Big 12 Preseason Poll

Max Power said:
In 2012-2013 pledger was better than buddy absolutely. Buddy got better from there. And what happens if Jamal develops like others not names buddy? So yes most are discrediting what Christian James meant to last years tea
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This. Senior Buddy was barely recognizable compared to his freshman year. Nobody in their right mind would have expected that kind of growth.
 
I think it's not at all unreasonable to expect Bieniemy to show significant improvement this season.
 
Max Power said:
In 2012-2013 pledger was better than buddy absolutely. Buddy got better from there. And what happens if Jamal develops like others not named buddy? So yes most are discrediting what Christian James meant to last years team
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I am the one who said JB was one of our three best and believe me, discrediting James was not even remotely on my mind. I can consider JB better than James without thinking James was a bad player. Having said that, I'd again ask you to go back and look at his game-by-game production last season and evaluate to what extent you think he was a key contributor for the final 20-25 games. He was a guy who didn't create shots for others or create a ton off the bounce. His value was tied primarily to his shooting, and he shot incredibly poorly for the vast majority of the season. IMHO, JB provided more overall value, even though James obviously scored more on much higher volume shooting.
 
Here’s my comments on a couple of topics in this thread.

First, James was one of our 2 best players on the team last year in my opinion. It’s not even close. The team depended on him to play well and be their leader. Looking at the stats, he was first in scoring and second in rebounding. Teams focused on stopping him because we didn’t have anyone else who was an offensive threat. He was a stud on the boards with that big body even though he was just 6’4”. Those are 2 of the more important stats.... if not the most. Jamal on the other hand played well for a freshman at the PG position, but he really wasn’t an offensive threat. I remember one big game where he was hot (Texas?), but not much else. He was first in 3 point percentage but almost didn’t have enough attempts to qualify.... Many of those he was wide open because teams tended to overplay James and Manek on the perimeter.

Now for the discussion on Texas being always ranked ahead of OU in the pre-season. You can knock Shaka as a coach but he’s a recruiting machine. He’s signed a bunch of top 100 kids (Miles Turner, Mo Bamba, etc.) whereas Trae is really the only top rated recruit that Lon and his staff have ever signed.... until this year (really only Harmon was highly ranked nationally). It’s Shaka’s recruiting that gets the voters excited.
 
I didn't feel CJ was top 3 on our team by season's end.
 
Eielson said:
I'd be pissed if we didn't finish higher than 8th. Lon would have no excuses.
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I don't know anything about all the new guys we got coming in. Really outside of Bienemy, Doolittle, and Manek we don't have a ton of experience. It is better than what we had coming back into last year though. I think this years Big 12 will also be similar to last year where the top 8 or so are going to be pretty good. I do expect the team to at least be good but it's hard to tell how good offensively you are with not a lot of shooters returning. We got the 2 forwards coming back and a decent point guard.
 
usedtobe1 said:
Here’s my comments on a couple of topics in this thread.

First, James was one of our 2 best players on the team last year in my opinion. It’s not even close. The team depended on him to play well and be their leader. Looking at the stats, he was first in scoring and second in rebounding. Teams focused on stopping him because we didn’t have anyone else who was an offensive threat. He was a stud on the boards with that big body even though he was just 6’4”. Those are 2 of the more important stats.... if not the most. Jamal on the other hand played well for a freshman at the PG position, but he really wasn’t an offensive threat. I remember one big game where he was hot (Texas?), but not much else. He was first in 3 point percentage but almost didn’t have enough attempts to qualify.... Many of those he was wide open because teams tended to overplay James and Manek on the perimeter.

Now for the discussion on Texas being always ranked ahead of OU in the pre-season. You can knock Shaka as a coach but he’s a recruiting machine. He’s signed a bunch of top 100 kids (Miles Turner, Mo Bamba, etc.) whereas Trae is really the only top rated recruit that Lon and his staff have ever signed.... until this year (really only Harmon was highly ranked nationally). It’s Shaka’s recruiting that gets the voters excited.
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Texas did finish higher than us in the Big 12 last year.
 
I'm not much for revision history. The SoonerStats website shows an "efficiency" rating broken out by the computation directly below. Based on this, there are two things you can debate: 1) which of these three players were the best on the 2019 team - James, Manek or Doolittle, and 2) who was the 4th best player on the team. Doolittle (efficiency 15), James (14) and Manek (13) were the only three players on the team with an Efficiency Rating higher than an 8.

Efficiency (EFF) = Points + Rebounds + Assists + Steals + Blocks - Missed FG - Missed FT - Turnovers
EFF/M = Efficiency / Minutes


I'll stick with my earlier post that it's understandable that many believe Bieniemy would be better than James THIS YEAR if James had another year of eligibility. Hopefully, we can all at least agree that would be a desirable outcome.
 
OU will miss CJ, but Reaves and Bienemy should be able to make up for his loss. And then you should obviously get a little more from Manek and Doolittle.

Sounds like an obvious statement, but to me, this team will be as good as Harmon's production. If he plays up to his potential, I think OU ends up 4/5 in the league and wins a game in the NCAA tourney.

Either way, I'm excited for the first game.
 
NickZepp said:
I don't know anything about all the new guys we got coming in. Really outside of Bienemy, Doolittle, and Manek we don't have a ton of experience. It is better than what we had coming back into last year though. I think this years Big 12 will also be similar to last year where the top 8 or so are going to be pretty good. I do expect the team to at least be good but it's hard to tell how good offensively you are with not a lot of shooters returning. We got the 2 forwards coming back and a decent point guard.
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Odd how many people ignore Reaves. Not only does he have a ton of experience (as much as Manek, more than JB), he is the best shooter the program has had since Buddy. Again, these are not based on things he did in high school or juco. He has proven it for two years in D-1 games. I haven't looked at every team's roster extremely closely, but off the top of my head, very few teams in the league will have four starters with that much experience. We didn't graduate any above average shooters off last year's team, and have a fantastic one coming in. But I do think it is fair to consider our overall perimeter shooting a question mark. I think they even mentioned that on the webcast of the scrimmage last week. Our athletic ability is probably ahead of our shooting at this point unless one or two of the newbies other than Reaves shoots it well.
 
Since I don't think this years team is an unstoppable machine, it is much like last year which is competition dependent. They could be no better and finish higher if the league is down or lower if it's up. With my own eyes, I believe them to have many more weapons and if there is not a hole at the 5 position this will be a much stronger team. If the league is similar to last season I predict 4th or higher.
 
KenPom beginning of the season rankings

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Darwin said:
Since I don't think this years team is an unstoppable machine, it is much like last year which is competition dependent. They could be no better and finish higher if the league is down or lower if it's up. With my own eyes, I believe them to have many more weapons and if there is not a hole at the 5 position this will be a much stronger team. If the league is similar to last season I predict 4th or higher.
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I agree with all of this, except I think it will be between 4th and 6th. I’m not ready to believe a team with so many new faces will finish higher than 4th.
 
ByronHoustonsSweatyPalms said:
Lunardi’s early bracketology doesn’t have OU or OSU making the tourney


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Lunardi isn't doing anything proprietary or innovative with brackets. It's just a stupid list based on his opinion until you can start calculating "quadrant" wins and the stuff that actually determines selection. Kenpom is at least a data-driven system.
 
sperry said:
Lunardi isn't doing anything proprietary or innovative with brackets. It's just a stupid list based on his opinion until you can start calculating "quadrant" wins and the stuff that actually determines selection. Kenpom is at least a data-driven system.
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This time of year both are crap shoots


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