We've seen how reliable preseason rankings have been. Look at this year. In conferences like the AE, where i think there is more parity (except for say a team or two), I would take it with a grain of salt. Same with the last 2 years, where we finished 4th/5th, and most certainly weren't expected to win the AE tourney either time. Also, I bet if you went back 10 years, the preseason #1 from the AE rarely wins the conference tournament.
In 06' expectations may have been high, but expecting the team to play well in conference and ALSO win the AE tournament are two different things. In a one-bid conference, winning the conference regular season title is nice for a banner, but outside of that, pales in comparison to making the big dance.
I think we can look back and say we expected them to win in 06', but as someone who was at a lot of the games, the promise was there, but the jump to D1 wasn't that far removed, and we were coming off a season where we were 13-15.
I think we were "hopeful" more than we were "expecting" a win... just my .02.
Either way, the growth of the program has been amazing. Just don't want to count my eggs before they hatch...