New Expectations
 

Before the season began, I said I would be happy if this team just made the NCAA tournament. Losing 3 starters from a 10 seed team just left too much uncertainty for me to expect much better.

But now, with a little more than a month left in the season, we know what we have and what we are capable of. So what are your expectations?

I expect a regular season conference title (at least a share and advancing to the sweet 16. Anything less than that and I'll be disappointed.

I agree, at least sweet 16 or even Final 8 at this point should be expected barring injuries. This team is rolling without Lawrence and he is only going to make the team better!

Tournament success is so random its hard for me to get upset about that and I dont really base my expectations on that.

Preseason I'd have thought top 3 in the league and seeded 5 or higher in the dance would be a massive success. Seed of 6-10 would be meeting expectations and a " good" year. 11+ bubble disappointing. Miss and not close very disappointing.

Right now I guess if I had to re-eval I'd say seed 4 or 5 is meeting expectations. 3+ is a huge success. Share of league title or outright is huge success.

I still don't think this team is really the 7th best team in the country, but resume wise they are right there. We've also been pretty lucky in close games which all advanced studies have shown past performance in close games is not predictive of future performance in close games. So we can probably expect to regress some there and lose a game were "supposed to win"

matchups are more important than seedings

I think both are important and kind of go hand-in-hand with each other. Assuming we stay as healthy as we are now and don't lose anyone I fully expect a 3-5 seed for us. Best case scenario and not out of the question if we continue to win our games would be a #2 seed.

As we all know, come March, it really is all about matchups. We usually get really tough draws, not sure why that is. It makes you wonder sometimes. Of course if we would get a 2 or 3 seed it would help our chances to get an easier draw to the Sweet 16.

My expectations haven't risen that much. Sure I'll be disappointed if they don't win the conf. title but that is only because of where they currently sit. If a team like UL ends up winning and UC comes in second I'll still consider that a successful season. If they lose in the 2nd round, I'll be just as upset but will again consider the season a success. At the beginning of the year I had them as a bubble team.

I would really like for Cincinnati to win the regular season and tournament in the American. Along with that I want Cronin as coach of the year, Kilpatrick as player of the year and Jackson as defensive player of the year.

Tournament success is so dependent on match ups and luck. I would hope Cincinnati would win at least 1 tournament game...

Preseason expectations:
- Make the tournament, at any seed
- Finish top 4 in the league
That's it.

Current expectations:
- Win the league, regular season
- Make it to league championship game, if not win it
- No worse than 4 seed in the tourney
- Advance to at least sweet sixteen

I couldn't agree more. I'd love to see us make a run but the tourney is only 4 weeks out of the entire season. Regardless of what happens in March this season has been a tremendous success.

Mick has reached a level of success that anyone calling themselves a Bearcats fan should be excited about. Not only have they reached that level they've sustained it.

A season like this does great things for this program going forward. Being in the top 10, achieving a top seed in the tourney and all the publicity that comes along with those things will help Mick boost his recruiting.

This team has already surpassed my expectations. That being said I expect them to finish strong. Make a run in the conference tourney, anything less than a spot in the finals would be a let down.

I expect this team to make the NCAA's with no less than a 3 or 4 seed and to advance to the sweet 16. March Madness is not an end all be all for me. Anything less than a Final 4 isn't memorable anyways so if we don't advance far it certainly won't ruin what has been an otherwise great year for the Cats.

Ehhh. Maybe from a national standpoint. If we were to get back to the Elite Eight (would be the first time since '96), I think that'd be monstrous.