-9 seed.

Think he means going 10-8 is a tall order.

Good news is the SEC doesn't look great this year. Certainly doesn't seem as deep but that's also going to impact the net and what we need to achieve to get in.

I don't know about this team being "potentially great" but I don't know how you look at this team and NOT be extremely pleased. So far they are better than I expected and it's clear Bucky can coach.

Going into the season I thought, best case, it would be one where the first third would be the "proof of concept" (as someone put it the other day), the middle third being where we become more consistent - learning to take better shots, stopping opponent's runs before things got out of hand, etc. - and the final third of the season making a push to be on the bubble.

Again, that was my best case scenario, and I think we are on that pace so far and perhaps a little bit ahead. Last game we saw them put a stop to Pitt's runs, as opposed to against UCF where we just let them run and run until they pulled ahead and won going away.

bobinator said:

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Think he means going 10-8 is a tall order.

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Wow I totally misread that.

It's honestly such a breath of fresh air compared to Buzz. Make free throws and 3s. Given Bucky put together this roster after almost all the top players committed before he signed, it's impressive. That's what I keep reminding myself. I think if Bucky even got in a month earlier, the roster would have looked fairly different. Maybe

Yes, going 10-8 in conference is the tall order and if we can do that + beat SMU that would get us a tourney bid imo.

Yeah it wouldn't even be close.

Re our press- i dont think the expectation or measuring stick is how effective it is at turning them over, or even if we give up a few easy baskets ( which should be expected)..

What we are doing is getting teams out of their comfort zone, limiting the time they have to run their O, and hurrying them up.

We're plsying a style we play ALL THE TIME, but they play RARELY. And if we're in better shape, advantage A&M in the end game.