CSU Basketball Preview 2023-2024

The speaker, Anthony, introduces himself as a journalism student who will be previewing the CSU basketball team in this podcast episode. He mentions that last season was a letdown for the team, but they have made some roster changes in the offseason to improve. He discusses three new transfers who will strengthen the team's defense and versatility. He also mentions a player who was out last season due to illness but will be a key player this year. The team's starting lineup consists of experienced players, and the schedule includes tough non-conference games against teams that could potentially make the NCAA tournament. The speaker believes that the team has the potential to win 24 to 27 games and make a strong case for an at-large bid in the NCAA tournament. Overall, there are high expectations for the CSU basketball team this season. . What's going on, guys? Basketball season is here. We finally made it. It's been a long road for football, but finally basketball season's just around the corner. My name is Anthony. I'm currently a journalism student at CSU. I'm going to be previewing CSU basketball in this podcast, and lots of unravel. I'm excited to break down the CSU 2023-2024 basketball roster and schedule with you guys. So, yeah, let's jump into it. First, before we get into the preview stuff, I want to get into the review of last season. Kind of a tough year for all CSU fans last season. Two years ago coming off of a six-seat NCAA tournament appearance, player of the year award with David Roddy, and just last year was kind of a letdown for a lot of people, including Medved. So what do you do? You go out in the offseason, you bring in some transfers, some new firepower to come in and help rejuvenate the team, rejuvenate the locker room, and that's exactly what CSU did. We're going to get into the roster changes in the offseason and pretty much what the team did to progress from 2022 to 2023. I don't want to cling to the past very much in this podcast, and I know a lot of us want to just move on from last season, but there are some bright spots from last year. Guys like Patrick Cartier coming in, Joe Palmer getting their first year playing D1 basketball, guys like Tavey Jackson and Kyle Evans playing their freshman season, learning, and you're going to see a lot of positive growth from those four guys, and it's going to be very exciting to see. Honestly, the team got better as the season went along, and they were playing their best basketball in the Mountain West Tournament. Really just a couple of made baskets away from upsetting San Diego State who went on to make a run to the final four to the national championship game, and I know that game was in the back of Isaiah Stevens' mind, and I know that it's going to fuel him to make a run this year. But MedVed and company, this pass-off season, they went out and had to get guys to replace players like Tonje leaving to go to Missouri, Isaiah Rivera leaving to go to University of Illinois Chicago, Baylor Hebb going to UTEP. So MedVed goes out and gets the Division II National Player of the Year, Joel Scott, who is a 6'7", 6'8", power forward, pretty much a small ball big man that will play in the low post with Cartier. He's a guy that I watched in the open scrimmage a couple weeks ago, and he just looks tough. He's a guy that's built. He's going to be able to play defense, get rebounds, and if he can get used to D1 basketball pretty quickly, he's going to be a force offensively. So that's one of the three. The second guy that we brought in via transfer portal is Neek Clifford, a 6'6", 195-pound wing from Colorado. He came over from the bus, and he's going to be a starter as soon as he walks in. This is a guy that had a lot of success at CU and pretty much just got pushed out of CU due to just the amount of players on their roster. They just did not have enough guys to keep Neek. And Neek Clifford is a guy that I think Ram Nation should be excited about. You're going to be able to see his athleticism, his length, his utility. He's going to be able to guard point guards, pretty much shooting guards, small forwards, one through four. And he could be one of the best defenders in the Mountain West this season. And so the third guy is Javonte Johnson, another 6'5", 6'6", wing from New Mexico. He will most likely come off the bench here at CSU, but this is a guy that was a three-year starter at New Mexico, averaged just under 10 points per game. Two years ago, this is a guy that shot over 50% from the three-point line, or I believe it was just under 50%, actually. And he's a guy that will be able to come in. He's going to be a three-in-D wing. He's going to be able to just pretty much stand in the corner, knock down triples, stay on the wing, knock down triples, and then go back on the other side of the court and just play his tail off defensively. Another long athletic wing, and him and Neek Clifford are very similar players. And you could tell that Medved and the staff had an emphasis going into the offseason on getting guys that can play defense, that'll be tough, and that will be versatile. And it's a huge step that the team needs to take to be an NCAA tournament team this year. And the upside of the squad looks really good. Technically, you can count Josiah Strong as another transfer, considering he was out all of last year with mono. And he's the guy that will start at shooting guard for the team, 6'4", 195-pound shooting guard, that pretty much just plays perfectly with what Isaiah Stevens wants to do. That is a backcourt that could average 30 points per game on every given night. And it'll be a duo that will be able to facilitate, they'll be able to score, and they're just going to be able to lead. Josiah Strong's the kid that is a fifth-year senior, just like Isaiah Stevens is, and the team's going to be old. This is not a young team. There's going to be some youth on the bench, but the starting five, all four guys, or all five guys, I mean, have played a lot of basketball, and all of them are either fourth-year seniors or fifth-year seniors, so definitely a lot of maturity on the team. But now we're going to quickly transition into the next segment. We're going to go over here. We're going to break down the CSU Rams schedule for this upcoming season, both non-conference and conference. I won't take too much time on this. We're going to go through pretty much the key games for CSU this year if they want to make March Madness and then touch up upon the conference schedule a little bit, talk about which teams in the Mountain West are the biggest threats to CSU, and honestly, CSU is a team that is one of the threats, considering San Diego State and Boise State are the clear favorites for the conference this season. Teams like New Mexico, CSU, Nevada, UNLV are all teams that are going to be trying to get to the NCAA tournament but just are not the favorites to win the conference. To start off the CSU schedule, Louisiana Tech comes to Moby on November 6th. That will be an 8 p.m. tip-off, and Louisiana Tech is a tough team. That's going to be a team that is going to be hungry to try and make the tournament. I believe they were projected fourth in the Conference USA preseason poll. Then later that week on Friday, the Rams will take on Wright State. Wright State is a smaller school, but that is a team that is projected to be an NCAA tournament team this year. They were voted as the number one ranked team in their conference in the preseason poll for that conference. Following that game, we got a lot of tough, tough games. The Rams will take on Boston College in a four-team tournament that they will play in Kansas City. If they win that, they have the chance to play either Loyola Chicago or Creighton, depending on who wins that game. If it's Creighton, then CSU will have an opportunity to play a quote-unquote quad one game, which just means if you're playing a top 50 team on a neutral site, then that counts as a quad one game. If you get the win, quad one wins do the most for your team if you want to make the NCAA tournament. Creighton is currently ranked, I believe, the eighth ranked team in the country in the preseason poll. I might be wrong on that. I know they're top 10. That will be in mid-November. November 22nd is when that Hall of Fame Classic tournament is in Kansas City. Following that on November 29th, CSU will take on CU in Moby, which will be most likely the most hyped-up home game for the Rams in the past couple years. CU is a borderline top 25 team. They will most likely be ranked by the time they play CSU, so definitely pack Moby. That will be a massive game for CSU. Then in December, CSU will take on Washington in another neutral site game in Las Vegas on December 2nd. Following that, we'll play DU, St. Mary's at home on December 9th. Then a pretty tough road game at Loyola Marymount on December 22nd. That rounds out the non-conference schedule. All the teams I listed outside of DU are teams that will be in the contention for the NCAA tournament. Those are all teams that are very good rosters and will all be tough games for CSU. Now back to the quad one point that I was making, CSU will potentially have four or five quad one games depending on which teams get ranked in the top 50 by the time CSU plays them. St. Mary's is currently ranked 23rd in the country. That's another top 25 team that CSU will play in Moby Arena. Having home court versus those teams will be both fun for the team, be fun for the fan base. We will see Moby Madness in full effect this season. You can count on that. We'll now transition into the conference schedule. I'll try and fly by on these as well. CSU will pretty much split with New Mexico, Boise State, San Diego State, Wyoming, Nevada, UNLV. The goal for the CSU is to win half of your games versus those teams at least and then steal a game on the road. You definitely want to try and sweep Wyoming this season. Wyoming is not as highly touted of a team as they normally are. Currently voted as the 12th ranked team or 11th ranked team in the Mountain West going into the season. San Diego State is a team that is ranked 17th in the preseason poll. They have the ceiling to be able to be better than that. You could see four top 25 teams play the Rams this season. Really tough schedule. 24 wins is definitely not out of reach. 24 wins is the mark that you want to try and strive for if you want to try and get in that large bid. Really the ceiling for this CSU squad is as high as 26 or 27 wins if you can steal a couple games on the road and win some neutral site games in November and December. That is the schedule. Following that, I'll briefly talk about the higher expectations going into the season for this team. A lot of the metric systems and the sports writers for CBS and ESPN are ranking the Rams anywhere from that 52nd in the country range to 76th which is pretty much right at the border of the NCAA tournament. CSU will definitely have to steal a couple games. They'll have to probably win a game versus Washington, win a game versus Creighton. You definitely can't blow games versus a Wright State or Louisiana Tech, but I know the guys are going to be locked in. I know they're going to be ready to play those games. It's a confident squad this year. Just for the roster itself, it's a lot deeper of a squad. There's a lot more depth on this team. Last year's team really was only able to go eight deep in the depth chart. This year they're expecting to play 11 or 12 guys every single game, which is exciting. Just a quick roster breakdown for our depth chart, quote-unquote, for the team this year. Isaiah Stevens at point guard, preseason Mountain West Player of the Year. Shooting guard, you have Josiah Strong. I was saying earlier, transferred from Illinois State, sat out last season with Mono. At small forward, Meek Clifford, 6'6", 195-pound wing, transferred from CU Boulder. At power forward, it'll most likely be Joel Scott, transferred from Black Hills State. Division II Player of the Year last season. At center, Patrick Cartier. And then off the bench, you will have Tavey Jackson, Jalen Lake, Rashawn Mbemba, Kyle Evans, Joe Palmer, Jack Payne, and Kion Evans. And that is a bench that will certainly be able to be productive, be able to play positive minutes off the bench for MEDVED, and pretty much just the goal is to have enough guys that can play productively, play with efficiency. And we need a lot of guys to have successful seasons to take the next step to where we want to go as a team and really to get to the NCAA tournament and to make a run this year. We have to stay healthy. We have to avoid the injury bug. I know it's easier said than done, but the 2022 team was able to avoid injuries, and that's why they were able to make it so far in March, and that is the hope that this team is able to go above and beyond this year and to outperform expectations. And I'm excited, man. It's going to be an exciting season. I know that Moby is going to be buzzing. I can't wait to go to the game on November 6th versus Louisiana Tech, and I can't wait to see all of the fans show up and show out. And, yeah, that's it for me. Thank you for listening to the CSU 2023-2024 preview for CSU men's basketball, and have a good one, guys, and go Rams.