Leaderboard

8-1 is a great start, and a top 4 finish in the A-10 seems possible and not far-fetched. If the Bills can somehow end up at 10-2 OOC, and 11-5 in conference, it's quite likely that an NCAA bid could come our way. There's a lot of season left to play, but it's possible. Imagine what that would do for our program. First, to finish top 4 it will mean some great victories and some very hyped games at Chaifetz. Fans will sprout up, and the bandwagon will need an extension. Second, it will pave the way for next year. There's a lot of left before we can talk about a 2020-21 roster, but what we know so far is that Jacobs and Collins are taking PT away from our one senior, Weaver. So of the 9 or 10 guys that play, we'll be losing our 9th or 10th man Imagine the hype going into next season if the Bills return their top 8 from a tourney team? Consensus 1st place in the A-10? Possible pre-season top 25? Preseason POY for Goodwin or French? And imagine how Ford will be able to leverage that on the recruiting trail? The present tastes great, but the future smells fantastic. We could be moving into a golden era of Billiken hoops!

With Duq finally playing its 8th game (last team in the A-10 to reach 8 ) this gives me enough data to make another forecast. In addition , I have included 2 other report cards. The 1st column , is the overall grade and can vary by 2 notches. For example, SLU with a grade of B ( 67% chance to make the NIT) can vary from A- (NCAA bid ) to C+ ( no bids ) by the end of the season. At the end of the OOC schedule ....I will forecast again ....this time the variance will only be 1 notch. Column 2 is the trending column. ...with most recent games weighted heavier than earlier games....shows how teams are doing now....good info on new, young, developing teams who may be growing as the season progresses....Finally , column 3 is the SOS....It is valuable at this point of the season because it shows how valid the overall grade is. For instance, Dayton's A looks pretty solid when coupled with its B SOS. While Duq's B+ is a bit suspect when coupled with it's F SOS....Doesn't mean they aren't a good team...just means , I need more data to verify....By the end of OOC there will be enough data to make a determination. .................................Overall......................Trending..................................................SOS.....................................................Curr record Day..............................A..................................A+.......................................................B...............NCAA....................................7-1 VCU..............................A-................................B+.......................................................D+............NCAA......................................7-2 Duq..............................B+...............................B+........................................................F..............NIT............................................8-0 Rich.............................B+................................A-.........................................................D+...........NIT...........................................8-1 SLU..............................B..................................A-.........................................................D..............67% NIT...................................8-1 Dav..............................B...................................B-........................................................A-..............67% NIT..................................4-5 RI..................................B................................B+..........................................................B+..............67% NIT.................................6-3 LaS...............................B-................................B...........................................................B+.............................................................5-3 GM...............................C+................................B+..........................................................F+...........................................................10-1 St. B.............................C+.................................B............................................................D+............................................................5-4 UMass.........................C...................................D+..........................................................C...............................................................5-5 Ford.............................D+.................................C-............................................................F-....easiest sched ITN...........................5-3 St. J.............................D+..................................F+.............................................................B.............................................................2-8 GW...............................D.....................................C.............................................................F..............................................................5-5 At least 10 of the 14 teams have a chance to make post season play (min C+ now ). In the B category....The Bills , Dav and RI ...2 teams should make it to NIT. I will do this again in 3 weeks ...by then, there will be a lot more data and things will be much clearer at that time. but in the meantime this is where we are now.....still in the promising phase.

Couple of the current billikens could maybe be walkons for the Jayhawks even.

Playing Auburn is win win. When we pull the upset it’s a big win and a resume builder. If for some reason the Bills lose they will be credited with the win 5 years from now when Pearl and Auburn forfeit wins for cheating.

For sure. There is also something to be said about a guy playing to his strengths / knowing his limitations and not jacking up a bunch of 3s. Tommie didn't take a ton of 3s, but he generally made the ones he did take count. I think early on we've seen that Yuri Collins is an example of that type of player. He's shooting over 60% from 3 on just 8 attempts. Despite the %, Yuri knows he's not a long range gunner ala Jimerson, so he's going to continue to pick his spots to shoot open 3s if they're available. I'm sure his % will come down from 60%, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Yuri keep it higher than expected just because he's not taking any bad ones.

i disagree with your thinking. if anything we have to shorten the bench AND hope for no fouls. there is a reason players are 9th, 10th, 11th man on the bench. they arent as good. there is a reason french and goodwin play 35 minutes even though we have a bench full of players. they are far and away our best players. even with fatigue, the likes of our main players are still significantly better options than some of the guys further down the bench. the day every player is only playing 20 minutes or less is the day coach ford agrees with your thinking.

Interesting to see Seton Hall's win over Saint Louis as the 2nd best non conference win per KPI rankings. https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2019-12-11/parity-no-1-and-new-3-point-line-have-dominated-early-season?amp&__twitter_impression=true

The Bills over Liberty ( B ) by 1 on a neutral court San D St ( A ) over The Bills by 8 on a neutral court... Duq ( B+ ) over The Bills by 3 at Duq on Jan 2 And of course , I have already posted Aub The OSU over The Bills by 14 on a neutral court.

Sign him up!

Auburn is going to be a very similar game to what we say inBonner’s jr and sr years against Xavier. Xavier had Tyrone Hill and Derek Strong as pfs, plus a 6’7” backup, and they also had a smaller guard who played in the NBA as well. We had Bonner battling in the paint, but little else for bigs. We would get our teeth kicked in if Luechtefeld and Duff were cold from 3, be close if they hit 30%, and barely win if they were hot from 3. This game is the reason Bell has gotten development time in games. It will be his time to hold his own defensively. If he doesn’t come to play hard for 15 minutes, we are going to get shaken hard by a pit bull. We cannot shoot our way to a win in an offensive slugfest - 60% from 3 will only keep us even with their prolific 2 pt game. Like the Wiz said, keep the score low, limit their Off boards and our turnovers, and we can be close.

J.J. Culver, an NAIA player from Wayland Baptist went for 100 last night in a 124-60 victory over SW Adventist. Looks like a legit 100, not the Grinnell type 100. He was 12-33 from three, 20-27 from the line, and 22-29 on 2pt. FGs. His coach said he got off to a hot start so his players kept setting him up. Turns out his younger brother, Jarrett, played in the Final Four for Texas Tech and is an NBA rookie with the T-Wolves.

Given some of the dry spells we've gone through. I'd take a 69 any time of year.

I actually like the fact that Pearl did this. Don’t exactly remember the circumstances but Illinois was offering Deon Thomas a Ford Bronco. Pearl taped a conversation and reported it to the NCAA. Something like this. Pearl took heat for being a snitch. His recruiting violations at Auburn were nothing compared to the Pitino’s of the world.

Yeah like I said, I didn't mean that as an argument or disagreement with what you guys were saying. I totally see where you're coming from. I only wanted to say that Tommie deserves a lot of credit for his shooting, and is probably underrated by Billikens fans in terms of his accuracy. 37% for his career (on 291 attempts) is pretty impressive for a guy who at one point seemed incapable of making a three,

1976 Indiana basketball doesn't agree.

Hmmm....There is no preseason SOS because no games have been played. And you really can't freeze a team (s) in time and then project what things will be. It would be like freezing your life now and wanting to know what it would be like in April 2020 . Can't do it because you are part of it. We are headed to a quantum physics / Twilight Zone/ It's A Wonderful Life movie mashup. Sorry, not trying to be difficult, just trying to explain why it can't be done....SOS is a fleeting stat that is good only for that moment in time...since I wrote the post yesterday , the SOS has already changed. But what I can do is show you some year end SOS when the stat does become frozen and meaningful at that time....I think it will also answer some of your questions ...if not fully than partially.....if not, it should be interesting reading for Bills fans..... Year End.................A-10.........Bills SOS............W-L.............SLU overall grade 2012.......................A-................B+.....................25-8..................A+ 2013.......................B+...............B+.....................28-7..................A 2014.......................A-.................B.......................26-7..................A 2015.......................B+................B-.....................10-21.................D 2016.......................B+................B......................11-21.................D 2017.......................B..................B.......................12-21.................D 2018.......................B-.................B........................16-16................C+ 2019.......................B-.................B........................23-13.................B- 2020 (9-10 gms)....B..................D..........................8-1...................B So Clock, while I can't do the calculations you want , I think this shows you with a pretty good degree of certainty that at the end of the season we will be at a grade of B on SOS...and if we want to do a little Back to the Future... next year's SOS will be around a B also. Hope this clarifies things a bit.

6 undefeated teams left: Ohio State, Auburn, San Diego St, Liberty, Duquesne, and Butler butler currently losing to Baylor. We might have a chance to ruin both Auburn and Duquesne’s undefeated seasons

He was talking about DePaul

Dec 10 edition of Tuesday's with Travis https://www.scoopswithdannymac.com/billikens-basketball-update-with-travis-ford-december-10-2019/ Not a lot of new information on last weeks game, if you listened to his Tulane post game interview and/or read the PD article on the game. Interesting, when Danny Mac asked if when recruiting they say "you can be as good as XYZ.." Coach said of course, and they usually pick an NBA player. They used JJ Reddick as a player Jimerson could be like. For Hasahn French, Keneth Faried and Draymont Green are two they ask Hashan to look at and model what he does. As he stated Sunday, it's finals week, plus the players are catching up on classwork they may have missed. Coaches are doing a lot of local recruiting. Ford is going to a couple of local games tonight. (He again said this is the first time in his career he can catch multiple games in one night, due to the talent in STL.) He said they get great local crowds here, saying there are very few places in the country that supports HS ball as they do here. They aren't getting a lot done on the court this week. Practice schedules are fluid. His Mom and Dad try to make every home game. They are 2.5 hours away. Auburn "It doesn't get any tougher". Ranked 12th in AP poll and higher in the RPI. Not many weaknesses. They might be better than last year. They out rebound their opponent by 10 per game. We are a +8. They have four or five future NBA players according to Ford. Nothing said on Thatch or Hankton. Twelve minute interview.

Kind of odd that we're 8-1 and haven't seen aj around lately. Probably still getting over Missouri's loss last week. Poor guy.

Great game yesterday! A lot more SLU fans than I expected. I'd estimate at least 60-70 (if not a few more) fans cheering for SLU. I've posted a few pictures that show the overall crowd size (small) as well as the SLU fans behind the bench. There were a few in the section directly across the court, but you'll see mostly red shirts over there - Dayton fans. (A Dayton guy came up to us outside and said he was rooting for SLU, but only for that one game.) We spoke briefly to Chris May and a little longer to Janet Oberle. My daughter recognized a SLU baseball player who was a year behind her at SLU (I'm assuming it's the one who posted yesterday), but most everyone else was in the "upper middle age" (i.e., "senior") category. I'm no basketball junkie and don't know all the terminology, but my overall takeaway from the game was that SLU is a good team, needs to be a little more aggressive on defense, needs to work on their free throws (as does Tulate!) and shouldn't rely on the 3 point shot so much (although it was very effective on Sunday). It seemed like Tulate could penetrate and get under the basket more than SLU did. But the 3 point shooting was amazing, especially Jimmerson! He was on fire. As was Jacobs. Jimmerson got a long standing O when he came out of the game. French had a great game, too, and took MVP honors Thank you, SLU, for coming to Phoenix. Come back anytime! (And play more than one game!)

Sicq editz brahs

Jim Whitesell with the win

Double paystubs in Salinas KS??

Hate to be the guy again, but Bell does not have the skill to be on the court with a top 10 program like Auburn. We can't afford a slow start. We need to pound them in the beginning like Vtech 2 years ago

Gratuitous and unnecessary.