next year specifically may be a little lower than yours.

I'm not too concerned about their ability to come together as a team, because on paper their skill sets and personalities appear to be very complementary. It's an uber competitive group of guys, but have nearly all come from successful HS programs where they've had to sacrifice stats for wins. That's been a Rose recruited mindset of the past and traditionally his teams have been unselfish with limited chemistry issues.

I think the team should play well together, with 3 attacking guards that have deep range and inside guys that have a mix of mid-to-high post skills (Dastrup, Childs) to low block skills (Mika, Davis).

My bigger concern is simply the lack of experience. Yes they'll have talent, yes it may gel quicker than we expect, but experience makes a difference unless there is overwhelming talent.

You can see that in UK's last 5+ years. The teams that have been champs (or Final 4) have either had overwhelming talent (6-7 NBA picks) or elite talent plus a few guys that stuck around an extra year or two. His teams that haven't gone as far (or even the NIT one year) have had really great talent that is inexperienced.

There are certainly exceptions to the rule (see your cited examples, plus Michigan Fab Five and a few others) but conversely I could point to dozens of teams across the elite schools that have struggled when their talented core was young. I'm thinking of a few Kansas and Duke squads bounced in the 2nd round, a UNC squad that made the NIT a few years ago with All-Americans, etc.

Just look at Emery's road struggles this year, despite his top 60 talent and otherwise strong freshman year, then multiply that by 6. It's not hard to see where there will be the equivalent of a Portland loss or two.

For me, the upside comes this time of year in Feb when again Rose's teams typically start to come together. As those guys get experience, they could make a strong run at the end of the year and surprise us. But for next season, I'm keeping my expectations right about the level where we've been the last few years knowing that the ramp up is coming.

I get the Wooden quote and players may be a little more malleable early on, but hopefully players of the mentality and humility we often have will be those that will continue to grow and develop as time passes. 2018 and beyond could be special.