Checking The Odds

I feel like this will be 1 of 12 articles I write on the topic of "what to do when there are incredibly high expectations for your college basketball team" this year. It's not something we experience very often – this will only be the fourth time we've been preseason top-5 in my lifetime – and I find myself wanting to enjoy it. During the season it will be one big "fellas, you have this incredibly high bar to clear and only beating Minnesota by six is NOT GOING TO GET US THERE" expectations-fest and I want to enjoy the hype before the season arrives.

And yes, this only being the fourth time with these expectations is significant. The 1989 season didn't come with these expectations (we were still The Team Nobody Can Count On Once March Arrives after losing to lower-seeds Alabama, Austin Peay, and Villanova the three previous NCAA Tournaments). In fact, 2005 is the only season you'd expect to be on this list. Here were our previous top-5 rankings in the preseason AP Poll:

1985: #2
2002: #3
2005: #5

(I should note that there's no guarantee that we'll be top-5 in that poll. But with several polls this summer having us preseason #1, I can't see us any lower than #3 or #4 when the poll comes out in October.)

So I want to enjoy every ounce of this. Bring me all the hype. Like this.