Old guy

@SLU_Lax The last time I was at the Chaifetz this year, I noticed a really sparse amount of security and other arena personnel present. I wonder if the very limited number of arena personnel would be adequate to manage an emergency evacuation of the spectators, should such a need happened. So, we may add understaffed to untrained and lacking a plan of action to the negatives revealed by this event. I hope they are reading this message board.

As per Team Rankings, after the game last night they lowered our ranking from 37 to 39. San Francisco's ranking was lowered also from 96 to 99. I am posting this for the record, I am very glad our ranking remain the highest in A10 and that we remain in the 30's in overall ranking. k

The second half was much better for SLU than the first half. Good game, fast moving. Now according to Team Rankings the spread was 12.5 in favor of SLU. We won by 10 so we did not make the spread.

I do not gamble.

Tough game, we ended the half up by one point. I think we can win it, not sure about making the spread in this game. Go Bills!

Ready to go, let's go and do our thing. Go Bills!

Finally got the numbers from team Rankings for game against SF. Team Rankings spread is 9 pts in SLU's favor. This spread comes with a 4 star level of confidence. I am not saying it will be an easy game, but I am glad to see the similar spread to the Wiz's and the high level of confidence in our favor. Gp Bills!

If you look at what is going on in finances and the markets, you would understand that the problem all businesses are facing reflects the loss of purchase power of the USD. Go to the supermarket and read the labels of bagged products. Many companies are downsizing the amount of food peer bag while keeping roughly the same price. Droves of people are shopping at Aldi's or Trader Joe's instead of Dierbergs because these stores, despite their limited inventory, sell good quality goods a lot cheaper. Food service is in trouble. Chains like Arby's, Wendy's, and Red Lobster, are not having the level of sales they used to have and are closing stores. The same is true for lots of other businesses. AI is being used everywhere to eliminate jobs with automation. The same kind of thing applies to food service at the Chaifetz, they have less open food service places during games, and the walking beer sellers have been eliminated. You can expect the quality of the food served as well as portion sizes have decreased as well.

For reasons I do not understand today SLU ranks 37 and VCU went down to 44 in the Team Rankings system.. San Francisco is 96 (4th in WCC) as of today. Again, as useless as overall ranking may be for predicting outcomes, it is a feel good number that helps us gain visibility. We will see what happens Saturday. Go Bills!

After we defeated CMU Team Rankings had SLU at 39 in overall ranking and VCU at 38. We are not playing until Saturday but VCU played today against New Mexico and lost (their 4th loss in the OOC this season). After VCU's loss today Team Rankings shuffled our rankings with VCU. Currently Team Rankings has SLU at 36 and VCU at 37. I know the rankings posted by any service do not determine future outcomes, but it just makes me feel good to be considered the highest ranking team in A10, over VCU and Dayton. Go Bills!

@The Wiz I have rather simple expectations for this game. I think SF will try hard to slow us down to the level they like to play, and SLU in the other hand will try to speed the tempo up to a level SF cannot handle. I think SLU has a very good chance to dominate this game and blow SF's game plan. Just my opinion, feel free to disagrree.

I hate to tell you this but only a small % of the number crunching academic nerds are interested in finding ways of gaming the NCAA systems. They are interested getting grants in a landscape that is making it much harder to get new grants or renew old ones. Their lives and academic progress is determined by how well they do in this regard. And the nerdier they are the less interest they have in sports. Harvard teams may wind winning championship games and return hope to Boston to find very few people, if anyone is there, ready to welcome them back at the airport.

@The Wiz Hello Wiz, you know I follow Team Rankings. Last night SLU went to the game with a ranking of 44, VCU was at a ranking of 39. We had a very good, very aggressive game against Central Michigan which we dominated. This morning our ranking has improved to 39, VCU is at 38. I really think that numerical ranking is not necessarily determined by someone above us losing and opening up a spot at a higher level. I think that some systems rank based upon how severely the winning team beat the losing team. How badly did we beat Central Michigan (pretty bad I would think) last night appears to be a reason to climb in going up in their rankings as far as they are concerned. I also think that as far as the TV producers are concerned, what they are looking for is fast moving games and for teams that are capable of crunching their opponents in a regular basis. If this is indeed the case (I am guessing it is) we are building a case to be considered for an at large spot in the NAACT. After all, we have only lost one game so far and that loss was caused by a lucky 3 point score at the very last seconds of the game. They beat us by a single point, not shabby at all. If we manage to beat VCU and Dayton, in at least one of the two games we play against each one of them during conference play, we may be considered by the Selection Committee (with the TV producers advice) in the expectation that we will play fast paced, aggressive games. Take a look for example at the game Georgetown (Big East) played against NC yesterday. Walking the ball across the court, following by bouncing the ball around the perimeter, followed by failed attempts to hit 3 pointers is NOT what you need to produce excitement, it is an recipe for boredom and getting viewers to fall asleep. SLU, on the other side is playing fast paced games that grab and keep viewer attention. I believe the TV guys are looking exactly for that kind of team to invite to one of the at large spot in the Dance (my opinion not supported by data). I will not be surprised if we wind up the OOC part of the season ahead of VCU in the Team Rankings ranking scale. Please remember that Team Rankings is a successful, large company that sells subscriptions to provide betting advice in most sports. This is how they make their money and they have us just one point below VCU in overall ranking. Whatever it is they look for we have it, at least so far. Take for example our coming game against principia college, we are expected to win, no secret about this. If we win the game by a few points, we will probably gain little or even lose in our overall ranking. However if we win by a huge margin it may make a positive difference on our TR ranking. This is a long explanation describing the reason I feel increasingly positive about the Bills this season. I really do not remember the Bills ranking in the 30s overall. Go Bills!

Very nice game, we kept CM below their expected score, and went a good deal over our expected score. Beat the spread by a good margin. Very nicely done. I am starting to think we can indeed beat VCU and Dayton. Very nice game we will see tomorrow how much our ranking improved. As far as stats go, we beat them in almost all categories and limited our TOs to 4. Very nice.

And we will see the results of his method in due time. I think we will be happy with Schertz's methods.