The Wiz

A bigger playoff is coming a few years down the road

Looks like we are headed to 4 superconferences (all with 16 teams) SEC, B10, B12 and one other conference made up of the remaining best 16. Once that happens there will be a football playoff. In any case, ESPN will be driving the bus. The good news for the Bills is this all will take some time and once it starts to affect BB only schools hopefully we will be rolling.

I guess we will see ....since the old Big East is now the ACC. While there are no BB only schools in the ACC you still have a conference controlled by BB....you have pretty much the same type football schools...adding Duke, NC and Wake Forest football is just more BE type football. ...with about the same interest level. It will be interesting to see if FSU, Clemson, GT stay or not. ...They threatened to leave if UConn was picked over Louisville. It is not clear at this time whether ACC will remain stable particularly if the football schools are unhappy. Again, the Bills need to get their house in order ...just in case things start to happen.

For the conspirators....ESPN wins For the nonconspirators....damn...BE unluckiest conference in the world....not even counting TCU and others who have backed out. UConn and Cinn not far behind. Next up basketball schools will have to decide what to do.....This is where A-10 comes in. Could be another realignment...BB only or a new conference or two. Should be interesting. I hope we get our coaching situation squared away in a timely fashion so we are ready when the chips start to fall.

On a side note ...I had Col St and UW even also....Col St is a close match to us...and CSU wiped them out...CSU played a great game and UW had a bad one. While past performance is no guarantee it trends well for us going into this game.

UW is a good team that is underperforming. Time may show that in fact they are just average but for now they are underperforming. To a much lesser extent we too are underperforming. With a win we will jump back to A- and UW will drop back to B.

They do get a home court ad and I have given them one...that's why we are even....we are slightly better but the HCA evens it out.

Key to this game is the same as the others....keeo 3 pt% for opp below 35\% and turnovers below 10..... In the SIU game we held them to 22% and 12 turnovers....good enough to beat SIU but too many turnovers to beat Washington. It is interesting to note that the numbers from last night's game hurt us and helped SIU even though we won. UW and the Bills are both B+ teams.... so the game imo will hinge on UW 3 pt shooting % and out TO's.. This is an important game for both teams as it will determine the tone going forward for the next few weeks.

2 players battling over a rebound with 6 min left...one player takes an elbow and that player puts on a headlock...SIU-E bench clears...some rolling around on the floor but no real fight. ..Suspensions may come to SIU-E for bench clearing. C was winning by 15 at the brawl and won the game by 16. E finished the game with 7 players. They are both bad teams...D for C...D- for E Must be some sort of SIU supremacy thing. Btw we will see the E in about a month. And these are not even the worst teams we are playing. Dec should be a good month for the Bills

Well as Coach K always says..."Next Play" which is code for time to move on The good news is the loss did no damage to our numbers and we maintain an A- rating. SIU is not very good....they are D rated. Even allowing that the data may still be off a little...that we have some injuries that are shorthanding us, we still should win this game handily.

I think the Bills gave an outstanding effort and show a lot of promise for the upcoming season In my "Kansas by 8" post i mentioned what I thought it took to win...keeping turnovers to less than 10 and holding KU to less than 35% from the 3. We didn't do either. Yet we didn't miss by much. ...3 extra baskets ..why didn't anyone guard Releford...Self said he couldn't believe it...plus 3 extra turnovers. It definitely would have been a game. Yet ....we did do it ...in the 2nd half...only 2 TO and no 3's Missing KM, JJ, KC, GG...you have 1 guard left...the players are fatigued and outmanned and having foul trouble plus not a great shooting night.....yet....in the 2nd half we played 12th rated Kansas even....I would say that was amazing. And for the future they should keep that goal...less than 10 turnovers/game (no more than 5/half) Plus keep the opp to less than 35% from the 3...we far exceeded that last year. I applaud the Bills on a great effort.

I think if we can hold them to 35% or less from the 3pt arc and turn the ball over less than 10 times we could take them.

My bad...you are correct...DC is bigger...guess I was including western Conn in my orig statement.

And what allows them to underbid and keeps rivals from bidding up your product is when your product starts to deteriorate (lose your good teams) Now it could be an ESPN conspiracy or the BE is extremely unlucky to start losing teams (Rutgers plus the replacement teams right as they start their new TV negotiation. Could be a coincidence. I could live with your point and say the Big East is an extremely unlucky conference. Btw the BE was also going to open up TV negotiations early a little over a year ago. ...when suddenly Cuse and Pitt left unexpectedly.. Just another bad break ...another coincidence. Seems like the basketball gods have it in for the BE

To open a spot in the ACC for a BE team ...Rutgers gone plus 1 other BE school... No loss to ESPN with the Md move... no gain for. Fox which owns 49% of the TV deal ...the rest belongs to B10 ...Let's say you lose Md TV and replace it with UConn...A net gain in TV market plus the destruction of the BE...A big win overall for ESPN

Yes, we will wind up in some GOC (grand optimal conference ...whatever or wherever that is) not because of dreamers but because of "reality" The "reality is everything is controlled by TV markets...not by rivalries, traditon, geography coaches, arenas, etc...things that matter to fans but don't matter in "reality". Why did the B10 take Rutgers and Md...geography, academics, best football teams...none of the above....Md brings DC/Va /Md TV market..and Rutgers brings NJ/NY TV market ...doesn't get any sweeter than that. Why is this happening now? Why not wait till football is over, what is the rush ...no one is going to "steal" Rutgers away. The "reality" is on Nov 1 the Big East started to negotiate it's new TV contract. ESPN was unable to reach an agreement with ESPN during the 60 days exclusive bargaining period. A Big East ploy that backfired...BE thought they were gaining leverage by bringing in more bidders. but oops... ESPN was looking at 2 choices on Nov 1... 1 Lose the bid...very bad for ESPN ..loss of revenue, strengthen competition 2 Win the bid ...still bad...very costly...billions and billions to knockout the competition So on Nov 1 ESPN developed a third option ...destroy the Big East...no competition and saving of billions of dollars ...it took ESPN about 3 weeks to put the deal together...probably longer...they had it sitting ready to go as a contingency.. They tell Rutgers to move to the B10...and the new additions to go back to their old conferences if they know what's good for them. And the replacement for Md in the ACC???...Will probably come from the Big East in 2 weeks when the ACC meets for their Championship. Could be UConn or Louisville...my guess UCONN... Another big TV market plus ESPN is HQ in Conn. The key is the replacement comes from the BE. Cost to ESPN a few exit fees in amount of $10s of millions ...chump change compared to what they would had to spend....plus no competition. So getting back to where will SLU wind up...answer...wherever ESPN wants us. The good news is we are a decent TV market...and we will wind up in a good situation as a result of that.

Great win last night....good enough to lift us back to A- . The problem is KU is an A+ team. An interesting side note...KU's only loss this year was to Mich St 67-64...almost identical to our loss to MSU in the tourney 65-61

Both teams rated B+ Still have some old data in there...and it will gradually diminish...After the Washington game it will all be 2012. This is the swing game...do we bounce back after a fluke game or do we spiral down in a bad trend. What a coincidence that in the 3rd game with so much uncertainty for the future we play a team that we are even with. Should be a good game if we keep the turnovers down and play a little D.

On the 2 issues I had with our game....SC 3 point shooting and turnovers...you may have missed my points On the 3 point shooting, I was not trying to play the what-if game but to point out that SC had deviated from the mean with a 63% shooting average . The average 3 pt. % for all Div 1 schools is about 34% and the best teams in the country shoot in the upper 50's. (SC up to this year has not been one of the best) A very interesting article (sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/luke_winn/...three/index.html ) by Luke Winn in SI.com from 5/14/ 12 specifically talks about Majerus at SLU and how his defense of the 3 has led to one of the best 3 pt defenses in the country....the other being Bo Ryan's Wisconsin. Want to see the difference between Crews and Majerus? This article is a good start. Again my point was to not only show SC shooting as being freakish but also to show how we went from one of the best 3 point defenses (opp shot 25.6% last year) to the worst (albeit only 2 games) My other point was turnovers...not only too many but most were converted to points.. We were outscored on 24-8 on turnovers. We knock off some of those turnovers and we have a game. Those weren't the only problems but those were 2 that stood out to me. Fixing them will be the difference between a good season and a bad one.

Two things standout to me in this game. One is ...hot 3 point shooting from SC...63% Two is ....17 turnovers....outscored 24-8 on turnovers Had SC shot "normal" you could subtract three 3's (9pts) plus we get rid of a couple of turnovers (15 is still too many) and we could have won. There won't be many opponents this year that will shoot 63% from the 3 against us so this problem will take care of itself. or let them keep the 3's and get rid of 5 or 6 turnovers (10 or 11 is still too many) and we win. If we are going to have a successful season we need to take care of the ball. The good news is that this is fixable. The question is...will we fix it? That will determine whether this game was a fluke.

UMass and Butler are both B teams. They will both be forces in the A-10....just not the main forces.

As for VCU....they are an A- team....Wich St is a B+ team. ...So with VCU playing at home I would have given them a slight edge....but the word upset should not be used here....Wich St is a very good team.

No matter how you look at this, it is an upset. Even with sketchy data at this point of the season it is still an upset. Washington has a B+ ranking ...Albany has a C- ranking. That's why you play the game.

Ala-H could beat a lot of Div1 schools. K-St is not one of them. North Tex is no K-St. K-St has an A rating and will be a B12 power

No slam at X here...I have them as a very good B+ team