kwyjibo

That one SLU fan believed:

Sitting near SLU bench. Go Bills.

SLU made it. Away to Kansas City and then Mo State if they win.

Based on RPI alone SLU would be the second to last at-large in after all automatic bids decided. Factors for: Quality wins over Indiana and George Mason. Quality ties on the road with Fordham, Missouri St. and UMass. A-10 had 5 teams in top 50 (and 6th was 53rd). Strength of Schedule very high (3rd). Factors against: Loss to SIU-E. Bad home ties to IU-Indy and Lipscombe. Not as bad as above but road tie to LaSalle is a factor against. 7-1 aggregate losses to Dayton (goal difference is not likely a big factor but when doing deeper look will likely count against). They will either be selected or they will not (deepest analysis possible!). The championship bracket will be revealed during a selection show at Noon CT on Monday, Nov. 18, streamed here on NCAA.com.

I cannot help with the scouting of Dartmouth but this is Keggy:

I am going to game! Thanks for thinking of a long lost prodigal poster. I will be rooting on the Bills and my wife will be cheering for Vermont. I will try to post later. I have no insights on the Catamounts.

I will look for you at half.

Who is the Fiorillo guy?

2 players are playing in the Cape Cod League. 13 players are playing in summer leagues around the country. Two are playing in the NECBL which I usually go to at least one game--I will try to make it to the Vermont Mountaineers v. Nighthawks game or maybe to a Mountaineers home game.

A month ago a gambler I know contacted me and wanted my thoughts about the World Cup and particularly wanted my thoughts on underrated teams. I watched a fair bit of African qualifying and Senegal seems underrated as Mané, Sané, Baldé , Pape Alioune Badou Ndiaye (there are three Ndiayes on the team) seem like a pretty solid core to get you out of the group and possibly into the quarters (not much of chance past that). They are in a pretty open group so it worth a bet to get out of the group (200-1 to win it all is worthy of a small bet if you can get it as well). I think they are underrated mainly because they took a very conservative approach to qualifying (which was smart) and are going to open up offensively for the World Cup. A lot of people have talked about Nigeria being exciting to watch but I am guessing that Senegal will be much more interesting as they get past the conservative tactics of qualifying (they have been playing an open 3--5-2 lately in friendlies but even them in a 4-5-1 would be exciting if Mané (Liverpool) has an central attacking role). They have had problems with Baldé's(Lazio/Monaco) behavior/injuries in the past but I am guessing any positive result early and all that will be gone until at least the World Cup ends. Sakho is an underrated striker as well. Their regular goalie was hurt but back up Khadim Ndiaye is fine. Overall, Skip has mentioned the big contenders (well he "skipped" over France but they are likely behind Brazil, Germany and Spain) but if you are looking for some exciting soccer and a slight underdog my guess is Senegal as they have had very little World Cup experience yet have a team that has impressive club experience.

This numbers driven forecast using Isabell's numbers (not Wiley's yet) projects SLU as best in A-10 (and 14 seed for tourney) and 49th overall. Note that this is projecting Isabell as SLU's best offensive player (because of his efficient play last year) and does not project Gordon or even French as major factor. http://www.barttorvik.com/team.php?team=Saint+Louis&year=2019

This is using a database (Real GM) that excludes limited time players so should work for the question (all the players with low FTA totals per minute are guards): The lowest FT per Minute out of the 2000+ players is Dillon Avare (Eastern Kentucky) 2-2FTs in 560 mins. Tum Tum Nairn of Michigan St. is 3rd with 5 FTs in 586 minutes but is included as I wanted to write Tum Tum. Wiley is 19th but the order seems to be FTA per game (I cannot directly rank the FT per minute)

College Soccer News reports a top 15 recruiting class ranking but I have not seen it for this year. Top Drawer reviews players--SLU has 3 players in this recruiting class in their database (Mootz and Ramadan are 2 stars). The third is Alex Karasinski who committed to McGinty and seems to have gone somewhere else--he was 3 stars. The other 4 players are not in the database so would not be helpful to any ranking by them. I do not think anyone is rating transfers and this is hopefully where the strength of this class lies--the freshman may be fine players but they are not drawing a lot of recruiting attention. The sad part is that Top Drawer rates the top 20 players in every conference--SLU only has one player . . . in the A-10 (this would indicate they were overperforming but I suspect these ratings are not the best).

The game is available on the A-10 Network http://www.atlantic10.com/mediaPortal/player.dbml?CONTENT_ID=2136465&DB_OEM_ID=31600&id=6264968&db_oem_id=31600

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