The sanction period will be officially over following this season, so now UCF and Donnie Jones can begin playing ball with a full deck. They'll be back at 13 scholarships for 2015-16, and while nobody is expecting them to compete for the conference championship right away, you'd like to see improvement with the influx of new talent and especially since Orlando is hosting the league tournament in 2016 and 2017 (ideally you want to go in being in the top half mix).
So that said, what are your expectations short-term (next couple years) and long term (further out)?
Next year, I'd like to see progress and by that I mean building a team that can compete in the top 4-5 of the league. If you do that, you should be in the postseason conversation. That doesn't necessarily mean a top 4-5 finish next year, but at least showing signs and picking up a few wins against teams of that caliber. That would be more of the expectation going into year two (2016-17).
For whatever reason, it's traditionally been incredible difficult to build a yearly postseason team being in the state of Florida (or generally speaking, the Southeast). Billy Donovan defied those odds, but even they're having a down year. Florida State made four consecutive NCAA tournaments from 2009-2012, their first appearances since 1998, but are now in a three-year drought. They did make the NIT in 2013 and 2014 however.
Miami's NCAA visits have been sporadic, but picking up in frequency: 1960, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2008 and 2013. They have a chance to make it this year. They've had a few NIT appearances sprinkled in.
USF, despite playing in better hoops conferences, has only made three NCAA appearances: 1990, 1992 and 2012.
This post was edited on 3/5 4:50 PM by Brandon
So that said, what are your expectations short-term (next couple years) and long term (further out)?
Next year, I'd like to see progress and by that I mean building a team that can compete in the top 4-5 of the league. If you do that, you should be in the postseason conversation. That doesn't necessarily mean a top 4-5 finish next year, but at least showing signs and picking up a few wins against teams of that caliber. That would be more of the expectation going into year two (2016-17).
For whatever reason, it's traditionally been incredible difficult to build a yearly postseason team being in the state of Florida (or generally speaking, the Southeast). Billy Donovan defied those odds, but even they're having a down year. Florida State made four consecutive NCAA tournaments from 2009-2012, their first appearances since 1998, but are now in a three-year drought. They did make the NIT in 2013 and 2014 however.
Miami's NCAA visits have been sporadic, but picking up in frequency: 1960, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2008 and 2013. They have a chance to make it this year. They've had a few NIT appearances sprinkled in.
USF, despite playing in better hoops conferences, has only made three NCAA appearances: 1990, 1992 and 2012.
This post was edited on 3/5 4:50 PM by Brandon
