Final Record for the Season???

[raiderscout]

With what games remain for the season, I feel the Raiders will finish the season 12-19.

I would like to know RaiderNation's thoughts...What do you think will be the Raiders final win/loss record for the season? 

Feel free to give your reasoning, or don't.  

[mrose]

One more win this season might be in the cards, though I wouldn't put money on it. Milwaukee at home? UIC on the road? Considering we'll finish 7th at best, but probably 8th, we'll play a road game in the tournament and that'll probably be a loss, unless we play Detroit. We seem to have their number this year, but it's hard to beat a team that played competitive and close games 3 times in one season--especially if the game is on the road.

Anyhow, maybe my thoughts should be on the Donlon thread, but here goes:

I'm more interested in the final 5-year cumulative record for Billy as head coach. Currently, with nearly 5 full seasons under his belt Donlon has a losing HL conference regular season record at 40-41. Odds are after the final 3 regular season conference games he'll have a losing record in 5 full seasons.

At the moment his record vs. Div. I competition is 79-76. I'm guessing if Vegas had to handicap it there would be decent odds WSU loses their next 4 games. That would give coach Donlon a losing record vs. Div. I opponents in his 5 full seasons.

To me that's more important. We all know of the circumstances he had to face this year and of the challenges the team faced. That's why I'm looking at a bigger sample size--his entire head coaching career.

It's well documented the issues, on and off court, he's had to deal with. But he doesn't have the market cornered on difficult situations. Of the nearly 350 Div. I teams the vast majority have to deal and manage with player issues and injuries. One of the things that does concern me is the number of injuries players have incurred during practice. I know I'm basing this simply on empirical evidence as I follow WSU more closely than the vast majority of programs, but it appears we've had one or two players miss critical games, almost every year, due to injuries received during practice. It appears to me that is more of an occurrence under Billy than his peers.

[wolf41]

I tend to agree with you. I would also say that the time of Brownell and Donlon has been the most injury prone era that I can remember at WSU?

[Raider3G]

"We all know of the circumstances he had to face this year and of the challenges the team faced. That's why I'm looking at a bigger sample size--his entire head coaching career."

Mrose, if that is the case, then why take this entire year into consideration at all? Maybe take into consideration where this team was before Yoho went down (so after the CSU game). He had a winning record in all areas you had mentioned coming into this year, and was 8-8 against D-I at that point even though two seniors missed most and all of those games (Griffin and Sledge).

I agree in taking a look at a longer-term track record, no disagreement there. But at a minimum I'd probably factor out the games where he had 5 starters/key players missing.

Either way, back to the thread subject....11-16 right now, I say finish 13-17 in regular season, and win two games in HL tourney. Final record 15-18. I'm assuming we have everybody back starting against UWM. I still believe this team with all players back can get to the HL final, but its unlikely given how comparatively little on-court time they've had together this year.

[mrose]

Why, ecb? Because when we evaluate a coach we can't pick and choose which seasons we want to take into consideration, and in so doing we can't just wish away and ignore the bad and treat it as if it never happened. So, if you're going to take into account and factor, with less emphasis, on the losses when we didn't have the original 5 key starters are you going to apply that same logic and discount Billy's wins when the opponent didn't have their 5 key players? What's good for the Goose is good for the Gander.

[Raider3G]

Feb 21, 2015 19:06:53 GMT -5 mrose said:

Why, ecb? Because when we evaluate a coach we can't pick and choose which seasons we want to take into consideration, and in so doing we can't just wish away and ignore the bad and treat it as if it never happened. So, if you're going to take into account and factor, with less emphasis, on the losses when we didn't have the original 5 key starters are you going to apply that same logic and discount Billy's wins when the opponent didn't have their 5 key players? What's good for the Goose is good for the Gander.

I don't necessarily disagree, but I don't think in one sentence you can lead off with "we all know the difficult circumstances he faced this year" and then go and count that entire year against him and the staff. Donlon faced similar injury circumstances for a shorter period of time during his first season and handled that well (I believe it was 4-1 in the games he didn't have Tabler and Land, but someone else can feel free to check). The difference with that team's best player (Duggins) played every game that season. Again, I would count a good chunk of this year (particularly the OOC) and the first part of league play in an evaluation of him (as well as whatever happens once he gets guys back), but the rest makes it hard to judge.