I think its more of a tribute to last years run. How high would we have been with Bassett, Coleman and Alex Kellogg still around. top 25? We are not a top 50 team without Bassett. Probably not a top 75 team either. Likely between 75-100 if we get good production from the freshmen Kellogg and Johnson. We are still a young team that was a 9 seed last year. Bassett was the primary reason for the post season run. We may still win in a down MAC, but to have us get 4 top 25 votes is not realistic. Its from folks who saw us last March and didn't research what we lost from that team. Its puts a target on this team which I think is a bit unfair as they are still very young and having to go without Bassett, Coleman, Kinney and Alex Kellogg who left the program. That's a lot of talent to replace without taking a step back let alone improving into a top 50 team.
Only one of the names you mentioned us losing had something to do with our run last year, and we only lost one other player you didn't mention from our run.
Between KVK and Bassett we lose:
Roughly 35% of minutes played during the run.
33% of the rebounding from our run.
42% of the scoring from our run.
If you match those numbers up against other tourney and MAC teams, we are in good shape. Losing Kellogg and Coleman, two guys we expected could possibly be the key replacements to KVK and Bassett hurts, no doubt, but we still have the key pieces in place that had us excited even after Bassett left... Keely and Ivo's improvements are going to give us a deeper frontcourt then last year. Based on the track record of Groce's recruits, I'm confident we can expect some production out of our freshman for this year.
We've got a ton of home games right off the bat. Those are great games to get us geared up for some of the bigger tests further into our OOC play and of course MAC play. We've got questions to answer like every other team in the nation... I don't think we've got as many or as serious questions though... There is no reason we can't be a top 50 team this year.