1) This is the toughest league we have ever played in. It's got 3 of the top 5 teams in the country and two other ranked teams. The middle of the conference would contend in other conferences and possibly win the Pac 12. The bottom teams would be middle teams in other top conferences and maybe win the mid-majors.
2) The NCAA has stressed the non-conference games in recent years and the years of coming into conference play 13-0, 12-1 or even 11-2 every year are gone. We want to play our old Big Eats rivals and those two influences have toughened up our non-conference schedule so it can't be the cake-walk we are used to.
That means that only our best teams are going to wind up with single digit losses. Those teams from the Big Eats Era that had 8-9 losses would have 10+now. The teams we've had with fewer than 8 losses since 1980-81, (when we played a full Big Eats schedule for the first time), are 1985-86, 1986-87, 1989-90, 1990-91, 1993-94, 1999-00, 2002-03, 2004-05, 2009-10, 2011-12 and 2013-14. That's how often single digit losses are likely to happen now.
The issue is: when will we have another team that good? The impact of the probation should have worn off by now. I don't see the zone defense as the culprit although the idea that we don't recruit big men for offense anymore has some credibility, although if DaJuan Coleman had not destroyed his knees, we might not be saying that). I just don't like our "chuck it up or lower your shoulder and drive" offense. I want us to play like UNC: share the ball, get everyone involved and run, run run whenever you can. I think it would help our offense and our recruiting tremendously. We'd have more of those single digit loss seasons. Beyond that, there wouldn't be so many dull, painful-to-watch losses.
