AZ at home. USC and UCLA on the road. The OR schools at home.
AZ is a good matchup for the Buffs. Small, which means we can play our best players most of the time. Harris-Tunks won't need to see too much floor time. AZ also plays their starters big minutes, which plays into our hands at home at altitude. They'll have to play their bench more than they like.
Roadtrip to SoCal. If there is a trip tailor-made for CU to break their road game schneid, this is it. USC is awful, and UCLA is worse than their rankings (KenPom) suggest. This trip is ripe for a sweep, but I'd feel better if we played UCLA on Thursday and USC on Saturday.
OR schools at home. We had no problem with the WA schools at home, I don't see why OR and OR St. should be any different. We are undefeated at home and I think we'll be 5-0 after tomorrow.
A 4-1 record through this stretch would have us at 16-7, 8-3 in the PAC 12, with Stanford and Cal coming at home. 5-0 damn near puts us in the dance.
Time for Tad to challenge the guys.
P.S. Where is the PAC 12 Championship this year?
Last edited by jcatcher; 01-20-2012 at 07:35 PM. Reason: sp.
It's only "make or break" depending on your goals.
I'm still in "12 down, 4 to go" mode for this season. My goal was a winning record and some sort of post-season with anything beyond that being gravy.
My stretch goal was "20 wins" because we haven't done that in back-to-back seasons before and it would make a statement.
I have trouble thinking beyond that. If we won the conference and/or got an NCAA bid, that achievement would be so far beyond what I'd hoped for that I "making or breaking" our chances of that isn't a part of my thought process. If we get to the last 2 weeks and have that on the table, I'll jump on that. Not before.
I think it's high time we changed our goals. Being crappy is not a goal. This goes for football and basketball. Especially this year, the PAC-12 is up for grabs. Let's try to get there. I have not watched as much CU ball as the rest of you as it's not available on TV out here, but I have seen some. We can beat any team in this conference and the goal should be to do just that.Originally Posted by Buffnik
I shared your expectations at the beginning of the season but things have changed. The PAC 12 is worse than I thought and this team is coming together faster than I expected. A .500 finish in the PAC 12 would be a disappointment at this point. Cal may win out, but a 2-3-4-5 finish in the regular season is there for the taking, and the schedule is favorable. Time for Tad to bump up the timetable for progress just a bit. With AZ and WA loading up on talent, it's only going to get harder in the years ahead. The iron is hot, strike with it.
I think you got that wrong. You strike the iron while it is hot, don't you?
Staples center in LA.
I like your optimism, but your outlook is best case scenario. My thoughts:
AZ tomorrow will be interesting, CU can beat athletic undisciplined teams (think UW), so I like CU's chances but they have to limit TO's and continue to get to the line.
USC should be a win but they did hang around with Oregon last night, UCLA has been playing a lot better and they are big, if they pound CU inside it could be troublesome.
The Oregon schools are a crap shoot, I think they are in the same caliber as CU. Every time that I think that the Oregon St players have given up on Robinson they win a game like last night.
I think that 3-2 is a good goal, that would be a success imo. I could also see CU going 1-4 beating only USC if things don't go well.
Using KenPom's win probabilities, CU has a 9.4% chance of going 4-1 and a 19.6% chance of going 3-2.
I tend to agree with the OP. It is time for us as a fanbase to change expectations for all athletics. (if we were looking for a new president at the university I would make sure they have the same goals in mind) The basketball team has an opportunity here to change the standard at CU. The students are flocking to this team, the fan support is growing at a fever pitch. The PAC is down this year but the power programs are reloading. A top 3 finish and a possible bubble team needs to be the goal for us. That only legitamizes what Tad is doing here. Its time that we expect to win every game at home. The buff fan nation as a whole is afraid to be dissapointed. We are all still reliving the hawk memories. Tad has us on an upward trajectory. We have a top 20 recruiting class coming in next season. If we make top 3 in the Pac during a rebuilding year, can you imagine what the buffs will do next year with this huge influx of talent we are about to receive? I am with the OP top 3 in the Pac-12 with a tournament birth is my goal. Anything less than that and I will be dissappointed, I will understand why it happened but dissappointed none the less.
we will go 2 and 3 over this stretch, which is about where we need to be to get to Nik's goal, which is a pretty positive one considering the youth, the lack of talent in our seniors (although Dufault has completely changed his game in the last 1.5 months, he's ballin), and our best recruit (Cain) washing out.
Any sort of post season that gets us credibility and extra practice time is just gravy. This year is a placeholder year, like it or not. Although, I have enjoyed it.
After the Arizona game tomorrow, 7 of our final 11 regular season games are on the road. While these road games are against mediocre - and atrocious - opponents, this team has yet to prove that it can do the job on the road. The SC game will be crucial to proving that we can take care of business against lesser competition on the road. If we fall at SC, then it'll likely be a bumpier ending to the season than we'd like.
I think we go 3-2 over the stretch you mention, btw. Anything less would be a disappointment.
Buncha negative nancys in this thread. Screw SC. Screw UA. Screw UCLA. Screw UO and OSU. We're going to kick all their asses. The toughest road games we will have all year were last weekend. We should have beaten Cal, and we just fell apart at Stanford. That's not gonna happen again. We own this conference.
The Hate is Strong with this one. He is not too young to begin the training.
5-0 and the hype meter explodes
Empersnow Palpatine?
Colorado football is not a matter of life and death; it's more important than that.
Once they make me a mod, maybe.
Is the game on Saturday on the tube? Last night's game wasn't even on front row sports. Basketball on the radio has got to be the worst.
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