Old guy

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.

If you want to get to probabilities of going to the NCAAT, this is what Team Rankings system is saying at this time: VCU 70.2% ranking 43 SLU 40.4% ranking 45 Dayton 40.3% ranking 69 It is easy to see that ranking has no direct relationship with probability to go to NCAAT. TR ranking for GW is 57, probability to go to NCAAT is 31.6%. These are TR's estimates which are not, and should not be expected to be, equal to the Wiz's system or any other system's results. We will find out in time, and of course, we will have to be able to beat VCU and Dayton in our way to NCAAT, which has yet to be seen.

@The Wiz Very interesting stuff. I think assuming that we keep on progressing and improving the way we have so far, that we have only two teams in A10 that will be very difficult for us to beat, Dayton and VCU. We will see. SLU currently rank 45 by TR VCU has, so far has won 5 games (Wagner, St. Peters, Coppin St, S Florida, and VA Tech), and lost 3 games (Utah St., NC St., and Vanderbilt). VCU is currently rank 43 by TR. Dayton has, so far won 7 games (Canisius, UMBC, Bethune, Marquette, NC Central, Georgetown, and E Tennessee St), and lost 2 games (Cincinnati, and BYU) Dayton currently rank 69 by TR. Honestly I think that what really counts is the ability to win games way above the spread in the OOC. I think we are doing well. I also think that our most difficult opponents during conference play will be VCU and Dayton. Until we show we can beat them, I think it may be a bit premature to talk about the Dance.

@cgeldmacher You know, there are things we can do and there are things we have absolutely no control over. We really can improve the way we play and our position within the league and within D1. However, we have no control over the way other schools in A10 play. If the A10 is among the leagues fated to get screwed by the Committee, then that is the way it will be and we can do nothing about it. If that is the case, then at least we should feel proud about the way we played this season, I think we will.

After last night's victory over LMU Team Rankings has SLU at an overall 46 ranking, close to VCU at 43, and over Dayton at 71. This is very good for SLU. If we keep this ranking we may get enough attention to get an at large spot at the Dance.

Let's not get taken over by sweet 16 dreams. I watched the game between Dayton and BYU and Dayton will be a very hard team to beat. I have yet to see VCU play, but it will also it also will probably be a very tough opponent. Anyway you look at it, I cannot see A10 getting more than 2 slots at the Dance. We need to have enough steam to run the race and end #2 in A10 to have a chance for an at large invite to the Dance. I personally think we can do it this year, but I also think it is to early to feel the glow of certainty.

We won by 21 points, over the spread by about 14 points. We did crunch them, this was a game we were supposed to win by a lot less. Well done guys. Go Bills, do it again the next game.

Looking good in the first half, doing better than we all expected. Assuming this level of play continues we will crunch them. Go Bills!

From my point of view, that is just not correct. When you have different systems basing their decisions on different sources of information and coming very close in their spread calculations, you have a high probability that what they say is correct. What you need to do is to learn how to interpret what they are saying. In this case, as I mentioned before, anyone can win but SLU is likely to have some advantage. What you cannot do with predictive systems is to take what they say as invariably correct. Ken Pom is not better than the Wiz or Team Rankings. If you like Ken Pom better than the others then use it, but know how to interpret what they say by comparing it to other systems. By the way, as the season progresses the differences between the systems' predictions will become narrower.

Cowboy, every single predictive system for sports produces different estimated spreads before a game. The Wiz's system has this game spread at 5, Team Rankings has this game's spread at 6. Ken Pom (which I do not use) is, of course different. Team Rankings provides 8 stats on offensive (SLU is higher than LM in 7) and 7 stats on defense (SLU is higher than LM in 4). Therefore, according to Team Rankings SLU is preferred to win. However, as per Team Rankings the level of confidence for a win by SLU is 3 stars out of 5. What all of this means is that SLU will have to play a good game and use all its advantages to win this one. This is exactly what the 2 pt spread by the Wiz's and Team Rankings' systems are saying: ANYONE CAN WIN THIS GAME, although SLU has some degree of advantage to win it. You cannot one system for sports predictions to any other system directly. Low spreads mean this game is not likely to be a cake walk.