The Wiz

What I show are the reportable injuries...this falls into the category of not reportable. I have heard unofficially he has an ankle problem.

Game preview...We continue to hang at C+. If you read my Season Forecast , you know the next 3 games are important. We need to get our grade up before conference if we expect to compete. This game will be a good test to see if we are up to the challenge. ISU comes in with a grade of C...we have a slight edge on them which is wiped out by the ISU home court advantage. Essentially this game is pretty much a toss up. The Redbirds are not only the best shooting team we will face this year but one of the best in the nation. Well, if they are so good why do they only have a C. Their defense isn't that good...slightly worse than ours. Let's look at it a different way...What happens if 2 offensive juggernauts go at each other and nobody plays D. You have the ISU vs Belmont game where Belmont wins in OT 99-97 because they are the last team standing. The computer thinks this is a highly likely scenario ...a close high scoring game going down to the wire. But lets look at another ISU game with our A-10 friend GW. They tried something different . They tried playing defense. The result was a 72-64 GW win. They not only held them way under their scoring average but slashed the Redbird 3P% to 22% nearly half their normal average. Mind you, GW has the same C+ grade we do. The computer has a strategy idea ...let's play offense and defense. If GW can beat them , so can we. Let's check the Card... Report Card.... Report Card change....2 up...4 dn...3 unchanged = -2 UP.....OFF...Reb.........DEF...PPG Dn....OFF...PPG...3P%..DEF...FG%...3P% ................SLU..................ISU.....................SLU......................ISU ...........................OFF...................................................DEF.......... PPG...........B-....................B...........................C-.......................C- FG%..........B....................A-............................C+......................C- 3P%...........C+.................A+...14th ITN...........D.........................D FT%......... F+..................A+..10th ITN....................................... Reb...........B.....................D..............................D.........................B+ OFF Rebs = total Bills rebs...DEF Rebs = opp total reb Top 100 In The Nation SLU... PPG...Jimerson ....45th...dn .........Swope.........92nd....dn 3PM......Jimerson...21st...up FT%...Jimerson...78th Reb,,,,,Anya...........8th...dn FG%....Thames.....92nd...dn Asst...Swope...44th...up Dou-Dou....Anya....86th...dn ISU... FG%...Walker...81st FT%...Pence...54th ...........Kinziger...97th Injuries.... SLU....Warlick....12/8...Out indefinitely ....undisclosed injury...last report on him till status changes Hughes...12/8...Ques.....back Johnson...12/8...Ques...illness ISU...No injuries to report Keys to the game....Defense ...we have to figure a way to slow down their offense. Walker, Kinziger and Pence are their main shooters but they have others that can put the ball in the hoop. As for FTs, we have to limit their FTA. This will not be about suppressing their good guy...we will have to play defense against their whole team...No open shots WWN2D2W.... Target slash...49/39/79...Out reb them by 4...match them in TOs...they don't turn the ball over much...so we can't give them any freebies....Hold them to 10 FTAs...Hold them to 33% from the arc. Bottom line....Let's make some noise in Illinoise and beat the Redbirds.

The Ind St record happened during the Portal and NIL era which matches the Lincoln Mem pattern . I would gladly take the Ind St record last year of 32-7.

Time for a review. In the past I have done a preseason review. I have decided to pass on that because CBB has changed. Between NIL and the Portal there is just to much change in regards to player movement to have any chance at forecasting anything before the season starts. For The Bills, the addition of a new coach on top of almost a brand new team creates a lot of turmoil. One of the effects of big change is inconsistency. The Bills are seeing that in spades. A team that has shot over 60% from the arc in 1 game down to below 20% in another. A team that was 13th ITN in FT shooting suddenly can't get to 40%....Inconsistency...brought about by massive change. A schedule and players added at the last minute because we are in coach transition ...more change...more turmoil...more inconsistency. The good news is that while there will be change in the following years it will be more controlled if for no other reason than we will have more time to get players and build a schedule. Now is a good time to probably discuss expectations. Change always brings excitement and hope until the season starts. Then stuff happens. Let's look at some numbers from Coach Schertz. ..................Lincoln Mem U..........Ind St U...........SLU 1st yr.............14-14.......................11-20................6-3 (so far) 2nd yr...........20-10......................23-13.................? 3rd yr............27-2........................32-7...................? Strange but impressive numbers.... There are those on this Board who are ready to move on from Schertz. If history is any guide then that would be a mistake. It takes time for Coach to work his magic. Judging by GDTs and posting in general, patience is not a virtue of this Board. Should we give the Coach more time? Yes.....How much ?..more than 1 year to see results....3 years to see great results. Is this a lost year? No We could still see good things this year if we get some players back and stay healthy. Bills forecast...We now have 8 D1 games under our belt. For my system 8 is a magic number. It is not an ideal number but the minimum number of games to play where there is enough data to make some observations and forecasts. We currently are 6-3 (8 D1 games) with a C+ rating on a C- schedule. As conferences go the A-10 is a B conference. If we are to compete this year will have to get better in a fairly short time...as in getting our team grade up to B. Here is what the computer sees at this time for the Bills.... ................................Over all.................A-10 Best Case..................20-10..................12-6 Most probable...........17-13....................9-9 Worst case.................12-18...................4-14 A few notes here ...a 12-6 record would be enough to get a top 4 finish for the A-10 tourney. A finish of 16-14 would be Schertz 's best 1st year start. The Bills need to win 2 of the next 3 to get to B. That would #1... make us competitive in conference...#2 put us in to a position to reach B+ by the end of the season...the minimum grade you need to reach to have a chance for post season play. While all conference games are important, the computer sees 8 league games as crucial to getting to post season play...Day (2), VCU (2), Loy (2), RI and St. B. If we win 5 of those games, we are in good shape. The 1st 4 will be in Jan( 3of 4 @home)...the last 4 (H&A 2-2)will be part of the last 6 games of the season. We need to start strong and finish strong. Time to look at the A-10...Here are the grades and the projected finishes at this time. 1...Day...A...90% NCAA...5th seed 2...Loy...A-...54% NCAA...90%...NIT 3...RI.... B+...84%..NIT 4...St. B...B+...64%...NIT 5...VCU...B+...58%...NIT 6...Dav.....B 7...GM......B 8...St. J....B 9...Bills...C+ 10...GW... C+ 11...LaS...C+ 12...Duq...C 13...Ford...C 14...UMass...C- 15...Rich.....D+ Bottom line...Bills need to start making their move by winning 2 of the next 3 games.

The GATTPOW is short for Gibson All Time Three POint Watch and refers to the 3PM rankings that Jimerson is currently listed on. He is currently ranked 104th on the all time list. Assuming he stays healthy and plays his regular minutes, the computer is projecting a 20th place finish tied with Stephen Curry...not bad company to keep when you are talking 3s. Btw, some may ask why not do the same for points since he just became the top scorer in Bills history. The reason is because my data base only shows the top 250 in stat categories. GJ still has another 200 pts to go to reach that level. GJ is now in 104th place and tied with... Langston Galloway....St. Joes...2011-14 Leemire Goldwire...Charlotte...2005-08 He just passed... Dae Dae Grant...Duq...2020-24 Darnell Harris...LaS.....2005-08 Salim Stoudamire...Ariz...2002-05 Trajan Langdon...Duke...1995-99

A good win for the Bills...It was touch and go for awhile because we shot poorly in the 1st half and Chi St was making 3s at twice their normal rate. But the chickens came home to roost ( a fancy way of saying reversion to the mean) as the Bills got hot in the 2nd half (62% from the arc) and CSU missed 12 threes. Let's review and see what happened...bolded statement are from my original post. The computer thinks that 18 should be the minimum spread... after 18 pts the Bills could choose how much they wanted to run it up. We should see some bench players for this game...we did It will be a Shake Shack night for all...it was. rather than set a target slash ...let's grade the slash and other stats and shoot for above a C+ across the board...48/41/ 75...A+ / A+ / B+...definitely a pass...TOs were a B with a very nice 11...we matched their 11 and came away with an extra 2 pts....We got an A+ in Rebs with a whopping 44 and a 11 reb margin. Stats were looking good. They do have 1 guy that can shoot 3s (Robinson)...0-3 and overall 0-6...0 pts in 21 min...great job. 2 guys who can make FTs (Sunderland and McKoy)...Sunderland-No FTAs...McCoy 3-4...looking good here too Bottom line....Let's tame the Cats with a blowout...We did

A disappointing game against SF...not because we lost but because if we had just played average we could have beaten them....If you need to know how , check the post game SF spread thread. Fortunately, we didn't lose any ground and remain at C+. Once SF beat us by 10 (1 more than the spread ) anything extra was just diminishing returns. Now the NET will punish us ...their system is heavily dependent on the the spreads no matter who beats you or by how much. On the good side The NET is pretty inaccurate until you start approaching March. Game preview...If you liked JkSt then you will love Chi St. The Cougar's are the 8th worst team in D1...no small accomplishment in futility. This will be our easiest D1 game of the year. It would be a good time to get back on track. Chi St features a team that can't shoot ...can't score points and can't defend. They do have 1 guy that can shoot 3s (Robinson) and 2 guys who can make FTs (Sunderland and McKoy) but what's the point with an 18 pt spread...The computer thinks that 18 should be the minimum spread....If we don't do more than 18 it's because we didn't want to do more. We should see some bench players for this game. It will be a Shake Shack night for all. Report Card.... The report card coming into this game needs some repair especially on defense and FTs...no up categories and 7 down. .................SLU..................CSU.....................SLU......................CSU ...........................OFF...................................................DEF.......... PPG...........B....................B-...........................D+.......................A FG%..........B....................A-...........................B-.......................A- 3P%...........B...................C+...........................C-.......................C FT%......... F+..................C-.......................................... Reb...........B-.................C-.............................D.........................B+ OFF Rebs = total Bills rebs...DEF Rebs = opp total reb Report Card change....0 up...7 dn...= -7 UP.....OFF...none.........DEF...none Dn....OFF...PPG..3P%..FT%...Rebs...DEF...FG%...3P%...Rebs Top 100 In The Nation SLU... PPG...Jimerson ....44th...dn .........Swope.........78th....dn 3PM......Jimerson...23rd...dn Reb,,,,,Anya...........7th...dn FG%....Thames.....78th...dn Asst...Swope...53rd...dn Dou-Dou....Anya....71st...dn Chi St... none Injuries.... SLU....Warlick....12/6...Ques....undisclosed injury Hughes...12/6...Ques.....back Chi St...No injuries to report Keys to the game....Not to be over confident....make some 3 and FTs...don't TO over the ball...Guard Robinson...don't foul Sunderland or McKoy... They can't beat us but we can beat us. WWN2D2W.... This will be more like... what we need to do to get better...As this should be a win, rather than set a target slash ...let's grade the slash and other stats and shoot for above a C+ across the board. Bottom line....Let's tame the Cats with a blowout.

Yes the 8th game is coming up. I will do a review of the season on Mon after the Chi St game(8th D1 game). The 8th game is not a perfect sample size . It is a minimum sample size to be able to draw some observations. To answer your question, about our we a bad shooting team and thus are not good enough to win ...I think the real answer is we can shoot and we are good enough to win but we our inconsistent. Part of the problem is a series of injuries that have not only taken out some key players but have reduced depth to the point where players start to fade in the 2nd half. Bottom line is inconsistency.....If we can become consistent we can win. Here is a quick hypothetical example....Imagine the Bills are about to play 10 games and we have been shooting 40% from 3 (hypothetically). If we alternate between 60% and 20% from the arc each game ....we go 5-5. Now take another 10 games and the Bills are still a 40% team from 3 and this time they do it every game...The projected record is 8-2. Same team...same players ...same final shooting stat. The first team is a C team...the 2nd team is an A team. Can the C team become an A team? Yes...but it will take practice, focus and being ready to play every game. It will also take some depth...meaning we need to get some players back and stay healthy. The season is still young and there is still time to turn the ship around...we have about 3 weeks for something to happen.... the clock is ticking.

Not a good night for the Bills... Bolded phrases from original post... Bills target slash 50/36/ 73...This was the failure in a nutshell...particularly the 3 pt number....here is the actual slash...45/ 17/56....This means had we had just an ordinary night....we would have had 5 more 3s and 2 more FTs...Total 17 pts....the difference in the game....you can then throw in an unacceptable 17 TOs which created 5 extra SF TO pts ....SF had trouble holding onto the ball too, by turning the ball over 15 times...a failure to cash in on another opportunity. Bottom line... The biggest disappointment in this game was that as good as SF is, had the Bills just had an average night they would have won this game. I read the posts on the board...we don't have the players...we don't have the defense...we don't have right strategy...etc. etc. This is a team that is built on 3 s.... The report card for the entire D1 shows that any team that shoots below 30.1% from the arc gets an F-....What does it say about a team that is 3 dependent that shoots 16.7% and this is not the first sub 20% game. What is the answer going forward? Shoot to your "potential average" to win. Potential average is a number you can reach easily based on past performance. ...in the case of 3s it is 36.5 %. For this team, 36.5% should and could be a C average. Remember just a couple of games ago we shot 63.2% from the arc. The team doesn't need an extraordinary performance to win games. We have had 10 TOs in a game a few times....16+ is an F-....11 or 12 would win games for us. Do I dare say foul shooting? A few games ago we were 13th ITN in FT shooting hitting 80%+. Now we can't make 60% or even 40% the game before. ...64.6% is F-...shoot 75% and win games. Well, you get the idea...play "average"...play Billiken average... and you will win most of the games.

I guess we (C+) will just have to beat Dayton (A ) next month. After all, if an F+ team almost beat them, then we surely have a good chance. That would balance things out.

After trailing most of the game, Dayton (A) comes from behind in the 4th quarter to beat Western Mich (F+ ) by 8 pts in a game they were favored to win by 24.5 pts. I wonder if this every happens to other teams? There is something familiar about that 8.

Game preview... A nice win over JkSt ...not pretty but nice. Had we shot normal FTs (9 more pts) and just matched them in TOs (13 more pts) we win by 30. But instead, winning by 8 keeps us at a C+...in all fairness, a blowout against this team wouldn't have changed things much either. We will be facing off against a good( B+ ) SF team. A team slightly better than Santa Clara(B ). Santa Clara is a team we could have beaten if we played them now as opposed to opening day. At first glance it seems that SF is a way better team than SC when you look at their record except for the fact that SF has a C- schedule and SC has an A schedule. The point here is if you think we could have or should beaten SC than we should have a chance to beat SF. Our offense is as good as SF's. They have the edge in defense but their weakness on D is defending the 3. Sooo, if we can have a good night from the arc and beat them on TOs we can win this game. Won't be easy, but we have shown flashes that we can do this. Start strong and finish strong and we have a chance. Report Card.... .................SLU..................SF.....................SLU......................SF ...........................OFF...................................................DEF.......... PPG...........B....................B-...........................D+.......................A FG%..........B....................A-...........................B-.......................A- 3P%...........B...................C+...........................C-.......................C FT%......... F+..................C-.......................................... Reb...........B-.................C-.............................D.........................B+ OFF Rebs = total Bills rebs...DEF Rebs = opp total reb Report Card change....6 up...2 dn...+4 UP.....OFF...FG%...3P%...FT%...Reb.........DEF...PPG...FG%...Reb Dn....OFF...FT%.....DEF...3P% Top 100 In The Nation SLU... PPG...Jimerson ....34th...up .........Swope.........37th....up 3PM......Jimerson...18th...dn ..............Swope......42nd....up Reb,,,,,Anya...........5th...dn FG%....Thames.....77th...dn Asst...Swope...46th...up Dou-Dou....Anya....58th...dn SF... FG%...Riley...94th Stls...Thomas...48th Injuries.... SLU....Warlick....12/3...Ques....undisclosed injury SF...No injuries to report Keys to the game....Thomas is their go to player....when they are in trouble or need points, he is their guy. They have 3 guards...Thomas, Riley and Williams . They can all shoot and will be on the floor at the same time. Don't foul these guys...they don't miss at the charity stripe. This team like us, has a tendency to turn the ball over especially Williams. Williams is a Majerus type player with 187 slash line. Majerus use to say he would take a 180+ player sight unseen. This guy's flaw is if you pressure him he will turn the ball over. Riley is shooting 60% from the floor. For the Bills...Keep TOs down...and make some FTs. Finally play 40 min of bball...start strong...finish strong. WWN2D2W....Bills target slash 50/36/ 73...Win the TO battle...keep TOs to 10 or less...Win the rebs by 2...Hold Thomas to 13 pts ....Keep the Dons to less than 75 pts. Bottom line....A win here would not only boost our grade but also our Net ranking. No more wons for the Dons.

I think the results are inconclusive concerning 3P defense during the French era. His last 2 years 2019-20 and season 20-21 have mixed results with some caveats ...season 19-20 had 31 games plus it was the 1st year of the longer distance 3P shot ...numbers were down that year and the next....season 20-21 had only 21 games (Covid) 3pt Def 2019-20....32.4%...B- 2020-21....33.6%...C+ 2024-25.....32.9 (includes yesterday)...C-...3P defense in D1 has gotten better over the years. A 32.9 back in French's days would have been a B- or C+ ...now just a C-. Overall, we were slightly above average on 3P defense in the French years and are currently slightly below average though not real meaningful this year as it is still a small sample size. So this year, so far we are in between the 2 French years but this is our worst grade...again not yet meaningful. I will let you draw your own conclusions.

The computer says it does guess...like in... I guess I am right...machines are not humble.

We had this all the way (sigh of relief). This was not a case of JSU playing great ...all though their 3 pt shooting was outstanding at 42%...3 extra 3s and 1 extra FT...10 extra pts but as you pointed out correctly, the computer was right on with a 65 pt guess. So the real issue, was about us....That we don't become overconfident...I don't know if it was this or that we weren't ready to play in the 1st half or both but something was seriously off....FTs and TOs....Our slash was not bad 53/40 /36 until you get to FTs... Had we shot just average (73%) we would have scored 8 more pts...8+8 (the actual spread)= 16 pts within 1 of the projected spread plus another Shake Shack game. TOs was another stat that went wrong. The first half we had 13 TOs. 16 in a game is an F... 20 in a game is almost a sure loss. I kept telling people at the game if we stop making TOs we should win the game easily. Fortunately we didn't make the 16 or 20 mark as we only had 2 in the 2nd half. In the end we gave them 14 extra FGA and 11 extra pts off TOs. I guess I can take a little solace from the fact that I was closest to the actual pt spread...ESPN had us winning by 22.5. This solace is probably similar to the solace that JSU is taking in that this is their best loss....They have no wins and the closest they had come before tonight was a 9 pt loss. Besides the win, the good news is the 2 TO second half and better FT shooting...from 25 % to 50%...while still poor at least headed in the right direction. Moving forward, a bad win is always better than a good loss. The problems in tonight's game are fixable. as in going from 13 TOs to 2 TOs in the same game. In the FT game, we are a generally a C team...but not a normal one. We have A s and Fs from game to game...the consistency is missing. I think in both cases (TOs and FTs) we have to be ready to play by focusing on the game at hand. When we focus we stop making TOs and start making FTs. Again these are some of the growing pains of having a new team that hasn't gelled yet....but we are slowly getting there ....as in we closed out the game tonight in a smooth pattern ...something we haven't always done. Another chance to gell on Thur as we head out West to SF. I hand the gauntlet over to @Bay Area Billiken.... We will not be favored on the 5th but the game is winnable. We will need BAB to help get us over the winning finish line with some strong cheering. It will be up to The Bills to provide the focus.