slu72

Al, sure wish you hadn't brought up the I word. But I'm in agreement with you all the way. This is the best looking outfit I've seen and we've bot been Bills fans since the 60s when you had to pay people to go the Arena. What's great about this team is when RM brings in the bench players. You get a sense of, here comes the whup a** crew with fresh legs. I'd like to know if there's any team in the country that's getting more of a contribution from their bench than the Bills. I thought OK played us the toughest of anyone we've faced so far. Their guards were strong on the ball just across the time line, but it didn't matter. A few more TO's than we've averaged, but they never were able to go on a run by forcing a lot of them, which I'm sure was part of Kruger's game plan. And if Brian Conklin's play isn't bringing a huge Billiken smile to your face, then check your pulse. And for once, I really like our Billiken logo with the smile and the wink. It's like he's saying, you ain't seen nothing yet. These kids are inspired and want to make this year special. Don't want to get ahead of ourselves as there's a lot of games left, but after the last 4 days it's hard to keep the enthusiasm in the bottle. Go Bills! Make it Happen!

As for your father's billikens, I'm old enough to be a granddad Billiken and am just hoping all us elderly Bills fans can stand the excitement. Congrats to RM and the team, and a big rub o' the Billiken's belly to Conk. You da' man, Conk! MVP. What a great 4 days to be a Bills fan.

Impressive tropy. Should look good in the Fetz. Go Bills. Stop the to's and a few more 3's. Rebounding seems a lot better tonite. Back to the HD!

Let's just get by OK. OK?

Could it be our offensive rebounding is down due to the fact RM has the whole team take off to the D end when a shot is missed? Remember we've played a couple of teams that really like to push the ball. The boards that scare me are where we're giving the opponent second shots. I didn't look that up, but to the naked eye it looks like we're giving teams a lot of new shot clocks. The BC game seemed especially grim as more than a couple of times BC got 2 extra chances.

Agreed. +100. Every schedule needs a few appetizers. Early in the year. But if you make the main course a little heartier meal, you'll come out better in the long run. Fatter, anyways.

This game scares me because Kruger's a damn good coach. He'll be a big part of this game just like RM is to ours.

In the UNC-UNLV post below someone pointed out that our athelticism is way below that of those two schools. Don't doubt it for a minute. In fact, I'd suggest that from a purely athletic point of view we're probably not going to play many teams where we are the more athletic team. That said, we've probably got more athleticism going for us than we have in quite a few years, but it doesn't seem to matter much when you're playing smart basketball. Of the games I've seen; UW, Nova, and BC, I'd say UW and Nova clearly had better athletes. Didn't matter we still won. As for BC, I'd say, especially with our guards, we were the more athletic team. I'm expecting OK to have a whole bunch of athletes tonight, but as we've shown our smart play can beat athleticism and beat them by a bunch, witness UW and to a lesser extent Nova. Point being, having a great group of athletes on the floor can be beat by a team playing solid basketball on both ends of the court. And that's what I'm expecting tonight. Go Bills!!!!

I'm worried more about the D boards and giving teams new shot clocks. So far it hasn't cost us, but it we don't start garnering the first miss. Kind of discouraging for a good D effort to see the other team just start all over again. Conklin made a comment in his interview last week that RM doesn't do much in terms of rebounding drills at practice. So maybe he's in agreement that not turning the ball over is more important.

I can see the reasons for wanting us to be ranked, but I think we're getting the cart before the horse. Right now the only thing on the team's mind should be how to beat down the Sooners. I'd forgot Kruger is their coach, and he's a good one, so this may be our toughest test yet. If we win and get ranked so be it. But right now we should be very happy if we just win no matter what the polls say on Monday or Tuesday. Also, I'm not a big fan of being on the fringe of the top 25 and then seeing us pop in and pop out. Like to see us get to where that 93-94 team was which I think got as high as 16.

Our rebounding is a weakness. My thoughts are that RL will show some improvement, but right now I'm thinking RM is limiting his minutes because he's just not being aggressive enough on the boards.

I'm assuming there a very uptempo team. As for their defensive pressure, they've given up a lot of points.

One game at a time, lads, one game at a time. You take care of business one game at a time and all good things will follow. It appears I'll be coming to St. Louis for the Temple game. Where's a good place to meet all you posters?

Just checked out their team page on ESPN. OK SLU PPG 30th 157th RPG 2nd 331st APG 67th 105th FG% 176th 57th I haven't seen them play but the above would suggest let's get out there and run... run... and run some more. Another UW? Again the stat that is scary is the rebounding. Man, we're 331st? What are there, something like 348 D1 schools in the country? Jeez, we gotta get that fixed. OK does give up a lot of points so that too suggests they like to get out and force an up tempo game. Well, Sooners, meet RM the expert at dictating tempo and throwing your game plan in the toilet. No doubt, this appears on paper to be another tough contest for the Bills, but other than Wash St., OK hasn't really played anyone of note.

Agree, FDL, we have to come back from La La Land with a goose egg after the number 7. Actually, I think all top 25 talk should be tabled until after the New Mexico game. Why should we really care at this point about being ranked? The season's still very young and top 25 in Nov has no bearing on top 25 come March. Let's just enjoy the team playing like it is as they keep racking up W's against some name schools.

Uverse shows it on ESPNHD. There are 4 ESPN channels on our version of Uverse; ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and ESPNHD. The championship game was listed at 9:00pm on ESPNHD.

Yes, Cheese, I'm not a cable dummy. Actually since Uverse showed only TBA on both ESPN and ESPN2 I DVR'd them both. Both times came up w/ Old Spice games. Maybe something about being east of the Mississippi, but then Taj Mahal, the consumate inside the Beltway east coaster, got the game. I don't understand it, but do know the championship game's on ESPNHD at 9:00pm tomorrow (Sunday).

I don't get ESPN 3!

Plus, I've had a few too many Beam and Cokes. That explain the anger?

No, I'm not calm. I wanted to see them whip up on some Beast Arse! What ESPN channel is the final on?

Taj Mahal 79, we won. Don't be picky. I don't care what you're Beast friend said, Nova will make the tourney. And we beat them. The committee will look at that and say they need to be there if Nova and UW' are in. Again, what I want to know is I thought they were going to be on ESPN today, which I DVR'd, and come up with the Old Spice Classic? What about Sunday, which ESPN channel?

Never. But I thought the game was on ESPN. I had to be away today, golf tourney w/ the wife, yet DVR'd both ESPN and ESPNU. I come home and get the Old Spice Classic on both channels! What's up w/ that? What ESPN channel is the final game on? Damn, we just beat Nova and I can't see how we did it. Who cares, we're 5-0 and I'm in heaven just watching the line on ESPN! Puhleeeze keep it up you Billikens!

I don't think RM will change his starting lineup this early. But if RL ain't manning up on the D boards by blocking out, expect to see him get the hook early. Also, was a little disappointed in Evans rebounding yesterday. He's shown he has a nose for the ball, we're gonna need that today. One other thought, maybe RM looks to get RL open from the outside to draw out the Nova big. Anyone else think Nova looks like a carbon copy of UW with a touch more experience?

I just checked them out on ESPN. The difference that hits you square in the face is rebounds; they're 15th we're 325th. We can't win if we're giving them new shot clocks after misses. The Yarou kid they have at C is a force. Who blocks him out? RL? And they have an NBA quality PG in Wayns, who supposedly loves to shoot first pass second. This looks like a rematch against UW, so we better bring the A game. But a W here would be huge even if Nova's not ranked. They'll be an NCAA tourney team by March and if the committee can look back and say SLU beat 'em our cred factor goes way up.

Let's not get too worked up over the BC game. Yes, they got waxed by HolyCross and UMass, but who really knows why? It was mentioned many times yesterday that their coach shook up their lineup. And playing primarily freshman, albeit probably pretty good freshman, they're on a learning curve. I watched both games on TV and the biggest difference I saw was we weren't hitting the open shots like we did against UW and we lacked some intensity on D. Every team's going to have bad shooting nights and RM won't stand for less than 100% effort on D. No doubt we can't play that way against Nova. What is of concern is our rebounding. We won't beat them if we keep giving them new shot clocks after every miss. Rebounding is our primary weakness. It's time for RL to step up and be more of a force on the boards like CE started to show last year and is continuing this year.