Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
39-1. As long as we win the last game in April, I’m good! LGD GTHc 9F!
Ozzie, your paradigm of optimism!
Go To Hell carolina, Go To Hell!
9F 9F 9F
https://ecogreen.greentechaffiliate.com
RPI Forecast, which uses Sagarin, has us favored in every game but @UNC. He only picks us to tie for first with UVA and UNC at 13-5.
Pomeroy has the same favorite analysis, but I can't give you predicted standings.
I'm not changing my prediction much from Friday. Miami has the easiest schedule followed by Duke, the difference ultimately being the location of the Duke-Miami game.
@Miami and @VT are the games I fear the most on the schedule.
Miami 15-3 (@FSU, @VT, @ND, @UNC are the challenges).
Duke 15-3 (@BC, @Miami, @VT).
UVA 13-5
TBD for the last double bye
UNC 10-8 (@Duke, @UVA, @ND, @FSU, @VT, @Syracuse, @Louisville. Duke, ND, and Miami are more than able to win @UNC).
We will certainly lose 1 game. After that- it is just a guess.
I will go with 16/2, which was my prediction before the BC fiasco. The defense will improve with the team getting practice time to build on the intricacies of M2M — switching, hedging and icing. They also better recapture that trapping zone they employed against MSU. Passive zones are not very effective.
I love their offensive potential against anyone. As the season goes by I expect these freshmen plus Grayson to develop into an outstanding team. (They’ve been pretty good so far. Even being ranked#4 is not too shabby.). I don’t expect any home losses. The home crowd won’t let Grayson go 1 for 9 and those great Duke runs will lead to many blowouts. I also think we won’t get so many questionable calls down the stretch of a close game. Last, I like our favorable schedule.
T-Rank (Bart Torvik's site, which is like Kenpom), has UNC favored in all but 4 ACC games, but some are just by .1 point, like FSU game (same as with their OOC Tennessee; since that's a Barnes team, who is Roy kryptonite second only to K I expect an L). But T-Rank still has UNC going 12-6 in ACC. It's just a short ride from there to 10-8. They'll get a lot of folks best shot (if not reserved for Duke) as defending champs and for, uh, other reasons. The schedule goddess who has smiled last couple of years has changed things up.
15-3, but as long as we are 2-0, or 3-0 (again) vs. the CHeaters and we get a good NCAA path, I don't really care.
I chose 13-5, but we could easily range anywhere from 11-7 to 15-3, in my opinion. A lot depends on how they gel, how they deal with losses and adversity, and the absence of injuries.
"We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world." --M. Proust
If it makes you feel any better, this is not a thing unique to Duke or Duke fans. In fact, this board is probably OVERALL less reactionary than most that I visit.
ex. We beat Davidson by 20 and after the game, there was a full blown meltdown because.... and I'm 100% serious here.... the BROTHER of one of our freshmen posted on facebook that "it's time for my bro to COME HOME". People took it as a sign that said player is considering a transfer. Actually took it as closer to a certainty that said player is about to transfer. Complete meltdown, and on a nice we had a really nice win. Makes me SMDH.
Thanks for pulling this back to the top. We all got the BC loss wrong but the others were close. So since most of us thought Duke would have 4 to 5 losses why do we all go crazy when they lose.
Allow me a slightly different take. Going onto this forum last night and seeing the venting really helped me not feel the need to vent verbally. I never fired a single F bomb at the TV, which normally I would have done about 20 times in a half like the first half. I made a few posts, relatively gentle, but seeing the others venting was cathartic for me.
Everyone is different...I would bet that those posters who made the most negative comments just needed to blow off steam for a few seconds...some people are wired that way...one or two seconds of anger then boom, gone. That's how I am to a degree. I think some others are too.