Long Beach State Sports : Re: Mid Major Madness Beach Last No Surprise

It's far too early to say how we will finish in the BW standings, but last year's polls were not too far off concerning LB basketball. It will be up to Acker and the coaches to motivate and coach the 14 new players to play as a team and finish no lower than 5th or 6th in the BW. As Dennis posted former broadcaster Jim Healy's quote in a previous post, "I have high hopes and low expectations." I think that's a Healy quote???

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MMM Big West Preseason Poll:

1. UC Irvine
2. UCSB
3. Cal Poly
4. UCSD
5. CSUN
6. UC Davis
7. Cal State Fullerton
8. Hawai’i
9. Cal State Bakersfield
10. UC Riverside
11. Long Beach State

League shouldn’t be as strong as last season but new faces all around, players and staff.

League is apparently down though overall. It can't be easy trying to prognosticate with all the annual movement.

We lost 15 in a row the end the season, and have only one returning player...is that good or bad on paper? Mix of both.

We have no 'go to guy' like we did last year with Askew. But we sucked last year because he was too ball dominant and it fractionalized the team. I've never seen a Beach team give up like they did in the gold mine v Fullerton. Total disarray.

Acker was brutal last year, guys didn't end up in the dog house they ended up in the morgue. He had a bad look, a bad year, and massive turnover. Again, probably a good thing.

If Acker focused on higher IQ (than we normally get) team first know your role type of guys, who thrive under a junkyard dog type of coach, and we go 10 deep and can play aggressively on defense, we may have something and last place may not happen.

Until I see something positive, I think our offense will be anemic so the defense to offense transition and offensive ball movement are going to be key. It will be interesting to watch if a guy or two elevate their offense and can be counted on in the last seconds.

What is DMX capable of? 15 pts 8 rebounds 2-3 blocks? He has to be one of our go to guys and I'd think they are focusing on developing his inside/outside game. His biggest problems are foul trouble, bad 3 pt%, and a lack of smooth go-to moves. His positives seem to be higher level athleticism, block timing, decent foul shooting for a DI big (70%), active rebounder, decent defender.

I can't make a case for any other ranking, last seems totally reasonable but it probably is reasonable for other teams as well.

Hope the squad gets riled up by this and works harder to overcome it.