Taj79

I stand by my statement --- ill-researched as it may be. Kwjybo knows much more about the topic factually then I care to learn. I guess what I am saying is that I don't believe the A10 has any real respect in the selection process. Much like a tie goes to the runner, advantages will be such that the BCS conference schools will win out when all things are equal. If all things are equal and UMass is paired against Pitt or Dayton is paired against Maryland, the A10 team will lose ---- factula numbers irreagrdless. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

I don't pay much attention to who's negative (I thought I had won that one) but SheltieDave is on a roll lately. What's up with that? Let's remember that in our epic loss to GeeDub this year, they tore the nets up with a rousing 49 points. AT HOME. The fiasco became an epidemic, and it affected all but the intensity on the defensive end stunned a lot of impartial observers. The kids never gave up. I expect better things at home this time around. True, GeeDub has had our number. The blowout in AC last year was also the result of us playing our third game in three days and the fact that GeeDub had much better players with a deeper lineup. From what I saw in DC in January, they have Rice, Diggs and Hollis. Witherspoon hit the three that beat Dayton last week and is averaged 12 ppg but let's also remember the mental midget running the show from the bench. Karl can recruit but he can't seem to game coach much. This one is ours --- to win and/or lose. Plus, in January, Danny Brown wasn't doing what he is now and Eberhardt had a nic egame in Richmond. Polk's minutes have decreased so when he does play, I'd put him on Rice the whole time just for the defensive pressure. Then I'd waste Eckerle on Rice as well. that way, kevin doesn't have to pull double duty on defense as well as on offense. Ithink tomorrow night looks good. So watch me get dashed.

I believe every high school senior being recruited by a college believes himself to be "the next Jordan" or the "nest Elway" or even the "next ARod." Most high school kids are big fish in little ponds and it isn't until they get to that next level that they see the speed and talent pick up and make competition at that next level more difficult. Top 100 kids are probably different but I am willing to bet, without research, that a significant portion of "Top 100s" who get labeled "Can't Miss" actually do. My inclination for myself would be to transfer. Lamar Odom did pretty well at URI. Hughes here. Morrison at Gonzaga. Heck, Bird at Indiana State. But that's me in the here and now. I always get a kick at watching the five white kids on the end of the Duke bench. What are they doing there? Will they ever play? In blowouts, sure. Which Duke has quite a number of I would guess. (Was just in Durham --- Duke cost upwards of $50K per year now!) But short of the experience, what are thoe guys doing there? Living the dream, man, living the dream. Again without research but I wonder how many kids really do find the end of the rainbow on transferring. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find any kid that left our program and became a star elsewhere. Ford at Missouri State and Edwin at Kent State and Winfield at Mizzou come to mind but I can't think of too many others. And those guys were okay, not stars. On the other end, we got Roder from Kansas State, Bryant from Villanova and Waldman from UNLV but I can't think of too many more. I don't count Johnson or Pederson too, too much.

I think this is the well-established trend nationally that you see from colleges in general. It used to break down along the lines of private versus state. Both of those broke down into various strata and Jesuit was just one of a series of religious-affilaited schools out there. While there are benefits, there are also disadvantages and with the outbreak of large sums of federal funding, the religiously-affiliated schools became less so. My kid went to visit what was a Methodist-affiliated school when it was founded. Today, I'd say that other than a historical bloodline and history, that's about the length of its current ties to anything strictly methodist. I think it is also the affects one sees with declining enrollments --- not in the schools themselves but in the ranks of the Jesuit order. I had nuns all through grade and high school. Are there any of them left out there nowadays? My oldest goes to a school that was founded by an order of nuns. The largest building on campus is the convent. The college covets that building ----- this huge, huge, huge place is "home" to seven nuns. Seven! Adding the builidng and the grounds would double the actual size of the land the school sits on. I think it was on the SLU/Xavier game that I saw that SLU and Xavier were two of 28 schools playing basketball with Jesuit affiliations. I'll have to look those other 26 up. Sure, its easy to know the Marquettes and Georgetowns and BCs but I bet there's some stunners in there. I guess that leads to the question who would they move to to improve?

Xavier will be in --- whether they win in AC or not. That's about the only lock I will give to this conference in the right here and now. That's it. Things change. A few weeks ago, we had three ranked teams in Dayton, Rhode Island and Xavier and Xavier was the low man on the three man totem pole. Not now. Dayton saw exactly what happens when you have a two-man team and one of those guys goes down. That was Wright. Little was a nice comlimentary piece but only if Wright and Roberts were playing. He hasn't been that much of a load over the time he didn't have Wright so what makes one think he'll all of a sudden rise to a position of prominence? That is usually the case with mid-major teams --- you might have a nice five man rotation but blow one of those tires and the replacement is horrible. Or it affects the rotation, making your sixth man less because now he's a starter. Same thing as assumptions that Bryce will step up for Ian who will step up for whomever and so on. As for the rest, I think Rhodey and St. Joe's are onthe bubble right now. Go deep intothe AC tournament, and you have a better than average shot. Go one and out and say hello to the NIT. The Big East and the ACC will leap like vultures on a next-tier conference having their so called power teams flame out. Look at UMass last year. Right now, the only way UMass, Charlotte or Dayton (or anyone else for that matter in this league) go anywhere its due to winning the title. There are a number of factors that go into a selection and I recall one ofthose being "last ten." How you are doing in the last ten games matters. So, if a Dayton or a UMass beats a Louisville or a Pitt or a Syracuse early, its about as ancient history as last year. Dayton continues to plug along like us -- win one lose one win one lose one -- and only wins at home and then takes one game in AC, sorry, i don't see it. All the fans can scream and yell but I guarantee you that if BC jumps up and wins the ACC in Carolina that will add to the ACC's haul and impact on a conference like ours, not theirs. Instead of six locks, the ACC will get seven --- the six locks plus the upset winner. The A10 is a two, maybe three bid league and will remain a two bid league if Xaviers wins out. A final of Xavier against Rhodey or St. Joes will get both teams in. A final of Rhodey agaisnt St. Joe's will get all three in. You cna change out Rhodey and St. Joes if you want but that's what I see. Whoever knocks one of those three out of the final two will get the third bid.

Having sat through that fiasco in DC, let me say that I fully, FULLY, expect the Bills to exact some tremendous revenge in this upcoming game and I will be immensely disappointed if they don't. Personal pride should be a huge motivator in this one. GeeDub has won tow game --- yes "they embarrassed us" in the 20-total point game but frankly, they really didn't do as much to us as we did to ourselves. That night, nothing fell. They have two wins, and the other was on a buzzer beater at home again against YouDee. While I don't expect a laugher (because, after all, we are the Billikens) I really expect a "no contest' decision in this one. We are at home. We were embarassed. We are playing much better. And we do have our pride.

Yo moy ---- justnow responded on the other thread. Give me some more head's up time next time.

MoyToy ... I'm back in Balmer but have another early road departure out to NC tomorrow morning. Was up at 0500 this morning in Lexington, KY, so I am hoping i have enough gas int he tank to make tongith's game. Next time, buddy ---- give me a little more time tho!!!!

I've been on the road ... even flew out of Cincinnati this morning. Got to read the Enquirer ... which, by the way, had the Xavier and Saint Louis game 24 point type across the Sports Page Top line. Talked about how X has the St. Louis blue when it plays there. Had Duncan saying they had to come out more focused. Not much but still not bad. Going to be interesting when Xavier loses Burrell, Lavender and Duncan next year. College teams run on guards and thats not one but both starters. Will be slow to say the least. "Lost" is on tonight. "Survivor: Fans versus Faves" starts tonight. "CSI" is on. These three reasons have already been slapped upside my head by the ladies i live with. I'll be in the basement with surround sound. I'd like ot believe we will win. We can win. We only seem to win at home. We seem to have X's number lately (Die Byron Larkin, die!). Its doable. X just brings a lot of firepower with nearly six guys in double figures each night. We can and will do it. It would be nice. What with GeeDub not making AC this year, whatever will Sign Kid do if the Bills ain't there?

In Baltimore, the Sun carries mostly the Terrapins ---- little if any coverage given to Loyola, UMBC, Morgan State, Coppin State, Towson if any. I would think what happens in St. Louis to us is the same as what happens here. Of course, that's a lot of D-1 schools compared to the St. Louis metro area. In DC, Georgetwon wins out and they regularly beat the likes of GeeDub, George Mason, American and the like. In both cases, however, certain sports at certain schools percolate to the fore ---- football at Maryland, basketball at both Maryland and Georgetown, women's basketball is Maryland, lacrosse can be the whole gamut and a lot of that focus goes to Johns Hopkins. So it varies. But in the long run, Maryland and Georgetown dominate. UVa doesn't make a ripple this far north. In Philly, there is little mention of Penn State. They mostly go with the winner at the time. If its Nova, or Temple or St. Joes --- and all three have had their times recently --- they in out. Football will always be the Eagles, even if the Temple team comes around. Penn plays Ivy League ball so its not "real." As someone noted, whatever sells the paper will play.

Today we take down Umass adn Rhodey beats YouDee in Rhode Island 82 to 70, Just starting the second half but Richmond has a nice lead on Charlotte in Charlotte.

Bills go to 9 and 0 when scoring more than 60 points. A win at 71 to 59. Gives us the same record as Umass so we have another A10 tourney tie breaker advantage there. Big game with X on Thursday night. Danny Brown looked good. Lisch did as well. Luke is consistent. I think Tommie fell one rebound shy of a double-double. Lots of goods there. Eckerle is the guy to foul in the end. One for four today. Luke missed one. Kevin missed one. Danny missed the layup and a foul shot or we are looking at what, another 8 more points and 79 to 59 is a convincing blowout. Announcers kept talking about how the Harris kid from Umass just didn't play. I thought from the 12 minute mark on, we could really get any shot we wanted .... kind of like against La Salle last week. Umass wants to runa nd gun. Any type of defense, like ours today and they wilt. Although I never felt comfort until under 36 seconds. Well, that's Billliken Ball, ain't it? So what still was the deal with Dwayne? Confirm ER. What led to that, I missed it. I'll take the win. If we can zero in on Xavier the same way ... but I think I'd like to have Dwayne if for nothing other than running another same-size defender at Lavendar.

A dunk! A DUNK! My kingdom for a dunk!

How about that lay-up Moy???????????

Sometimes we are one dumb ass team. Tommie allows himself to get juked into a foul on Forbes shooting an NBA three. Eckerle can't make a free throw. Up 9 with 1:18 remaining.

Umass shooting 2 of 18 from three-point land. Umass is at helter skelter speed and we appear to be wilting right now.

3:32 up nine. Why of why do you have Husak taking wide open eight foot jumpers? Well, to answer my own question, because he's wide open and its only 8 feet for crying out loud! But you have to make them. Here's hoping Thompson, Conklin or Reed is better ---- NO ---- they HAVE to be better than Bryce in that regard.

Ten point Bills lead 57 to 47 at the under eight timeout but Umass on the line shooting two. What happened with Polk? Eckerle still scares the crap out of me. Nice numbers for Danny Brown. Thriteen points and four assists.

UMass just went into "launch city" mode ...... this can either get close or go to hell for them shortly.

Audio doesn't stop at time out and the announcers just said that with 11 minutes to go, they've not scored less than 65 points a game. Long way to go in 11 minutes but I saw what the Minutemen did at St. Joes.

Just joined in via the streaming free video thread .... Bills go up by 16 withLisch down on the bench for his third foul. Now cut to 52 to 38 at the under 12 timeout.

A very good game. A nice and much needed win. But everyone please remember one thing ---- it's La Salle. Danny has been doing very well as of late. Should have thrown down the dunk on that last breakaway. Do we get all those cuts with Xavier's Love, or Rhodey's Seawright, or St. Joe's Nivens in there? It's La Salle. We also need to win at Richmond as the season progresses. Dayton is doable and hopefully they've seen the Xavier defensive tapes on Roberts. But Dayton is at home so you have to figure Huelsman and Johnson and even dead weight Binnie do more than they did at the Cintas Center. Not only is it not La Salle, its also not the Tom Gola Center. Dayton is a tough place to win in even when the team ain't that good.

81 to 74 final.

35 seconds up seven Luke with two at the line. Do I say Book it.

Under a minute. Polk made one and one but La Salle scored. Our ball ....