The Wiz

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

I agree that N Tex is a decent team....about a C+ at this point. No shame in losing to Div II Alabama -Huntsville ...#3 in the nation-Div II.... Ala-H could beat a lot of Div 1 teams.

You think N Tex is weak....wait till you see UT-Martin, one of the worst teams ever. They make N Tex look like Kansas. Btw...SIU is not much better than UT-M

No it does not calculate what happened 2 years ago. That is considered "ancient history". In a small way some of it filters through in the players past history stats but it is a small variable considering all the changes. Last year is much more important than the year before even with injuries, suspensions, etc. In the Bills case of 2 years ago, it could be argued we lost a number of games by just a few points.And last year we were back at "full strength" therefore a major turnaround. While losing KM and WR seemed damaging at the time the turn around can be attributed more to the players maturing and learning the RM system. In reality, WR never did come back and KM didn't play at the same level as the year before... yet we were able to exceed expectations. Bottomline is missing players can hurt especially over a long season but there are so many other variables involved they usually don't project into a following year. Even when things are going well you can hit a sophmore jinx. How about the fabulous Junior who passes on the draft and has an average Senior year. Again that team was leaning on that player to carry them but they fall short. Getting back to the point, I use data from the previous year but already even with only 1 or 2 regular games the data will start to overtake last year. As for exhibition games, some are meaningful others not so much. As you can tell by my previous post...Simpson...negligible...Hawaii Pacific more meaningful ...not because they are terrific but because this average Div II team played terrible and SC struggled with them. That made that game significant. It indicates whatever happened last year has not been fully corrected. Yes, I know it is exhibition and doesn't count but it is still significant because HP played below par and still nearly won. In any case, all this old data with extrapolations will be gone by Thanksgiving as the new data will flush out all the old by then.

Not sure why there is a buzz on SC...SC beat NAIA Simpson...well someone already made the Homer joke...so let's just say Rockhurst as well as a few StL high schools would crush Simpson . No big deal beating Simpson. And for those still wringing their hands about SC....let's look at their earlier game against a so-so Div II Hawaii Pacific. SC won in the final seconds by 1 point. HP turned the ball over 20 times and came within a few seconds of winning. Can you imagine if Rockhurst had turned the ball over 20 times against us and we only won by 1. Is SC a horrible team? No....they are slightly below average. Then why are we favored by 18....because we are an A team. Even if the numbers are off because there are not enough data points, this game still should go in the win column. Save the hand wringing for next week....then there will be something to wring about.

Well if we were favored by 12 against Upstate which was a C+ team, it should not be that surprising to be favored by 18 against a C- team. If we play SC like we did Upstate a team we beat by 17, we will win by more than 20.

SC is not as good as Upstate. I had Upstate rated as C+ (slightly above average). SC is a C- (slightly below average). So we should be able to handle them readily as long as we take care of business. This game will conclude our warmup period. Things will ramp up substantially with TAMU.....a winnable game yet very difficult. We need to use the SC game as a tuneup for the KC tournament....ie leave our starters in a little longer and make sure we finish this game as opposed to letting SC back in once we have a lead. We need to win by at least 18.

It is interesting but it makes you wonder how accurate it is without VCU in the top 10 of difficulty. I have VCU as one of our toughest games of the year.

I think this is a great team to start with. At C+ they are slightly above average...just good enough to be a significant challenge. I think below 100 is a bit optimistic for Upstate. I would put them more around the 140 area. The 12 point spread is more volatile as a 1st game. Think of it as more of an average at this point. ie if we play them 10 times we would win by an average of 12. If we play them like we did Rockhurst in the 1st half...the game will go down to the buzzer. If we play them like we did Rockhurst ib the 2nd half we win by 20+. And if we play the game like the entire Rockhurst game(one good half, one bad half) we win by 12. I think it is promising that the 2nd half was the good one in that it shows we learned/adjusted. That bodes well for the Upstate game.

I have us at 34 which is considerably better than last year when we started around 60. If we have a succesful KC trip we could climb very quickly.

Sorry, I left St. Joe out. They will be right there with VCU if we stumble.

And so it begins.... At this point there are no teams connected so I will be using a Bayesian probability formula to start with (as many prognosticators do at this time of the year) and gradually phase it out over the next few weeks. By Thanksgiving there should be enough connected dots to make reasonable forecasts. I have the Bills starting out as an A- team....USC shows to be a C+ team. This is a game we should win but Upstate is no cupcake. This season promises to be one of great promise and excitement or one of great disappointment and letdown. Does Crews with his decades of experience as a seasoned coach take a tested and skilled team to the A-10 championship and then onto the Dance. Or does the team miss the "Majerus magic"....the combination of superb X's and O's mixed with team synergy....the abiity to make the end result greater than the sum of its parts....to make ordinary players extraordinary. If they do miss the "magic" and they don't click with Crews it could be a long season. Of course as always injuries will play a factor. We will miss KM in KC . I think the team to beat in the A-10 wil be VCU. Not too far behind will be Butler, UMass and Dayton. Even with the loss of Temple, I think the A-10 has improved its standing this year. Should be an interesting and fun year. I am in the camp that Crews will meet the challenge and that we will have a good year....The computer has the Bills at A- and that says we are good. I will bill-ieve it until I am shown otherwise. GO BILLS

+1...I do use current data...And I do seed data at least until there are a few data points. It is always kind of hit and miss till we get to Thanksgiving. As for MB73....He doesn't even wait for an exhibition game before he pops off. I guess it will be another season of shoot first and ask questions later for him. It is good to be back on the board again. I look forward to the season with cautious optimism. I think Crews will do a good job. He has better players than he did at Evansville or Army and has the tools to meld a team. We should have a good OOC record....we will miss KM in KC. And barring injury we will do well in the A-10 and should garner another NCAA bid. In about a week, I will put up the first prediction for the USCU game....Then MB will have something to chew on. Should be a fun year. And for those that would like to chat I will be over in Sec 103 Row K Go Bills

BAN THE BILLIKEN Billiken goes to Japan This section does not cite any references or sources. (December 2008) Throughout Japan representations of the Billiken were enshrined. Pre-World War II statues of the Billiken can be found in Kobe city's Chinju Inari and Matsuo Inari shrines. Both of these statues were removed from display for many years at the onset of the war when foreign deities fell out of favor. The most famous representation of the Billiken was in an amusement park, Luna Park, in the Shinsekai district of Osaka, Japan. In 1912, he was enshrined in the park as a symbol of Americana and there was revered as "The God of Things As They Ought to Be". Popular Billiken souvenirs in the park included dolls and manju (sweet buns filled with red paste). When the park closed in 1923, the wooden statue of the Billiken went missing. A replica of the statue was placed in the second-generation Tsutenkaku Tower in 1980. Presently he resides on the fifth floor observation deck and has become closely associated with the tower. Each year thousands of visitors place a coin in his donation box and rub the soles of his well-worn feet to make their wishes come true. In October 2008, the Billiken of Tsutenkaku took a journey all the way from Japan to its founding city of St. Louis where it was visited by students of St. Louis University High School, whose mascot is also the billiken. The statue was a permanent fixture in the tower until September 2005 when it made its first departure and was taken, as an ambassador of sorts, to Shibuya's Tokyu department store in Tokyo as a part of a fair to promote Naniwa (traditional Osaka) culture. As a part of the cultural exchange, a replica of the statue of Shibuya's most famous dog, Hachikō, was sent to Osaka. The Billiken was a star in Sakamoto Junji's 1996 comedy Billiken in which the statue is restored to the Tsutenkaku in an effort to revive the popularity of the tower and save Shinsekai.[8] The Billiken also became the namesake of the Japanese toy & model manufacturing company of the same name.

http://www.athlonsports.com/college-basketball/ranking-nations-top-college-basketball-coaches Agree or disagree? I think they downgraded him a little because he missed a few years.

You are correct....you shouldn't pick. May used the word "broken" ...he said "they were looking at 2 kids in Vegas and 1 in Orlando" and I did not use the words ALL practices. Before you reply, I DID have fish for lunch. I can have Chris May verify that.

A few more items from the luncheon...... Recruiting....We are looking at 2 prospects from Vegas and one from Orlando in addition to a couple of kids from St. Louis. Justin Tatum's son is also on the radar but not being recruited as he is only a 9th grader. May said that the prospects available in the class of 14 are even better than the ones for next year. Scheduling....18 games are what season tickets are based on....we are trying to schedule 19-21.games. Also A-10 scheduling is difficult because of the increase to 16 teams. We are trying to bunch road games geographically to ease travel. We will get some of what we want but not all. Injury.....KM suffered a broken bone in his foot during the Bonner league. The good news is the boot comes off today and he will start running shortly. TV....The goal is to get every TV game televised which could happen as early as next year.. The importance of TV is exposure....selling tickets, recruiting besides the extra revenue. Post season....16 teams--only 12 will make it to the A-10 tourney. New venue in Brooklyn is a significant upgrade from AC. ....Expect to make Big Dance this year and next. Thinks our team this year is better than last years and that we will go farther in the tourney. The importance of making the tourney in successive years is cumulative. The money and exposure compounds....1+1=3. And finally practice starts mid Oct....they again will be open to fans.

That assumes you have a 50% chance of winning the game. Ky was favored to win every game...e.g. they had a 70% chance of beating Lville.....which is why it more than twice as hard getting to the title game and why the odds are skewed.

The only thing out now are the odds to win the NC....no Final 4 , Sweet 16, etc...so it was just an estimate and judging by your own logic it looks like you agree at the end.(50 to 1) Odds don't always follow an exaxt pattern because it gets much tougher to to move up each rung of the ladder which brings me to slu72. Could we have made the Final 4 last year? There was a chance. Could we make it this year? There is a chance. But I think you do need to drink some blue Kool Aid at this point to be a Final 4 believer. Last year, I had the Bills at 15th which means we had a pretty good chance to make the Sweet 16....and we almost did. A shot or 2 here or there and we beat MSU. But in order for us to get to the Final 4 we would have needed to beat one of the Final 4 to replace that team (in this case Louisville) Our chances of beating one of the Final 4 teams so we could have made the Final 4 were as follows....Ky..8%...OSU....12%....Kan...14%....Lville...16%. So yes we could have made the Final 4 last year but it would have taken a miracle. This year's estimates are just that at this point. Nothing is meaningful till after Thanksgiving. 80 to 1 at this point just means we have a pretty good shot to make the Big Dance.

The last team projected to make the final 4 (Mich, Mich St or Kan) has 12-1 odds to win the entire tournament. Their chances of making the Final 4 would be about 7-1. Based on that, I would estimate the Bills chances at 50-1 to make the Final 4. This is a far cry from last May when we were not on the radar at all.