With the college basketball season starting Friday, The Catch and Shoot is taking a look at the best- and worst-case scenarios for Chicago’s team. As you may have guessed, this series of posts tries to evaluate each team’s highest peak as well as their lowest low.
Here is a look at Chicago State’s best-case and worst-case scenario:
(Also check out best-case/worst-case scenarios for: UIC, DePaul and DePaul.)
Best Case
Despite losing five of its top seven players, coach Tracy Dildy keeps Chicago State in the top half of the WAC. The Cougars have an electric backcourt with seniors Clarke Rosenberg and Rahjan Muhammad, and a slew of junior college transfers allows the team to stay solid
6-foot-4 Trayvon Palmer makes an immediate impact and is one of the WAC’s leading rebounders despite being an undersized tweener.
The Cougars don’t upset any of their premier non-conference opponents, but they don’t suffer any bad losses either. With a winning record in WAC play, Chicago State finishes above .500 on the season for the first time since 2008-09.
Worst Case
With five of their top seven players gone, the Cougars drop to last place in the WAC. Rosenberg and Muhammad simply don’t have enough around them to stay competitive with anyone in the top half of the league.
Chicago State’s only conference wins come at home against fellow WAC bottom dwellers. With a difficult non-conference schedule, the Cougars win only four games against Division I competition all season.
