 |
Three years ago, Pat Douglass coached his first season at UCI. The team improved mightily, well enough to qualify for a berth in the Big West Tournament and a 3rd place West Division finish. Two years ago, with most of the previous year's players returning and some mighty good new recruits, one of them being Jerry Green, I boldly predicted that we would continue our improvement and finish second in the West Division and end the season with a winning record. |
| Well, that season we got worse and finish last. Last year,
being a bit more cautious, I predicted the following finish in the West
Division:
1. Pacific Not bad, I must say, considering the actual finish was 1. Long Beach State OK - maybe about the only thing I got right was that UCI would improve, even if that improvement came toward the end of the season. Pacific and Poly disappointed me, while UC Santa Barbara and to some extent Long Beach State proved they were for real. Now, consider this year. UCI returns most of its players, losing of note only Marek Ondera, while adding and excellent JC guard, Albert Miller, a 7-2 center Dave Korfman, a redshirt 7-0 freshman center Adam Parada, and the Big West sleeper of the year, freshman 6-9 Czech forward Stanislav Zuzak. All of this has caught the attention of the preseason polls. Sporting News and Preview Sports rank UCI third, while Street & Smith and Lindy's rank UCI fifth. Looking at UCI's schedule, Irvine should finish its preseason 7-3 and complete its nonconference schedule with an 8-3 record (it plays UC Riverside at home on 2/24/01). I also expect UCI to end up with a 9-7 Big West record. Combine that and Irvine finishes with a 17-10 record, a modest and incremental improvement over last year. UCI can achieve this conference record by winning its home games and one road game. With all this said (and not said), here is my preseason predictions for the Big West: 1. Utah State |