2024-25 Preseason Prognostications

[Old Titan]

Bart Torvik already has a toe in the water for the coming season; he has ORU in a 4-way tie for 2nd place in the Summit League, and a .500 record overall (apparently based on the non-con schedule to date?)

Bart Torvik 2025 T-Rank Projections - Summit League

[TrueBlue82]

4 hours ago, Old Titan said:

Bart Torvik already has a toe in the water for the coming season; he has ORU in a 4-way tie for 2nd place in the Summit League, and a .500 record overall (apparently based on the non-con schedule to date?)

Bart Torvik 2025 T-Rank Projections - Summit League

Torvik also has Kareem Thompson averaging 14.8 ppg and 5.3 rpg for the 24-25 Golden Eagles.  That would be interesting...

[theeagleman5]

Maybe this is Bart Simpson???  TheEagleman has seen this road heavy OOC schedule and while I admire the effort it's gonna be a long tough fall with an inexperienced roster....but GO BLUE!! 

[Old Titan]

14 hours ago, TrueBlue82 said:

Torvik also has Kareem Thompson averaging 14.8 ppg and 5.3 rpg for the 24-25 Golden Eagles.  That would be interesting...

Which might explain why he shows ORU among the league leaders in Talent and Returning Minutes.

Any analytics geek who thinks they can predict right now how teams in the Summit League Division 1 basketball are going to fare this coming season might be equally served using a combination of tea leaves, a Quija board, and a Magic Eight Ball.

[ORUTerry]

Garbage in, garbage out 

[Keenan Henderson]

It is interesting that they have SDSU winning the conference again.  They lost all 5 starters and have 8 freshmen on their roster.  If Eric Henderson can pull that off then he may be the next John Wooden Jr. of coaching.  Anyone can beat anyone in the Summit League next year.  

[Dr. Cornelius]

SDSU does a great job of developing their recruits. I wouldn’t pick against them.

[Old Titan]

 

 

[Old Titan]

 

[Keenan Henderson]

Not too surprising that the Dakota schools are listed as 4 of the top 5 teams.   The league seems to usually go through them.  Mills had to figure how to beat the Dakota schools and so will Springmann, if ORU is to make a run this next year.  Eagles 3-7 versus Dakota teams last year.  I would take ORU as 4 in the Summit League and call it win for Coach in his 2nd season.

[Old Titan]

St. Thomas will finish in at LEAST the top three.

You heard it here first... 

[Dave Connor]

I agree. St. Thomas understands the importance of teamwork better than most Summit League Teams.

[Keenan Henderson]

KC gets no love, they bring back a 1st team all Summit League guy, Jamar Brown.  Plus other starters and are picked 8th?  They finished 2nd last year and play very tough defense as well as anyone in the Summit.  I still pick them to win the league next year.  

[Old Titan]

Mid-Major MADNESS picks; not to be confused with the Mid-Major CENTRAL picks posted previously.

(same kinda guys; different mom's basements )

 

[Keenan Henderson]

The Summit League should have a lot of parity this year: anyone can beat anyone.  Why?  Because every team is basically in the same boat: relying mostly on new faces (transfers, jucos, or freshmen) to have breakout seasons.  It comes down to which teams new guys will develop the fastest and whoever does that will be top 3 in the league.

ORU's best hope is that McBride has an all star year and the other players continue to improve as the season progresses.  It still feels like a rebuild after losing 3 of their top 4 players from a 12-19 season.

[Old Titan]

16 minutes ago, Keenan Henderson said:

The Summit League should have a lot of parity this year: anyone can beat anyone.  Why?  Because every team is basically in the same boat: relying mostly on new faces (transfers, jucos, or freshmen) to have breakout seasons.  It comes down to which teams new guys will develop the fastest and whoever does that will be top 3 in the league.

The question is this:  how much does good ol' coaching figure into this equation - more or less than in the pre-gypsy era?

Asking for a friend... 

[Keenan Henderson]

Yes it is true OT, good coaching will develop the new guys on each team.  So, which Coach can get the most of their new talent? Time will tell.

[theeagleman5]

Maybe some of you can relate but as TheEagleman gets older I tend to dwell on the past and the many wonderful memories I have from my days in Tulsa at ORU....I  was looking at the Men's Basketball results the other night from 1972-1976 the years I attended college at 7777 Lewis and we had an incredible record of 84-26 during those four seasons including 3 post season wins and an Elite 8 appearance....first two years were under Ken Trickey and the last two under Jerry Hale....I was surprised to read that Hale actually has the highest win percentage of any ORU Men's coach at 61-21 (.744) and for that he got pushed out after 3 seasons....I can imagine now that would get him a 10 year Multi Million $$$ contract.....how the landscape of college basketball has changed....back then we were a top 25 team for most of the early to mid 70s and truly expected to win every time we took the court....we played and beat schools like Wisconsin, Memphis St, USC, Houston, Louisville and Syracuse and were rarely embarrassed.....here we are 50 yrs later and we struggle to compete vs. SDSU, NDSU and UMKC, etc........we will probably be satisfied to win 14-15 games this season.....OR must be rolling over in his grave at such low expectations....our founder was always about being the best and doing everything it took to compete at the highest levels of NCAA Basketball and Baseball.....yeah we have seen some success over the past few years in both sports but those seasons were kind of a flash in the pan so to speak.....i know $$$ is an issue and college sports has changed a ton over the past few decades.....still TheEagleman can't help but ponder what could be and how it used to be......still expecting a MIRACLE which ORU truly was back in the 70s when we were just 3 wins from an NCAA Title in 1973-74 in our 3rd year of D-1 Basketball......i will probably have something about that put on my tombstone when I am gone from this world....and when i get to heaven I can chat for hours with Coach Trickey about what might have been...... oh well.......