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'Twas the night before Christmas when all through the Fetz Not a creature was stirring, not even a Metz The banners were hung from the rafters with care, In hopes that The Wiz would soon be there; The fans were nestled all snug in their seats; With visions of Bills wins, while they munched on their treats. And Mama in her 'kerchief, and I in my Bills cap Had just settled in for a win streak without a gap- When on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my seat to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow, Gave the luster of mid-day to objects below; When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,, But a basketball team as quick as reindeer, With a little old driver, so lively and all biz, I knew in a moment it must be The Wiz. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled and shouted and called them by name: Now! Gordon, now! Goodwin, now! Bess, oh my lord, On! French, on! Isabell, on! Foreman, and Ford; To the top of Gate A ! To the top of the wall ! " Now dash away ! Dash away ! Dash away all !" As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky; So up to the arena top the coursers they flew, With a bus load of stats and The Wiz too: And then in a twinkling I heard on the floor The bouncing of b-balls making baskets galore. As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down Section 103 The Wiz came with a bound: He was dressed all in Bills gear, from his head to his toe, And his clothes were all blue, he was ready to go; A bundle of spreads was flung on his back, And he look'd like a peddler just opening his pack: His eyes- how they twinkled ! His dimples: how merry, His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry; His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow; The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath. He had a broad face, and a little round belly That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly: He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, And I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself; A wink of his eye and a twist of his head Soon gave me to know that The Wiz had a spread. He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And calculated point spreads, ; then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose And giving a nod, up the concourse he rose. He sprang in the Chaifetz , to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle: But I heard him exclaim, ere he shouted out clear-- Happy Christmas to all, it will be better next year. To all that follow the Billiken Biz Merry Christmas to all , best wishes from The Wiz

the basis for my screen name, nextyearbill......

Festivus was yesterday

Here's the NCAA NET rankings as of 12/23. The NCAA has said this will be a metric in their tourney selection. VCU 54 SLU 72 Dayton 76 Rhody 103 Davidson 105 St Joe 115 The rest really don't matter. With VCU moving up to 54, an A10 At-Large may still be possible. SLU didn't take a huge hit (from 61) after the FSU loss. Likely we will loose more ground beating LaSalle than we did loosing to FSU.

Man f u c k off

Last one for the year and OOC. We stay at grade B...over the last 6 games a B team would go 3-3 on our schedule....we are doing what a B team does. We need to get to at least B+ to have a chance at the Dance (33%) which the computer says we can do. We can do even better if we become consistent. How will you know we are becoming consistent? If we start to meet or exceed the spreads at least 3 games in a row. First let's do the simple 3 game analysis where we have a common foe. In this case it is NCC....we both beat NCC at home by 9...so theoretically this game should be even. But the computer didn't like that idea because we only played 1 half during the NCC game. So we will go with the 12pts. Let's look at the report card and see what we are dealing with here.... ................................SLU..............................App.............................................SLU.............................App ..................................................OFF......................................................................................DEF............... PPG.........................F....................................A+.....12th ITN............................A-..................................F+ FG%..........................D-..................................B+.................................................B.................................D 3P%..........................D..................................B+..................................................B+................................C-... FT%...........................F-....4th worst ITN......C......................................................................................... Reb............................B+................................B..................................................B-...................................D- Top 100 ITN Stls....Goodwin....21st Blks...Gordon.......74th PPG....Shabazz....42nd ...20.2 pts Reb......I Johnson...48th We went down in all categories... Off & Def... except rebounding where we stayed the same...and we did climb from 3rd worst to 4th worst in FT shooting...yes, that's an improvement. So on the surface it looks like we are dealing with a high power scoring machine....well, yes and no....They are averaging over 85pts /gm (FSU was ave 81)....but when you look at the good teams they have played ... B- or better (Gtown, Purdue, AL, Wich St} ...they only score 73.and they lost all those games. Look at the right side of the report card you can see why...No defense. We don't need to have a great game to win but we should use this game as a tune up to get ready for a tough RI team. We need to play above the competition for this game. WWN2D2W...Stop Shabazz and Forrest....hold them to 15 and 12pts. Keep I Johnson rebs to 6.....slash 44/48/33/ 70...Keep TOs down to 14 or less. Out rebound them by at least 5 Bottom line....What would happen if the Bills played a team that loved to play offense...and was going to try and beat us by out scoring us....even if it meant skipping the defense. That is what we may see. App St won't score 85pts against us...hopefully we keep them under 70. Will we score against them if they leave us alone?....We should...A good slash and we can blow them out.

Merry Chirstmas everyone.

I don’t want Gordon shooting 3’s. The last one he took was an air ball. The kid has great moves in the post. Keep him there.

Agreed, the other thing is the give Goodwin "back the keys" thing. If you listen to Ford, that was not the case with Goodwin last year. It was Roby running things most of the time.

Oh yeah. NCAA will factor in Quad 1/2 wins to snub mid majors. Last year St. Mary's 28-5 team with an RPI of 40/KenPom of 28 was left out, as was 23-7 Middle TN with 33/52. And who can ever forget Missouri State being left out in 2006 with an RPI of 26. Still, I'm targeting mid 40's in the NET as bubble city. If a mid-m is above that, just plan on the NIT. I sure wish we could trade our second game with LaSalle out for a rematch with Davidson or VCU, a la what CUSA is doing. LaSalle is sitting at 314 and GW at 302. Three games against 300+ teams will kill our NET.

main reason the 2 sops have a few less minutes this year is they have a much stronger supporting cast. 6-8th player is not a complete drop-off as it was last year.

Totally agree. Good post. Glad to see you are coming around. The problem with your sarcasm is that currently the acc has 11 teams 90 or better and 7 teams under 40. They will get more than 5 teams. Likely at least these 7 teams will be in if they maintain their sub 40 rankings. The big 10 has 12 teams under 90 and 9 teams at 40 or lower. Likely these 9 teams will also get spots. Too bad the A10 has zero top 40 teams.

Once again all this optimism is just like it was preseason with all the undefeated non conf record people and/or only one or possibly 2 losses. This team has not shown the ability to be consistent enough for anybody to think we will go undefeated in the conf. Can they - sure but a lot of things have to change. Improve the TO per game numbers, shoot better FT %s, and develop a better perimeter game - just enough to keep people honest and open the lane for our bigs not just at the end of the game when it is too little too late. Can we do all this - possibly but from what we have seen so far this is not a gimme by any means.

Also, if I'm Hankton and I'm one foot behind Mann, as he goes up for the dunk with 15 seconds left, I knock the sh¡t out of him and swat that ball down his throat.

Bootleg stream if anyone needs it: http://wiz1.net/channel28

Looks like no brace on the shoulder.

33 and 8 for Yuri

Thought I'd post this before heading out for dinner this evening. Yuri's back so of course St. Mary's pulls an upset against a good squad from Pennsylvania.

THey aren't even NIT material.

The fact that Graves, Henriquez and Bishop aren't at SLU is their fault and no one else's. They made an extremely poor decision and paid the appropriate price.

Possible I guess. Wouldn't think likely. So SLU suspended two of the players and expelled one of them and paid them off at the same time? Then said players left? Why bother with the lengthy Title IX process then? If SLU knew they were wrong just end the investigation. Possible not likely. So SLU admits they were wrong to the players by paying them off but wants people to think they were right? Again, possible not likely. I wouldn't think SLU would be THAT eager to part with their money. Players Attorney: We are going to sue the school. SLU Attorney: Don't do it we will write your client a check. I don't believe it was that easy at all. Keep thinking that though.

Or they received legal advice they didn't have a chance in the case. Why suspend or expel and then pay off?

Isn't it interesting all three left because of a Title IX investigation. If they were truly wronged, wouldn't they sue the school? Many said on this site that lawsuits would be forthcoming, where are they if they are truly innocent of no wrongdoing and they left school for no reason?