2020-2021 GT Hoops Schedule

CuseJacket

Administrator
Staff member
Messages
18,961
1605019863731.png

 

Fatmike91

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,264
Location
SW Florida
I am having a hard time determining the level of difficulty of our ACC schedule vs. the rest of the league. Although I think this is among the harder league schedules because we get home/away with both Virginia and Duke.

I'm ready for basketball.

/
 

CuseJacket

Administrator
Staff member
Messages
18,961
I am having a hard time determining the level of difficulty of our ACC schedule vs. the rest of the league. Although I think this is among the harder league schedules because we get home/away with both Virginia and Duke.

I'm ready for basketball.

/
Here's the AP Top 25 released yesterday: https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/rankings
#4 - Virginia
#9 - Duke
#16 - North Carolina
#21 - Florida State
#31 - Louisville

So basically we got home-and-homes with 3 of the 4 in the top 25. I'm guessing that's near the hardest in the league. As one comparison, Syracuse has Virginia, Duke and Florida State once, with home-and-homes against North Carolina and Louisville.

Obviously there's a little bit of wait and see. Too soon to know who'll rise and fall. In the end, I'm happy with getting a harder schedule. Come tournament selection time, every team on the bubble (if that's where we end up, hopefully we're more solid) has proven they can lose to anyone. The decision generally comes down to proving who you can beat. More top teams on the schedule = more chances to prove we're capable of making a run in the tourney and therefore getting selected.
 

lv20gt

Helluva Engineer
Messages
5,564
I am having a hard time determining the level of difficulty of our ACC schedule vs. the rest of the league. Although I think this is among the harder league schedules because we get home/away with both Virginia and Duke.

I'm ready for basketball.

/

It's pretty rough with FSU x 2, Duke x 2 and UVA x2. Going 2-4 or 3-3 over those 6 games would do a lot for us come tourney time.
 

YlJacket

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,197
The upside is the schedule definitely has a high strength of schedule component. Will have chances to make a splash but less room to muck up against the lower tier.
 

CuseJacket

Administrator
Staff member
Messages
18,961
Also, this is as good of a year as any to get top teams on the road, assuming attendance is restricted. Cameron Indoor and John Paul Jones will look and feel a lot different with fewer students and fewer fans.

Conversely it sucks that we won't have a home crowd against those same squads, but it'll still most likely be a quadrant 1 win should we beat Duke or UVA (possibly Florida State) at home.
 

CuseJacket

Administrator
Staff member
Messages
18,961
We absolutely could go 15-15 this year. Or something like that. I just don’t see how that’s what someone would predict given how much of our roster is back and how we played when they were together last year. If you go 10-3 in the preseason losing to most of the really good teams and 11-9 in the ACC, again losing to the really good teams, that’s 21-12 and 14 times out of 15 gets you into the NCAAT given that strength of schedule. And that type of result would really be (IMHO) zero improvement from last year...it would just mean we were healthy and had all our players this year.

I’d really love to see us hit 12-8+ this year. As long as you win all your games against the bottom half of the league it doesn’t take much more to get there, and I feel like we have the personnel to do that.
Responding to your post here so as to not keep bumping the Coleman thread.

12-8 would exceed my expectations based on last year's performance and the newly released ACC schedule (see above). If we do that with at least 2 or 3 marquee wins, we're going to the tourney no doubt.

I just didn't see us playing materially different than a bubble team in our final stretch last year. So I need to see us perform better than that in action, consistently, before assuming that this year translates to something more.

Again, cautiously optimistic.
 

orientalnc

Helluva Engineer
Retired Staff
Messages
9,439
Location
Oriental, NC
We play in NC three times and I don't think there will be fans at those games unless we see marked improvement in our case numbers. The flip side is that we may not have fans at McCamish either.

I agree that two wins in the six games versus those three will be a good outcome.
 

Jacketman

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
232
Georgia State will be a tough game out of the gate, they've been a strong program for almost 10 years now. Last year was a "down year" for them and they still won 20 games. I know it was an exhibition, but the Panthers did beat the Jackets in McCamish Pavilion in the 2017-18 season.
 

RamblinRed

Helluva Engineer
Featured Member
Messages
5,735
Couple of quick notes. There are 4 fewer games than last year - 27. You are going to see teams close to .500 making the Tourney this year given most teams will have fewer 'buy' games.

GT only has 2 really bad teams on the schedule - FAMU and Del St.
Mercer is not that bad - probably on par with NE and Ga St is better than either of them.
UAB now has Andy Kennedy as Coach and was 19-13 last year and the game is at UAB
This is arguably one of the toughest schedules GT basketball has played.

Just for one man's opinion, here is Matt Norlander's CBSSports 357 for college basketball for all the teams we play
5 UVA
10 KY
12 Duke
26 L'ville
28 UNC
30 FSU
48 Miami
53 Syracuse
58 Clemson
59 NC St

60 GT

65 VT
82 Pitt
90 ND
95 Ga St
103 BC
121 Wake
139 NE
157 Mercer
203 UAB
342 FAMU
353 Del St

GT will have the opportunity to earn its way into the Tourney.
 

slugboy

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
10,800
Couple of quick notes. There are 4 fewer games than last year - 27. You are going to see teams close to .500 making the Tourney this year given most teams will have fewer 'buy' games.

GT only has 2 really bad teams on the schedule - FAMU and Del St.
Mercer is not that bad - probably on par with NE and Ga St is better than either of them.
UAB now has Andy Kennedy as Coach and was 19-13 last year and the game is at UAB
This is arguably one of the toughest schedules GT basketball has played.

Just for one man's opinion, here is Matt Norlander's CBSSports 357 for college basketball for all the teams we play
5 UVA
10 KY
12 Duke
26 L'ville
28 UNC
30 FSU
48 Miami
53 Syracuse
58 Clemson
59 NC St

60 GT

65 VT
82 Pitt
90 ND
95 Ga St
103 BC
121 Wake
139 NE
157 Mercer
203 UAB
342 FAMU
353 Del St

GT will have the opportunity to earn its way into the Tourney.
Tough to get used to Notre Dame being "ranked" so low. Even Louisville at 26, UNC at 28 and FSU at 30 feels low.
 

orientalnc

Helluva Engineer
Retired Staff
Messages
9,439
Location
Oriental, NC
27 games
6-1 OOC
13-7 ACC
1-1 ACCT
20-9 overall
6 seed in NCAAT
I cannot argue with 6-1 OOC, but 13-7 in the ACC will be a stretch.

Something to understand is that home and road games will not have the same importance this year if fans are not allowed. And that is likely to be the case. So, playing at Cameron may not be as daunting as in most years. But, whatever advantage we might have at home will also be lost. The difficulty of playing Duke anywhere cannot be overstated. The same goes for UVA and Florida State. Right there are six games where we will have to play above our 2019-20 level to have a chance. Add UNC to the list and you have seven games in conference against teams in the pre-season top 25. We're at #60 in one preview. To finish at 13-7 we may to win all the rest of our games. That is worse than daunting. Do I think 13-7 is possible? Yes, but not likely.

And then there is the ever present danger of a COVID-19 cluster happening that cancels games that cannot be rescheduled. If we stay healthy enough (including not exposed to another team who tests positive) to be ready to play every game, there is also the chance that other teams testing positive might have to cancel. I think the basketball season is much more of a crap shoot than football.
 

orientalnc

Helluva Engineer
Retired Staff
Messages
9,439
Location
Oriental, NC
Question for debate (unless someone already knows the answer):

Will the NCAA allow some teams to play home games with fans while others are restricted by Executive Orders in their state?
 
Top