"For some inexplicable reason I still have a feeling we'll beat AU Wednesday and win 3 of 6 down the stretch."

I have to confess I scoffed at your pre-season win total prediction - much lower than mine.

Sad that you have been right. Still think this team should be sitting at 6, 7 SEC wins.

Got any lottery numbers for me?

Yep, my pre-season # was 6 wins but stressed I'd bet the under. It looks to me like we'll likely come in at 5. If I'd realized how terribly down the league would be this year I'd certainly have had us closer to .500, and that's more like where we should be at this point.

Unless something drastically changes with our roster, I don't see us being better next year. All the "young" talk is complete BS. At a minimum we are losing 4 of our top 7 players and if Hammonds goes we lose 5. Wheeler's been great and Camara has been solid as well but those two plus Brown, Peake, Howard & Fagan is average at best. We have two (more) undersized PG's signed and a good PF (Taylor) coming in but I don't see how anyone can believe those, plus the returnees, will have us in the top half of the league next year.

I agree.

Begs the question - will there be enough runway for Crean to get this lead basketball zeppelin off the ground.

Can he get us to NCAA year four? If not will he get year five? Does he have to show "significant improvement" next year? Certainly by year four. Would that be enough to get a do or die year five? And with McEars rumored out the door this summer, does that help him or hurt him?

I'd say there needs to be a big step next year. Maybe not NCAA or axe, but I would want something like Harrick's second season. where we still struggled but you could see the plan coming together and with the right bounce or two.....

That's 3 in the last 6. Although adding one more in these last two seems unlikely, but maybe. Or maybe we can make a miracle tourney run.