The Wiz

Yes, PPP is part of the reason we got a C. I am trying to keep the report card simple so you can get the highlights quickly. You could argue we don't really need to add 2P% because it is included as part of the FG% but in the Schertz era close to the basket 2P% is an important part of the equation. It works out because nearly all 2P shots are close to the basket. When looking at shot strategy one of the goals is to balance 2s and 3s...ie multiplying 2% shots by 1.5 because 3s are worth 50% more. If you look at the Lwood game we shot 75% from the 2 area.....10.5 of 21 3PM would equal 50% from the arc a perfect match for the the 2s (50x1.5=75)...we shot 11 3PM... as close as you can come. The 2P% is rarely shown in the box score slashes and in most cases the FG% is good enough. The fact that we are 12th ITN in 2s is not an accident. Yes , we have good shooters but we are in the top 12 now (and at the end of the season.) because it is part of the strategy. I will continue to list the 2 shot in the report card and WWN2D2W and in the post game reviews. Btw, I expect us to be in the top 5 by the end of the season as some of the flash in the pan teams fade as the season progresses.

Well, we have had a few games to warm up. Now the real show begins. The Bills remain as a B+ team. We have come through the first 3 games unchanged. It is not that the computer was unimpressed with our start. To the contrary, the machine thought we were good from the beginning. So winning by big amounts was expected. The computers logic is I gave you a good grade from the start even though there were many unknowns and the Bills have done what they were supposed to do. Now show me something against a tougher team...which takes us to the game preview. Game preview... G Cany comes in as a B team. The Antelopes are a good team with some skilled players. This will not be easy BUT as you can see, the computer has faith in the Bills. One of the GC starters is injured (Moore) and is questionable for Sat but GC has pretty good depth. They don't have a lot of weaknesses EXCEPT defending the 3. If we can have a good day (or even an average day) from the arc, we should be able to beat them. One of their strengths is keeping the opponent from rebounding. Let's make our shots on the 1st try. Their key players are Henley ( a 6'7 guard who can shoot...I am not worried... he is a 6 - 7 )....Anane (a 180 player who is a double -double threat) and Williams (Their 3pt shooter). We have the players who can defend them. If we play our game minus a few TOs we should win. Now let's look at the Card and see what's up.... Report Card.... I have added a new line on the report card...2P%...The short 2P shot is important in the Schertz system so I have added it to the report card. We have a great offense that is better than the Lopes and a pretty good defense ...slightly better than the Lopes. ................SLU..................GC.....................SLU......................GC ...........................OFF...................................................DEF.......... PPG...........A+..18th ITN....B-......................C............................C- FG%..........A+..15th ITN....B+......................B-..........................C 2P%..........A+..12th ITN....B........................B.............................B- 3P%...........B+...................B-.....................B..............................D- FT%..........A......................A-....................................................... Reb............B.....................C.......................A...............................A+..9th ITN OFF Rebs = total Bills rebs...DEF Rebs = opp total reb Tops In The Nation SLU... FTs....Jones & Otieno...1st ...tied with many players Stls.....Thames...36th Injuries... GC Moore...Questionable....Face injury SLU...none Keys to the game....Make 3s...GC is weak defending the arc....but they are good at keeping the other team from rebounding. Since this is a much better team than the ones we have so far played it is crucial to keep TOs down especially in the first half. WWN2D2W..... Target slash...55/ 60/ 40 / 80....Keep TOs down...12 would be good ...6 in the 1st half would set the tone....PF 17... Hold their big 3 (mentioned in the game preview) to 35 pts combined. Bottom line... Sung to the tune of Home on the Range.... Oh give me a home Where the Chaifetz all roam and the Bills and the Antelope play Where seldom is heard about the Dance bid word A win and we will be all on our way.

One of the things I have hammered away at this season is the importance of winning big/scoring margin/ offense efficiency. What ever you would like to call it ...it is an important calculation in determining the NET. Keep winning big and we will be there at the end.

From my Preseason forecast..... Let's take a look at the projected record.... Scenarios Best case.....29-2 Most probable ...25-6 Worst case...21-10 Chance to Dance... 31% NIT Chance ...73% And also from that same thread Right now we are 1 bid conference. The chances for a 2 bid conference would be 50%...3 bid conference 20%. For the Bills it shakes out like this.... Scenarios... Best case 16-2...1st pl Most probable 13-5...1st pl Worst case...10-8...5th pl

I think I will start the wrap up of the Lwood game with a couple of quotes I made on the Chi St wrap up talking about the future Lwood game.... "So what does all that mean? It means poor old Lindenwood will run into a buzz saw on Monday...an unrelenting one." "The last 7 min of the Lindenwood game will look a lot different than the last 7 min of the Chi St game." True and true. These quotes were a better indicator than the spread was. I knew this was going to happen but the computer didn't understand. The advantage I have over the computer is....You gotta see the kids play....and Schertz coach. I saw ...the computer didn't . Another 5 games and the computer will be better with the extra data. Again there was no way a computer could quantify the wrath of Schertz. For the team...lesson learned...don't take your foot off the gas. Let's take a look at the game.... Let's start with the records....So you think 6...7 is a big deal...Well the Bills topped that with a 66.7% FG%...the highest ever recorded at Chaifetz...keeping the 66 theme going theme going...how about 66 pts in the 2nd half, another Chaifetz record. But wait there's more...the 109 pts was the most ever recorded in a game against a D1 team at Chaifetz. Not done yet...this is the 1st time in Bills history (going back 110 years ...before @Old guy was born) that the Bills ever had back to back 100 pt games. Truly a game for the ages. We could stop here...but we won't...next let's see what the slash looks like ...66.7/ 52.4 / 71...Majerus always said...winning teams and players have slashes of 180+. This slash totals at 190 +...a winning team...Now let's add some 2P shooting to the slash...............66.7 / 75 / 52.4/ 71 ...grades out at A+ / A+/ A+/ C- and finally for context let's take a look at a straight A+ slash and I will line it up under the Lwood slash...........47.9/55.4/37.8/ 78......As you can see except for the FTs, in this game we far exceeded in the 1st 3 categories and in the previous 2 games we far exceeded in FTs. Areas of concern... TOs still too high but a strange yet hopeful pattern. This game started with a woeful TO rate ..17 in the 1st half...this is about 35% higher than a normal full game of TOs. But here is the hopeful part... we had only 3 TOs in the 2nd half...F- 1st half ...A+ 2nd half...same pattern in the 1st 2 games... a dramatic drop off in TOs in the 2nd half. The 20 TOs didn't matter in this game because Lw had 24 TOs. But we will come upon a team that protects the ball and if we don't do the same there could be a problem. The other area is fouls.....The 1st game we had 24 fouls ...a high amount...the next 2 game we had 18 and 19..A nice improvement. 19+ in fouls is generally an F...18= D 17=C 16 = B and 15 or less =A. So if we can take off a couple of fouls we should be in good shape. Over all we are treading water...we blew out another weak team and far exceeded but we are still at B+. The underlying numbers improved about 3%. It is hard at this stage playing cream puffs to improve your standings. It isn't just the Q4s that make it tough but it is also about the other teams. If they are doing the same or better than you then you aren't moving up the ladder. This will change in the next game. Grand Canyon will be a big jump up in quality. Tougher competition is how we can really move up. Next game is the first real test of season 2 under Schertz. Are we up to the challenge?...the computer says ...yes.

We've got this game...How do I know? Because (E)Lwood told me ..."We're on a mission from God"...

We win.... again. Lwood is an F team. Their claim to fame so far is that they beat St. Louis Pharmacy by 65 points. They are working on their scoring margin. They also lost to #10 Tex Tech by 28. What is this info worth? If the Bills score 80 and you are at the game, it is worth a Shack burger. The Bills remain a B+ team. The numbers haven't moved much from my preseason forecast. In other words we are doing about what is expected so far. Here are some random stats as on how we are doing now... Team...............Grade........... Def Rebs...........A+...9th ITN PPG...................A+....16th FT%..................A+.....19th 2P%...................A+.....21st Rebs..................A......28th TOs ..................C- Fouls................ D Players.............................Category ....................................Rank Thames, Jones, Otieno......FT% (you need 3 to qualify)....1st ITN....many tied Sharma................................2P% 1st ITN....many tied Thames ..............................Stls....52nd ITN Bottom line.... After the Lwood game, things will start to pickup. Of the 9 remaining OOC D1 games, only 3 will be cupcakes (below C-) We need to cut down on fouls and TOs so that we are ready for primetime. Think that Lwood will beat the Bills??...Don't bet The Pharm on it. Go Bills

I get my data from the MGM Sports Book. They send me what I need.

Mizzou dropped from A to A- with this shaky win. SEMO went from D to C-. Meanwhile, SLU which had lost about 6% of its NET strength after the Chi St win, regained about half of that with the SEMO scare at Mizzou. Nov 12 will be an interesting game. Mizzou plays Minn ...a team we play a couple of weeks later. It is interesting not only because Mizzou and SLU may have a common opponent in Minn but the Bills and Tigers have both played SEMO. The computer thinks that The Bills could beat Mizzou at the Fetz today. It will test this theory on Nov 12 and again Nov 28th (Minn). Depending on what happens, it may answer the question as to why Mizzou won't play us. This all will change once we become Q1. The computer also thinks we have the potential to be a Q1 team this year.

I agree with your post. The key phrase is "in some ways". The add on is ...in other ways he does care about the score. Since my preseason forecast, I have hammered away at the importance of winning big. The reason for this is because we have a weak schedule. If you believe in the NET (and the NCAA does) AND you understand it, then you realize that scoring margin is an important component. Simply put ...when you are playing teams where you have a 99% chance to win then the only measuring stick is by how much. Lindenwood, our next opponent and a team that has no hope of post season play, just beat St. Louis Pharmacy by 65 points. They were focused all the way to the end in a game that didn't matter. We need to be focused all the way to the end in a game that does matter. The last 7 min of the Lindenwood game will look a lot different than the last 7 min of the Chi St game.

You suspect right. Overall the Bills are about the same...still B+. But no mercy from the computer. The computer was annoyed after the game. It dropped the Bills NET equivalent numbers about 6%. Again , no major damage BUT guess who else was annoyed about how the game ended and showed no mercy. Coach Schertz. His post game interview was delayed as he "spoke" to the team. Unlike other games where he meets and greets after the game...He was first one into the locker room. He stated that he was upset with how the game ended. We went from a 36pt lead to a 22pt lead in the final 7:44 minutes and he said this was unacceptable. Finally, he mentioned he would make the team watch the final 7:44 min ...frame by frame. His thoughts were, we stopped playing/ letup at the end of the game. Further, had we played it out in in a decent fashion we could have won by 40. He does not want the team to take its foot off the gas pedal. This is not Schertz ball and he let the team know it. If we can win by 50 we should do it. It is almost like he has been reading my stuff on how to beat the NET...by using the scoring margin. But he is a smart guy and has already figured it out. So what does all that mean? It means poor old Lindenwood will run into a buzz saw on Monday...an unrelenting one. Here is what I consider the key part of the game ...the best and the worst all rolled up into one. At the 13:33 mark of the 2nd half we led by 8. We just couldn't seem to break away up to that point. Chi St just kept hanging around AND THEN we exploded into a fun run which turned the game into a 95-59 lead. AND THEN we letup and went from 36pt lead to a final lead of 22pts. Here is what I noticed about the 2 runs...In the good run there were no TOs. In the bad run there were 6. In the first half when we couldn't break free we had 8 TOs. Turnovers are the Achilles heel of this team. In the first 2 games we have had 16 and 15 TOs...way too many. But it hasn't mattered because these teams were weak and we could roll over them. But if we don't fix this issue , it will come back to bite us. It is early and that is what the beginning of the season is about...fixing things. Take care of the ball. This game tough was not all about fire and brimstone. There were a lot of good things that happened too. Let's take a look. Let's start with the Bills slash...53.2 / 70 / 37.5 / 90.9 which translates to... A+ / A+ / A / A++. In addition, those numbers add up to 181.6...without the 2P shooting (it is redundant ). Majerus always use to say that any player or team that could do 180+ was a winning player or team and one he wanted to coach. Btw, that FT mark was no small feat. That was 30-33. A refreshing change from early years where we struggled at the charity stripe. Also let's look at Chi St....39.4/ 42.5 / 31.6 / 80......F- / F- / D- / A+. So the shooting defense was decent. Shooting defense was not why we didn't make the spread. Think TOs. Bills Min played ...Top 5 players averaged 21-25 min...a big difference from last year's upper 30s for the top 5. Bills FTs...6 players with no misses....21-21...100%...nice Bills Bench pts 58 pts..a strong bench. 108 pts ...2nd highest scoring total at Chaifetz.....Highest for a D1 game. Bottom line...We are still going through some growing pains but we are progressing over the bumps. Even after scoring 200 pts in 2 games, this team still has a lot of upside potential. On to Lwood.

I see there has been a sub discussion in this thread on 3P shooting and the reasons it may have been off. ....End of the game shots by players who hadn't played much...game was decided near the end...great SEMO arc defense...some key players had off nights...jitters... etc. Let me throw out another possibility. The Schertz system... Outside -inside ...If you look at a shot distribution chart of a game , you will see almost all the shots outside the arc or under the basket. If the opponent comes out to defend the arc ...you go inside. If the opponent goes inside...you shoot outside. With a 63% 2P shooting stat one could argue there was no reason to shoot 3s. Three point math says the arc shots are worth 1.5 times 2 P shots. In order to equal our 2P shooting, we would have had to shoot 42% from the arc. So the 2s more than made up for the lower 3P%. One of the reason the 2P shots were working was that SEMO was out at the arc defending. The Schertz System...a method to the madness. Keep it up.

Yes ...81%...A+

I think you are correct...The 3P numbers were good most of the game and faded at the end when we had a big lead. The real concern, I have at this point is the TOs. But I think these will get better too as we settle down and the team learns to play together.