Old guy

I was hoping to start the crushing from the very first game we played this year.

If any of you have been in the military, you are aware that the best made plans can be undone shortly after their start and can lead to a catastrophe. The only way plans work roughly as they were planned is by adaptation and improvisation patching the errors made. It is important not to leave any favorable circumstances un used. You just must use every advantage that presents itself. This applies to basketball as well, you cannot watch as a msjor lead disappears at the end of a game. The opposition, whoever they may be will see any rigid pattern a team uses and take as much advantage as they can out of it. It is not a good thing to watch a large lead disappear in the last 3-4 minutes of a game. The opposition will use the final 3-4 minutes to gain as much as they can from us. I agree that PR and opinion are important factors to gain at large slots to the Dance. Yes we must keep on winning, that is required, but we must develop this aura of not only winning but winning by significant margins over the spread. We must develop a reputation of a team that not only wins but crunches the opposing teams. I think this is most important to get an at large sport at the dancee.

There are multiple ways to deal with this issue. One of them is go release the bench to play at t he end of a game. This option is OK when we are ahead. The drawback with this option is that we give the opponent the opportunity to make a lot of points while we cannot stop them effectively. Of course, the bench group gains experience that may be necessary later on in the season, however we miss an early advance in the rankings that may make it possible for SLU to get an at large invitation to the dance if we do not win the A10 tournament. I cannot really criticize Schertz for taking this approach.

The win against Grand Canyon was well fought by us and they were thoroughly defeated when Schertz broulght out our bench to play the last 3-4 minutes of he game, In that time Grand Canyon made 11 pts to SLU 0. We did win and went over the spread 4 points. Instead of going 15 over the spread or more as it would have been if we have left the prior players in. Team Rankings raised our overall ranking by only 4 slots, to 59 overall. If we have kept the prior players in we would have advanced higher in the ranking than we did.

Does anyone know what kind of injury Thames suffered during the game? He looked like he might have a facial or head injury. Any information available?

We won against Grand Canyon by 14 pts. The spread as per Team Rankings was 8 pts so our win was 6 pts over the spread. This is an interesting situation because we won over the spread, a low spread, but also neither one of the two teams reached the expected score. I think Team Rankins will up our level in the overall rankings but I have no idea if we will go up in the rankings by very few points. I know that based upon the prior 3 games it appears that Schertz has this habits to withdraw the regular players from the game in the last 3 minute or so. This invariably results in a reduction of any advantage in points obtained before the time of this change. I do not know what Schertz goal is for doing this substitution. We played a good, aggressive game and before reaching the time to bring our bench into the game with an advantage close to 30 pts before the substitution. From my point of view this is not a good thing to do. This is my opinion, you are free to disagree.

Team rankings spread is 7.5 pts favoring SLU with 3 stars of conviction. So far all 3 estimates of the spread are between 5 and 8.5 pts in favor of St. Louis. The estimates are close to one another meaning that Grand Canyon has a fair probability to beat us. This should be an interesting game. We are planning to be at the Chaifetz for the game. From a positive point of view SLU is ahead of Grand Canyon by 5 out of 8 Offensive stats, and 5 out of 7 defensive stats, this means that Grand Canyon will have to really try hard to win this game. Go Bills!

OK, however, keep in mind that once taxation of specific streams of income is established involving a few Universities, it will be expanded to every other School in time. It is simple, the US is going down the tubes because it cannot pay its debt. They need to raise the taxes, some estimates say by 30% to stay solvent. What do you think will be the preferred method used? Increasing the taxes of all voters, or extend taxes to tax exempt companies, schools, churches, etc.. Think of it Correct, money is king.

Not entirely, the current issue of the Harvard magazine boasts their lower court wins against the administration but reveals that research grants have been reduced and that they are currently paying significant taxes for at least part of their income. The interesting thing is that all the court decisions up to date are going to higher court levels where they will probably be changed. So Harvard is not currently a totally non profit enterprise as per this information, and it is not known how the current status will change at higher court levels. Of course, this does not affect their endowment which is very large. I think that the tax status of Colleges and Universities is likely to change. Their income, at least in some cases, is too large to be allowed to stay tax free.

@SluSignGuy Hello I was thinking that you might want to add Team Rankings to the list of useful siter. This is not strictly a ranking site, it is a large Sports betting company covering the whole spectrum of sports and providing accurate statistics, spreads, and performance stats for all sports.. You can get the majority of the useful information for free. Betting advise will require membership and will cost some money. I find their stats both good and very informative.

I think we are doing very well so far. I hope we get to see Warlick playing with the team soon.

@The Wiz Thank you very much for your review of Bill's records back to the very beginning, even older than my age. Now I want to do something similar but encompassing a smaller time frame, simply the 3 games we have played all of which we won. In the first game against SEMO we won by 25 pts, 6.5 points over the spread. Prior to this first game of the season we were ranked 81 by Team Rankings. VCU, Dayton, and GW were ranked higher than SLU. After this game SLU's ranking went up to 75, a gain of 6 levels. After this game we were ranked above GW. The second game against Chi State we won by 20 points, 9 points below the spread. Even though we won this game below the spread we won with a score of 108, which is very high. Our ranking in the Team Rankings system went up to 73, a very low 2 level gain. Our ranking level remained below VCU and Dayton and above GW. The third game against Lindenwood we won by 43 points, 18 points over the spread. We won by 109 pts, the second win over 100 in a row. In the Team Rankings system we went up to 62, a gain of 11 levels. After this gain VCU was still ranked above us but we had gone over Dayton's, to the second highest overall ranking in A10. It appears undeniable that winning by beating the other team over the spread, results in a larger movement up in ranking that winning below the spread. I thought this was interesting enough to post here.

I was thinking that since I started following the Bills seriously, during the Majerus final years that the team has been much more tuned to defense than to offense. This was the way it stayed until Schertz came in as a HC. I think we are becoming primarily an aggressive team with an emphasis on offensive. I am glad to see this change and the improvements are becoming visible as we play more games this year. Looking forward to an exciting year. Go Bills!

Nice win, we had 109 pts vs Lindenwood 66. Well over the spread and well over 100. PLUS 2 consecutive games won with a score over 100. Schertz continued sending the second squad in at the end as he has done before. Chi State used this time to get a decent score, but Lindenwood could not do this. Well done, I expect SLU to go up the rankings more substantially that in the prior game. So far so good. We are doing fine. Go Bills!

Loved Blues Brothers, particularly Belushi's character. Unfortunately the a--hole offed himself by overdose in a few years. Team Rankings has us winning by 24, with 5 stars of confidence.