Wondering what everyone's thoughts are on the remaining season and projecting what this team can accomplish moving forward? I'm going with the assumption that Free is out for the remainder of the season, even though there have been rumblings that may not be the case.

I think the best way to project forward is to see what has occurred up until this point.

The Good:

- Unlike last year, no losses in buy games. X had a Quad 3 and Quad 4 loss last year by this time.
- There seems to be more talent on this team. Swain has shown flashes of progression X got hunter back. Dayvion, Conwell, Foster are all performing moderately well.
- They have been in every game that they lost. No absolute blowouts to UCONN, Marquette up to this point. A few bounces, a few calls here and there, and this team could be in a lot better position.

The Bad:

- Moral victories while nice, X hasn't gotten it done in Q1 games.
- Frontcourt obviously still an issue. Some of that is injuries, some of that is misses in the portal (Hugley)


Moving Forward:

- There is talent on this team. I don't think that can really be disputed. However, It's not distributed very well as there are still some glaring holes in the frontcourt, so an off shooting night is a recipe for a loss.

- The Big East is not as good top to bottom as it has been the last few years. UCONN and Marquette are still very very good, but not as good as they have been the last few years, and the middle, backend of this conference all have pretty major flaws.

So where does that leave X?

With the remaining schedule, there is a path forward to get 12 wins. I'm not predicting that, but the remaining schedule provides an opportunity to do that. Here is how I see it happening if they accomplish it:

Seton Hall W
@ Gtown W
St. Johns L
@ Depaul W
Villanova W
@ Marquette L
@ St. Johns L
UCONN L
@ Creighton L
Gtown W
@ Villanova W
@ Providence W
Depaul W
Butler W
@ Seton Hall W
Creighton W
@ Butler L
Providence W

Will this happen? It's improbable, but ya never know and that's why they play the games. The schedule gets a little easier the next few games, then there is a brutal four game stretch, and then it gets easier again at the end. I don't know for sure, but the schedule opportunity seems to be close to what it was last year. If they can survive the first half of conference play and not completely blow themselves out of it, then there is opportunity to do something in February to make this interesting.