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Perkins will be fine, a lot of factors added up to what we saw last night. Working his way back to full strength against a Memphis team that was playing defense with the strategy to constantly foul and make the officials decide where they were going to draw the line. Very Shaka/Havoc eque. Memphis is also incredibly athletic and quick, maybe not the best situation for a player who could be lacking explosiveness. This was an important step in his road back. He got knocked around, challenged at the rim and sent to the floor. He learned that his body is still resilient, that every time he lands awkwardly isn't going to send him back to the injured list. If nothing else he re-gained some confidence in his repaired leg.

Want to speed up the offense, drive the lane, and draw fouls? Play Parker. Want to go a little bigger, add a little more energy on defense, and spread the floor a little more (to make space for soul-crushing alley-oops)? Play Hargrove. There's a use for either in any game depending on what the other team is doing. Them splitting 20-25 minutes in different ways seems to be working pretty well so far.

All credit for this one should go to Old Guy, cranking out all that bulletin board material for Yuri, LOL!

Agreed. Parker will be a star by next season. I expect a similar trajectory to what we saw from Perkins with maybe a slightly lower ceiling. Parker is a born scorer and will do so in bulk once he is acclimated to the D1 game.

I see no indication he's transferring. Not sure why that's even coming up, other than the fact we haven't had a non-medical redshirt under Ford yet. He was going to get very short minutes this year and decided to take the season to practice and adjust to the college game. Kramer can shoot, he can defend, and he's physically strong enough to play at this level right now. There are some other things he could work on. This is a kid who fell in love with the place and the culture on his visit and called it early. He's been a vocal leader from the bench. There's no reason to think he sees this as step one to another destination right now.

Give Perk a break. Coming off a blown knee and then an ankle injury can’t be easy. I’d baby him thru all these OC games and get him back to near 100% for the conf tour.

Any thoughts on Yuri? I thought he was ok.

I am in the camp that TJ should play more. Ford has always had a short leash with him. TJ was called for a walk that I thought was very questionable. Out.

The Wrap First and foremost , we won. On a personal note, with 42 sec left in the game and The Bills leading by 2 , fans turned around in our section and held up 2 fingers at me. I was hoping and thought we would win this game by double digits....but I will take the win. Halfway , between double digits and 2 is 6 ...I will take the compromise. On another note...tonight's attendance was 7925 So let's see what happened in this game...bolded phrases are from the original post. Target slash 50/45/ 75....Actual 47/35/ 75...I am going to give this a pass as each of these numbers was within 1 basket of their categories. Another key is depth.... wear them down...stay close till the 4th quarter then try to open up some daylight...start to run.... We actual did this and it worked....at the 3:56 mark near the end, we lead by 14...a series of unfortunate TOs and unwise plays allowed Mem back in with 42 sec left...we bent but didn't break which is a good sign. An early season learning experience which in the end caused no damage. The key to the game...is the 3P shot for Memphis...Both shooting it and defending it ..they have trouble with both. ... Did you wonder why in the final seconds of the game and Mem trailing by 3 that they chose to shoot a 2 instead of a tying 3....It's because they shot 18% (3-17) in the 2nd half. .. Memphis can shoot if we leave them alone...bother them and they will miss.... This was pretty much true. In the Eville game the Aces shot 43% and then in the 2nd half 0%...In tonight's game, the Tigers shot 43% in the 1st half and 18% in the 2nd half...see a pattern? We bothered them in the 2nd half. Lomax, Davis and Williams...hold them to 33pts...Don't foul them ...they are 2nd ITN in FT%....I put these 2 together because they were kind of related...This was a fail...42 pts combined and they made 13-16 FTs...too many FTs and while Mem didn't have a great night at the charity stripe, these 3 shot 81%. Hold Lomax to 6 rebs ...Who ever Lomax is guarding needs to protect the ball...Hold him to 1 steal. ...This was a pass and fail...3 rebs and 3 stls 11 TOs or less for the Bills...This was like the Eville game...In the Eville game lots of TOs in the 1st half..few in the 2nd half...Tonight the Bills had few TOs for most of the game yet a flurry near the end....in both cases, the bunched TOs caused us to squander leads....YET in both games when it was all over we made the target of 11 which is a good number. out rebound them by double digits... this was kind of a fail....We were on target to make this when Okoro and Forrester both got into foul trouble....There was 9 minutes where neither of them were in the game...this allowed Mem to not only close the gap...but outrebound us for the game by 1. Bottom line....Can we win this game?...Most definitely...We have more depth and better shooters. We showed last night( Eville) we can defend... Memphis can not win this game but we could give it to them if we play sloppy or careless....Play 40 minutes of focused bball and we win. Go Bills... I will go with this statement...I would say we played 37 min of focused ball...good enough to win. Summary... How would I summarize the season so far?...inconsistently consistent. We have been up and down ...hot and cold ...YET...at the end of the day we have made many of the targets which has allowed us to win games. We need to smooth out the peaks and valleys ...We need to become consistently consistent.

French

Why would we look at their NBA career when judging what they did in college? Christian Laettner is the best college player Duke has ever had but his pro career looks like crap compared to Jayson Tatum. They are two different games. Collins making or not making the NBA has zero to do with his place as a Billiken great.

here are some highlights...

OG. you can look that up yourself not bothering Wiz with things like that . With all your interest in various ranking and Vegas lines, surely you are familiar with the Top 144 website that will answer your question.

after many many years..... for whatever reason, this was the straw that broke me..... old guy is now on my ignore list.

The difference in his defense just from preseason is a pretty stark improvement

Solid overall game by the team. There were a few times I thought TJ should have been on the floor, like playing him when both Forrester and Okoro got in foul trouble, also when Perkins was on the bench and Fred had to come out with cramps.

A couple of interesting points after the big win last night. Point #1...All 4 teams ( The Bills, Md., Mia and Prov) in this weekend's tourney come in with an A- grade. Things will be very tight. Point #2...Memphis, the morning after the loss, still comes in with a grade of A...better than any of the 4 teams in the tourney. Of course we won't be playing at home but neither will these other teams. Bottom line ....We beat a better team yesterday than either of the upcoming teams we will be playing this weekend and we didn't even play our best game. No reason why we can't win 2 games this weekend. The winner of this tourney will be the team that wants it the most.

yuri shot the ball way too much and those two turnovers, no excuse

Yuri with 22 and 9, only 2 turnovers. I bet OG will be quiet tonight

For all we know Ford asked him to redshirt. There is a lot of guessing and wild accusations going on here. And what if he was going to transfer? I believe coach Ford is a good enough guy that if Kramer wasn't in his 2023 plans he probably would actually help him with his plans.

This is a somewhat long “think-piece”, so it might not be to the taste of those who like to limit ideas to 140 characters. Basketball, especially NCAA Div 1 Basketball, is frequently a game of streaks. We see it all the time: the Bills go on a streak, and suddenly they’re up 10 or 12 or more; then, after cruising for a bit, they lose focus. Nothing goes in. The defense breaks down. A bad pass, then a bad foul, and all of a sudden a big lead is squandered. We’ve seen this pattern of “streaks” in each of the three games this year. We also saw it last year, and just about every year. Of course, last year, there were a number of big games in which a bad streak in the final minutes of the game had the Bills lose a game they probably should have won. Part of what was positive about the Memphis game (Tue Nov 15) was that, although Memphis went on a streak with 4 minutes left in the game, the Bills were able to stem the tide. Streaks are not unique to basketball. Anyone who has played horseshoes or golf or cornhole/bags or darts or any of a number of such games knows the experience when one is on a streak: an individual player or an entire team somehow enters the “flow” state, and everything seems to work. In basketball games, the crowd notices when a team has entered the “flow” state, and a buzz of excitement fills the air. Those are special moments. The leading expert on the “flow” state is a Hungarian psychologist with a strange name: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. His classic study is titled Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. He presents his central ideas about “flow” in this 18-minute TED talk. Part of what has me thinking about “flow” – in addition to the streakiness of the Bills in the last couple games – is several comments made by the Wiz. Caveat: I’ve benefited from reading the Wiz for many years. I'm grateful for his perspective, and I consider his pre-game reports "must reads" that allow me to enjoy each game in a more detailed, focused manner. With that said, I want to take issue with, or at least qualify, something the Wiz wrote recently. In the string titled, “Ratings and Rankings and Polls … Oh My”, the Wiz wrote that “most computer based rankings are living, breathing entities”. There’s an innocent sense in which the Wiz is using a metaphor: he’s responding to questions that people ask him about rankings, especially the puzzle that sometimes SLU wins a game against a higher ranked team, but the subsequent movement in the poll is not quite what’s expected. The comment by the Wiz makes it clear that he is using a sort of metaphor: rankings “change by the hour as games are being played”. In other words, he is not literally saying that the computer is alive, or that computers breath. Computer programs, no matter how sophisticated, given the current state of technology, are definitely NOT “living, breathing entities”. If we pursue this line of thought very far, we enter into pretty deep philosophical waters: What is it to be a living, breathing entity? What is life? To what extent can computers model life? To what extent can a quality (such as the “flow” state) be captured in a quantitative formula? Without facing these questions head on, I think it’s worth noticing that some of what Csikszentmihalyi has to say on these matters is insightful. For example, Csikszentmihalyi identifies the following features of the “flow” state: Complete concentration on the task; Clarity of goals and reward in mind and immediate feedback; Transformation of time; The experience is intrinsically rewarding; Effortlessness and ease; There is a balance between challenge and skills; Actions and awareness are merged, losing self-conscious rumination; There is a feeling of control over the task. Csikszentmihalyi points to two ways in which one can enter or exit the flow state. From one side, there is a movement through worry, anxiety, and arousal. On the other side, there is a movement from boredom, relaxation, and control. It’s my impression that in almost every instance in which the Bills exit the flow state, they do so by becoming too relaxed, and they move toward sloppiness and perhaps boredom. Then, when they try to re-enter the flow state, they get stuck in anxiety and worry. My hunch is that this lines up with what the Wiz means regarding his summary of the season so far: “inconsistently consistent” … “up and down” … “hot and cold”. I’m not sure whether the Wiz’s computer has a formula for those phrases. My hunch is that these are qualities, not quantifiables that are measurable with a computer metric. With that said, I don’t think descriptions of the "flow state" -- and the other states that surround flow -- are simply pure emotional mush. Rather, part of what’s involved in being a “living, breathing entity” of the human sort is that, while we can’t quite snap our fingers and move into the flow state, athletes and coaches can have some self-awareness of the team’s current state. When things become too relaxed, one can recognize the need to improve self-control; when one slips into anxiety and worry, one can re-gain a sense of self-mastery and confidence. In my judgment, the formulas and analysis that the Wiz provides are very helpful for providing one perspective; at the same time, I find myself wondering whether this level of analysis can and should be complemented by attending to individual and team performance in terms of the flow-state as described by Csikszentmihalyi. If the Bills are going to learn how to navigate the “peaks and valleys” mentioned by the Wiz, my hunch is that they’ll need both approaches: analysis in terms of quantitative metrics and awareness of qualitative states of presence and engagement. Thoughts?

I’m on the opposite end. What a shiiiitttyyy idea after the events of the offseason

as much as i like goodwin, he made the nba because of improvements after he left, he was a very mediocre shooter to the detriment of the billikens at time. anyway are we discussing billiken point guards or former billikens in the nba? goodwins assets as a billiken was not as a point guard imo

I bet that was "paid" attendance. no way there was anywhere close to 3,000 open seats. so there probably was at least 1-2000 freebies of some sort. the place wasnt filled, but imo there wasnt more than 1000 - 1500 open seats.

Perkins clearly hasn't regained his lift off the ground or his ability to make quick cuts. I see what Coach meant by saying he's 70% now and they expect the 'ol Perk back in about a month. He can be a stationary jump shooter and get 20 against bad defense but we'll have to rely on Parker more in the short-term against legit defense. Which benefits us in the long-term.

Kramers redshirting because he’s behind Perkins, Gibby, THJ, Fred, and Parker. Why waste a year of eligibility, that’s all.

very good post above. i totally agree. just not the right time to turn to perkins yet. plus we protected him for "another day" as mean as hell as memphis was, i am surprised we never had any injuries last night. that said, i think the billikens did a fine job of pushing back appropriately. gotta take a stand at some point. and 05 is right, memphis was going to push, pull, bit, scratch, kick trip, etc until the refs indeed drew the line. i personally didnt want perkins involved.

Well, it is called the charity stripe. So I am going with St. Vincent DePaul, patron saint of charity.

Most fun I've had at a billiken game since Brooklyn

No one wants to play at the Fetz!

So far Ford’s substitutions have been money. So there’s that. So far.

Parker is the new Perkins. Until the original works back into full form.

Parker looks just so smooth out there

What an enjoyable brand of basketball we are playing.

I’m not big on posting in a thread that became more about you indulging yourself than the women’s soccer program. Same reason I avoid posting often in men’s soccer threads in recent years. So I might not have not have posted anything positive about Katie. I should have. She has done an unbelievable job building a great program that plays enjoyable to watch soccer. I should point out I never posted anything negative about her ever. I’ll now leave your thread and hope you and your little fan club have a good time. Don’t forget to like your own tweets.

This game reminds me of the Washington game in 2011/12. They also came in undefeated with some hype around them. Unfortunately for them, they ran into an angry Brian Conklin, figuratively and literally. Pretty sure we were ranked the next day, and went on to have three really great seasons. Hopefully this game can provide that kind of springboard for this year’s team.

This isn't a question anymore. There might be some great Billikens at the top but they're all behind Yuri "Bad Motherf**ker" Collins.

I'm not sure there's a style we can't adjust to, save for maybe the Princeton offense and even then we have some great cutters and passers.

i think we saw parker's reputation of all offense and no defense play out last night. he is a splendid player on the offensive end. and as wiz stated in his pre and post game comments, part of our plan was likely to wear memphis down. i think parker was better suited to doing that then hargrove. hargrove has lifetime highlight reel moments, but that is exactly what they seem to be imo, moments. he is actually a power forward in a shooting guard's body. little if any ball skills and a tendency to relax at the wrong moments on defense. but dont get me wrong. man the guy can sky.

Tonight was a huge wake up call of what Perkins is. Even when he’s off, he still makes it easier for everyone else. A bad JP is still Better than no JP, which last year was

2-0 in the GDT pun era

Good Win. This time SLU survived the late game pressure against an athletic, talented team putting on the heat. This Win will look good on the resume in March.

I'm listening to both the radio and the TV feed and sounds loud in there. GO BILLS!! Home court momentum to finish this out.

That feed to thatch down court was outstanding

Time to rest my heart for a few minutes fun half. For a team that cannot shoot the 3’s Memphis is hitting them over 40 percent. No home cooking from the officiating luckily we are deep this season. I think Perkins sees more shots in the second half Jimerson is hurting them. Pickett shows off his SEC strength every night.

Atmosphere is unreal!

Just this so far: Hopefully we get more as the season progresses, but again, this isn't the TSF team with the most visibility.

@joe_davola may disagree with this take....