POLL: Which team will finish 8th this year?

[NJRedman]

I have Butler 8th. I think with the new coach they struggle this year when other teams have improved.

Not shocked people are picking SJU 8th, doesn't upset me or anything. Though if we do finish 6th or 5th I will point back to this and laugh. Personally best case scenario for u8s this year is 5th and NCAA birth with like a 9 or 10 seed. The floor for us outside of a complete and total melt down with Ponds and Lovetts knees exploding during the 3rd game of the season is 8th.

[Red Rooster]

Johnnie’s fans I don’t have you 8th but why is that so inconceivable to you? Rooster you admit that 7th is realistic. So is it such a stretch that others’ opinions are slightly worse than your own?

Reading is fundamental.

By the way, 7th would also be the floor, and not the ceiling (5th, likely being the ceiling).

Maybe I don't understand Queens, NY English. So when you say: "Is St. John's an 8th place team? That's possible, but still not likely, IMO. 5th-7th is their window." does that not mean that you consider that SJU might finish 7th (or even 8th, as "possbile" means well...possible)? If you actually don't think that 7th is a realistic possibility, then maybe you should have said "5th or 6th" IMO and left the whole 8th or 7th are possible out of it.

Why not just be more definitive and tell us what you would pick if a gun were to your head?

I'm not from Queens or even NY, but thanks for the assumption. Reading is still fundamental. But, whatever dude.

I'd say they'll finish anywhere between 5th-7th, based on what I know about most of the personnel. Once, the season starts, then I'll probably choose to be more definitive.

[Red Rooster]

I have Butler 8th. I think with the new coach they struggle this year when other teams have improved.

Not shocked people are picking SJU 8th, doesn't upset me or anything. Though if we do finish 6th or 5th I will point back to this and laugh. Personally best case scenario for u8s this year is 5th and NCAA birth with like a 9 or 10 seed. The floor for us outside of a complete and total melt down with Ponds and Lovetts knees exploding during the 3rd game of the season is 8th.

I'm not upset over a prediction, either. That'll be silly. I concur, as the best case scenario would be 5th, and the worst will be 8th (again, I don't believe that is likely to occur).

So, hence I've been going with 5th-7th.

[Irishdawg]

I have Butler 8th. I think with the new coach they struggle this year when other teams have improved.

Not shocked people are picking SJU 8th, doesn't upset me or anything. Though if we do finish 6th or 5th I will point back to this and laugh. Personally best case scenario for u8s this year is 5th and NCAA birth with like a 9 or 10 seed. The floor for us outside of a complete and total melt down with Ponds and Lovetts knees exploding during the 3rd game of the season is 8th.

I think the bigger issue for Butler is experience. We've got Martin and Baldwin, which is great, but then the question is where is the rest of the scoring going to come from given that they lost 4 guys who scored between 6.6 and 11.4 ppg? Even bigger, Butler's lost the two main offensive facilitators in Chrabascz and Lewis. Jorgensen is a pass-first point guard too, but their offense worked well last year because of the vision and ball movement those two provided. That, and of their 11 scholarship players, 4 have never played for Butler, and 7 are underclassmen. Last year's team only had 2 underclassmen who averaged more than 10 minutes per game.

[milksteak]

I have Butler 8th. I think with the new coach they struggle this year when other teams have improved.

Not shocked people are picking SJU 8th, doesn't upset me or anything. Though if we do finish 6th or 5th I will point back to this and laugh. Personally best case scenario for u8s this year is 5th and NCAA birth with like a 9 or 10 seed. The floor for us outside of a complete and total melt down with Ponds and Lovetts knees exploding during the 3rd game of the season is 8th.

Looking forward to your meltdowns in the next few months. As is tradition.

[milksteak]

I think the bigger issue for Butler is experience. We've got Martin and Baldwin, which is great, but then the question is where is the rest of the scoring going to come from given that they lost 4 guys who scored between 6.6 and 11.4 ppg? Even bigger, Butler's lost the two main offensive facilitators in Chrabascz and Lewis. Jorgensen is a pass-first point guard too, but their offense worked well last year because of the vision and ball movement those two provided. That, and of their 11 scholarship players, 4 have never played for Butler, and 7 are underclassmen. Last year's team only had 2 underclassmen who averaged more than 10 minutes per game.

Our offense will definitely suck at times, but this team will have a top-tier defense.

[MullinMayhem]

This year will be a reflection of the coaching not the players IMO. Lou Carnesecca always said "You want to win? Get good players". Well, we have good players. We have some of the best guards in the nation offensively and defense & rebounding were our major weaknesses. If Mullin and Co. are worth their weight in salt, they will get this team to the NIT as a bare minimum if not be on the bubble or make the tourney. Experience is not the issue, talent is not the issue, and our schedule isn't that hard OOC. The only game we will be significant underdogs will be against Duke and we always seem to play them tough at MSG. This team will succeed or fail due to coaching assuming injuries aren't a significant issue. I truly think that if we don't at least make the NIT, Mullin won't have the ability to make us relevant again and if we do, he has a real chance. This is the year player development is supposed to be apparent if there is solid coaching. Yakwe should make a big jump along with Owens, and we should see improvement defensively with LoVett and Ponds. Clark and Simon should be at worst solid contributors. Anything less is an indictment on the staff IMO. It may seem harsh, but you either have it or you don't...it doesn't take 10 years to find that out. We will find out this year if Mullin has it or not as a coach.

[pki1998]

This was the last easy vote for me until we get to Number One (Nova). I didn't vote for st. john's. i think they will surprise people this year. People might say I am crazy but i see them as a NCAA team this year. It wouldn't surprise me if they finished as high as 5th.

[NJRedman]

I have Butler 8th. I think with the new coach they struggle this year when other teams have improved.

Not shocked people are picking SJU 8th, doesn't upset me or anything. Though if we do finish 6th or 5th I will point back to this and laugh. Personally best case scenario for u8s this year is 5th and NCAA birth with like a 9 or 10 seed. The floor for us outside of a complete and total melt down with Ponds and Lovetts knees exploding during the 3rd game of the season is 8th.

Looking forward to your meltdowns in the next few months. As is tradition.

I don't melt down, you're think of Hooper/Mullin Mayhem. I'm the one telling him to quit complaining.

[MullinMayhem]

I have Butler 8th. I think with the new coach they struggle this year when other teams have improved.

Not shocked people are picking SJU 8th, doesn't upset me or anything. Though if we do finish 6th or 5th I will point back to this and laugh. Personally best case scenario for u8s this year is 5th and NCAA birth with like a 9 or 10 seed. The floor for us outside of a complete and total melt down with Ponds and Lovetts knees exploding during the 3rd game of the season is 8th.

Looking forward to your meltdowns in the next few months. As is tradition.

I don't melt down, you're think of Hooper/Mullin Mayhem. I'm the one telling him to quit complaining.

How dare SJ fans complain. It's not like we haven't won an NCAA tourney game in nearly 2 decad.....oh wait. In all seriousness though, I agree with the Xavier fan...it wouldn't shock me if we finished 5th. This is the best team we've had since Lavin in 2014 when we made the tourney IMO. That was a much better team defensively but also pretty bad offensively. We are now doing well offensively but struggle to defend. IMO it's easier to correct defense than scoring. With scoring you either do it or you don't...guys like Ponds and LoVett just know how to score. Defense is about assignments and footwork...that is easier to fix.