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The free throw rates for this particular game were slightly off-kilter but not by much. When you have the team that fouls the least in the conference at home against the team who fouls the most, and not just a little bit more, a ridiculous amount more than the rest of the league these are the numbers you get. Dayton on average allows 7 FGs to 1 FT, in this game it was 9-1. SLU allows 2 FGs for every FT. In this game it was 1.8 - 1. Not far off the norm actually. This is what we do. Dayton's season Def FT rate is 4th in the country. They play good defense and don't foul. It isn't happening just against us. SLU's season Def Ft rate is 229th in the country. If you just take our rate during conference play, 50.7, it ranks 359th in the nation, that is the 4th worst def FT rate in all of college basketball. Again the Dayton game was not an outlier, this is what we do. Unless every ref has it out for us, and every ref that does Dayton's games are getting paid by Flyers boosters the stats are undeniable. SLU is historically bad defensively, not just for our program but for college basketball as a whole. Putting it in perspective I tracked the A10 Def FT% on kenpom back to 99. 4 teams have finished the conference season with Def FT% higher than 50 in the A10 since 99. 01 GW - 14-18 team that fouled a ton, but they caused a ton of TOs, and were top 2 and 3 in conference in steals and blocks. High Def FT rates can be indicative of good defenses that end more possessions in TOs. 07 & 08 Richmond - 07 Richmond was 8-22, 08 was 16-15, more terrible and mediocre teams but as was the case with GW they caused the most TOs in the conference and had elite steal and block numbers. 15 Billikens - A Bills team that finished 11-21 and had terrible steal, block, and turnover numbers. Just fouled all day. Before this season this was the worst modern SLU defense. Now this team. 2nd to last in steals, dead last in TOs created, Defensive Efficiency, Def FT rate, 12th in FG% allowed all equals a team that plays terrible fundamental defense and fouls with impunity. Again the numbers don't lie. This is not the refs fault. This is a team that has an all time worst A10 defense.

I believe Ford has been given enough time and if they fire him I am ok with that. My problem is with how the haters have taken control of the board with their constant, repetitive, tireless attacks. It’s ridiculous, but they always have an excuse for bringing it up. No excuses for anyone but them. It’s become a clown show.

I love my Evans cards!

https://www.instagram.com/p/C2KZ1izPcx2/?igsh=NnAzY2hkMTl1dnlu Evans has had a great career in Japan.

@thunderdan: which one of the three are you giving CTF credit for? I am guessing recruiting but if that is the case, can you say that now after the last two or so years. He got Bess, Isabell, Goodwin, French, Perkins and Collins but since then the recruiting pelts seem light. In the New World Order of NIL and the portal, is CTF adept at this new aspect of recruiting? Pickett. Dalger. Ezewiro. Meadows. Plus his freshmen seem light. Thames. Hughes. Zhang. van Bussel. Medley. Magassa. His roster construction skills seem to be in need of help.

Linssen was an underrated player. Probably the last big guy we had with really good footwork and fundamentals. He played better than his talent because of it. Majerus woulda liked him. Was very disappointed when he didn't stick around. We would have made the NCAA tourney with him IMO. While Perkins being hurt was brutal; our post defense was horrible when Forrester was in. If we had Linssen our rotation would have been Franko and Linssen. That's a tough pair to score easy layups on, even if they get past an injured Javonte. The reality is the coaches didn't do their job when they failed to land Dandridge OR Brock Vice and we ended up with the 3rd and 4th options, 05. That's why we have Ezewiro and his limitations. He's scoring as much as he does because he is the only option on this roster.

There are 0 top 30 Ken Pom teams in the A10 right now. There is 1 top 80 Ken Pom team in the A10 this season. If the league isn’t good (the league isn’t good), and if the league is the 12th or so best league, the expectation is league domination. And it’s not just about 1 season. ……………… Not once has SLU won 70% or more of its league games the past 8 seasons. The only 3 times SLU has done it in the last 18 seasons since joining the A10, were the 3 seasons I listed above. And the A10 was a better league at the time when SLU did it. It’s also why dominating a good or top level or P6 league is all the more impressive when it happens. And it’s why dominating your league matters more in weaker leagues and it matters less in P6 leagues. …………… SLU had KenPom teams of: 14, 19, and 35 a decade ago. (By comparison Dayton is currently 33) SLU has had 0 top 50 KenPom seasons in the past 8 seasons including this one. They have had 1 top 60 season in that stretch. Isn’t a reasonable goal to try to be top 40 almost annually in KenPom? (You used KenPom here) And mix in even better seasons than that once in a while. There will of course be a few to some that aren’t those things. If SLU was 33 in KenPom they would have a better atmosphere too. ………….. There’s no need to remove a coach during a season except for extreme circumstances. ………….. SLU’s record vs Dayton and VCU the past 8 seasons: 5-12 vs Dayton. (This year is potentially Dayton’s 2nd NCAA team in that stretch) 2-9 vs VCU (VCU has 4 NCAA Tourneys in the past 8 seasons.

His last 2 posts gives the feel of a changed man. That, or he was hacked . Prob hacked

-oh wow, thank you -synching the radio to the tv broadcast illustrates that Rammer and Earl sometimes see plays totally different than how the camera shows it

Way too early to objectively evaluate Ford's recruits on the current roster. Three-fourths of this team is new, and injuries have sidelined Hughes, Thames and Parker.

According to that above chart you are referring to, it has Loy 3rd and by that logic there should have been another wide difference in FTAs.... I am showing in that Loy game a swing of only 6 FTA in that game...2 less than normal for the Bills and 4 extra for Loy...well within the normal variance of FTA in a game. That chart says conference only games...I would assume that is based on 3-4 games (small sample size). I just ran the FTR numbers this morning based on the entire season through yesterday ...SLU...24.6 (and 2nd on the A-10 chart above) and Day 14.2...Much closer. Interestingly enough for the season, we give up less FGA than Dayton . Also , we had 66 FGA in the Day game....Day had only 54. I will stick with my original statement, the swing of 24 FTAs was an anomaly that led to the loss of the Day game.

Most of the like leaders are high volume posters. I'm more impressed with those who are able to get the coveted likes at a high percentage per post!

@willie: La Salle got smoked at St. Joes. Why only ask me about them when they win wills? Fun Phy is a great coach and he is playing a man down w/o Anton Gill but Gill ain’t THAT good. They played a weak OOC. Have had the chance to watch Duquesne a few times. Dumb basketball team with low basketball IQ. Clark and Grant shoot way too much and Mahorcic is awful. Tre Williams playing out the season quite disinterested. But we get them at Palumbo. Davidson looks like a basketball team from the Deep South pre-integration. Not good when Grant Huffman is your go-to guy. Fordham plays good defense. The Bonnie’s are still searching for themselves. Still think this goes Dayton/Joes/Bonnies but VCU has some good athletes and Geedubya has two good freshmen in Johnson and (some 6’7” guy who’s name start with Bee). We already lost to Mason. We are a PIG team for sure —-likely with La Salle there Willie.

You made some good points although could’ve toned down the rhetoric a bit. Sad part about the Dayton game was they served us up a victory on a night when we couldn’t hit water from a boat. February will be interesting from an offensive end as Parker regains full conditioning and the offense incorporates him back into the flow of things. Unfortunately, the defensive side is mostly hopeless so the Bills will have to outscore teams to win. Can’t count on it over a dozen or so games.

I asked my former low-A hockey player co-worker/coach the same thing and he doesn't know much about basketball, but he remembers Majerus being really good at "molding young men to be successful on and off the court," so I might add that?

Hater of the Haters Bold strategy. Let's see if it works for you.

You know some people are saying that Box and Won is slowing down in old age, but this just proves he still has his fastball.

The only way to have a truly level playing field is to allow every team to participate. Give the higher ranked teams a bye or two, add a couple of rounds and 10 days to the Tournament. Probably see more sustained fan interest nationally.

If fans aren’t upset I’d be more concerned if I was SLU leadership, means they still care about program. However, the longer it slips the less and less even diehard fans keep caring. How can anyone watching not just this season, but the last 8, justify keeping this coach after this season. When you look at all the stats and numbers combined over years against better teams, ranked teams, it’s pretty damning. Travis might be a wonderful person, same with Chris May, but they aren’t getting the results. People pay a lot for season tickets, donate money, asked for NIL donations, spend money on program, etc and for what? To watch an 8-9 team get a moral victory only losing by 5 to Dayton? Feel bad for kids, doing best they can and actually played as good as this team can last night and still lost. Millions of dollars are being spent each year, this isn’t a mom and pop operation or a cyc team we are talking about. We just want it to be competitive and as good as the resources being poured into it. That’s all, not expecting Final 4 or bust every year.

torch, come on we only shot 7 free throws. I am not saying they called all the fouls on the billikens. i am saying they didnt call the fouls on dayton.

“Ford Haters” aren’t taking over the board. It’s just that 95% of the board is sick and tired of the losing and the excuses. The same posters have been posting for years it’s not a bunch of randos signing up to bash Ford. The coach of a basketball team is an important topic in most discussions. Coaches are second guessed in every sport. Read any baseball or football team board after a loss and a majority of the posts are going to be questioning the coach/manager. It only seems over the top because they are losing more than winning. IMO Ford and the Bills underachieved big time last year but the board had less coaching complaints because they won more than they lost. If they can run off 4 or 5 wins in a row the coaching critiques will slow down.

So he's the Jordan Kyrou of the Billikens?

He mentioned on Frank's show last year daughter and grandkids live in Webster Groves.

So dramatic. People should be allowed to show support for the head coach (for whatever reason) on Billikens.com without it preluding an amateur internet witchhunt. If this person has been around for years they are not showing up out of no where? So they might have a connection to Ford - big whoop?

Hang it in the rafters

People who genuinely find this board late in their fandom or as they progress into adulthood is a great thing. We should all welcome new posters with open arms. I have said this 100 times: when you find this board, create a user name and then just lurk for a season or post inconsequential sh*t for awhile. Learn the norms, inside jokes, etc. If you show up one day and start going at long time posters or making big statements you're just going to get run off. Sucks, but that's every forum.

Argue all you want, but they are second in Kenpom right now. (Their A-10 record may not be great, but their A-10 sample size is low) I agree with you that the results don't match the investment. I don't necessarily think we should keep Ford next year. Now is just an odd time to post this thread as the results of the past 2 games would be considered good in my opinion. Of course we want to win last night's game. but even a good top 25 team cant expect to win every away game vs a top 25 team with a great game day atmosphere. BTW the Dayton atmosphere was awesome last night. I wish we had that level of fan engagement honestly.

What if I told you that Dayton’s starting PG is out for the season? What if he’s healthy and plays 25 minutes. I’m of the mindset that conditioning your team and keeping them healthy is major part of which a coach(ing staff) is judged. That and overcoming injuries.

I believe with Sincere Parker at full strength playing 30+ minutes, we win last night's game. We almost beat Dayton the #1 A10 team and top 21 team AWAY and we beat St. Joseph's (Arguably the #2 team in the A10) after being down 20 points. This is a different team with Ezewiro, and a healthy Parker (plus a healthy meadows/thames) than the team we all saw when we were wanting Ford fired. I'm willing to give the Coach a few more games before I judge considering the results of the last 2 games.

Who are our 5?