Pre-Season Top 10?

[BBC 08]

SI thinks so: link (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/tracy_schultz/04/10/power.rankings/index.html).

[XU-PA]

Nice!
Looking forward the K-Mac's schedule, hopefully some pre-season challenges the help get the team going in the polls early.

On the same lines, any thought that the lack of week to week competition in the A-10 might be a factor in the Muskies late season flop over the past few years? Being that there are only 2 or 3 teams yearly in the A-10 that are tourney worthy, is that a factor? Coach did a superb job scheduling a tough pre season, but has no control over the conference. I think that lulls a team into a sense of inflated self worth if you can blitz through your second half schedule. Just a thought, no solution.

[cinskyline]

Here's what I think:

It's not hard to see where the problem on this team is.

The team as a whole shot 42% this past season. If you take away Ta'Shia's 61% shooting, the rest of the team shot 38%. That's not going to get it done against the better teams that X plays -- unless you play a team that's equally inept on offense (like Mississippi St and LSU this past year). You simply cannot play enough defense to make up for that kind of poor overall shooting that X has on it's team.

In fact, of the players who played significant time this past year, only Ta'Shia and April shot over 40% and everyone else was in the 30's.

Bad shooting teams have become a pattern under McGuff. He needs to change his philosophy of focusing on defense and start fixing the offense. He needs to start recruiting shooters instead of just athletes.

I really don't think the A-10 has anything to do with the meltdown. The offense was alarmingly bad (even against mediocre teams) at times this year, but everyone seemed to look the other way because they were winning.

[kellernr]

Amber Harris will be back too. It will be nice to see both Xavier teams in the top 25 again next season