[donkey687]

I absolutely love the enthusiasm and hope we see continued improvement but discussion of a NCAA or even NIT tourney berth seems absurd to me.

We play 18 games in a weak Pac 12. We have played 4 of our easiest games on our Pac12 schedule and two of our wins were somewhat improbable and a little lucky. We will be clear underdogs in 10 of our remaining 14 games (every game except at Cal, WSU, Oregon and OSU at home). If you look at current rpi, we have to play the top 7 Pac 12 teams on the road and the top 3 Pac 12 teams at home.  To go, 7-7 down the stretch would require us to play a lot better than we have played in our last 3 games.  We would probably need to go 11-3 to be a NCAA bubble team and 9-5 to be an NIT bubble team.  I don't see 9 wins on the schedule.  One thing that works against us is that of the 7 Pac12 teams that we play twice, 5 of them are the best five teams in the Pac12 (Arizona, ASU, UW, UCLA and USC).  Beating those teams twice seems unlikely.  I really hope I am wrong, but evidence to date suggests that I am not.  Finishing .500 or better in conference play should be a measure of success in my opinion if we can accomplish that after the poor non-conference results.

[donkey687]

I absolutely love the enthusiasm and hope we see continued improvement but discussion of a NCAA or even NIT tourney berth seems absurd to me.

We play 18 games in a weak Pac 12. We have played 4 of our easiest games on our Pac12 schedule and two of our wins were somewhat improbable and a little lucky. We will be clear underdogs in 10 of our remaining 14 games (every game except at Cal, WSU, Oregon and OSU at home). If you look at current rpi, we have to play the top 7 Pac 12 teams on the road and the top 3 Pac 12 teams at home.  To go, 7-7 down the stretch would require us to play a lot better than we have played in our last 3 games.  We would probably need to go 11-3 to be a NCAA bubble team and 9-5 to be an NIT bubble team.  I don't see 9 wins on the schedule.  One thing that works against us is that of the 7 Pac12 teams that we play twice, 5 of them are the best five teams in the Pac12 (Arizona, ASU, UW, UCLA and USC).  Beating those teams twice seems unlikely.  I really hope I am wrong, but evidence to date suggests that I am not.  Finishing .500 or better in conference play should be a measure of success in my opinion if we can accomplish that after the poor non-conference results.