So I finally had a chance to check out the schedule. I would certainly call this one of the more interesting schedules we have ever had. Often the non-conference portions of the schedule have an abundance of games that appear to be either clear wins or clear losses (barring unforeseen things either way) and a few "swing" games. Ours have really kind of followed that path and we usually have more clear wins than losses built in. To be good out of conference you need to win those swing games, hold serve on the "wins" and maybe turn a loss on paper into a win on the court. Last year we did sorta the opposite. Didn't do well in swings and turned some paper wins into on court losses.
This years OOC schedule has a lot of swing games. First two games look to be clear wins and I'll put JMU @ Robins in that category too, but Jville St. won their league and JMU beat us, so even those games might be "swingish". Wake on the road looks like a loss, but again, this is a bit swingish as well - - they aren't exactly Duke. But I count all the rest as swing games. UAB at neutral is a big swing game as a win there likely means Cincy next and a very solid third game as well, while a loss is not only a loss, but will likely get us two lesser games to follow up. UAB, ODU and BC on road/neutral and GT, Vermont, Bucknell at home is really good balance. We have a good shot at stealing any of those road games and a decent shot to sweep the home swing games. But we could also get swept on the road and lose one (or more) at home. I see a pretty wide range of possibilities for our OOC record. Win the "wins", go 2-1 in Caymans, sweep home swings and steal one road swing and we'd be 9-3 (and I don't think that's necessarily the total upside) . Drop a "win" (happened more than once last year!) , go 1-2 in Caymans (which could easily happen even if we beat UAB), get swept in road swings and drop a home swing and we'd be 5-7 (and I don't think that's the absolute bottom it could be either).
My fear is learning to play without TJ and SDJ early. Its not just their scoring etc. its that the ball was in their hands an awful lot last year so everyone will be making huge adjustments to playing differently. Young teams in transition are also often decent at home but struggle on the road. I'll give us the "should be wins" in the RC, say we'll go 1-2 at Caymans, drop the road swings and go either 2-1 in the home swings which would put us right at 6-6 OOC.