The Wiz

So are you saying this guy cries "volf "?

1 Ky 2 OSU 3 Kan 4 MSU 5 Syr 6 NC 7 Wisc 8 Fla 9 Mizzou 10 Ind 11 Lville 12 Marq 13 Gtwn 14 Wich St 15 THE BILLS 16 Memphis 17 Baylor 18 New Mex 19 Vandy 20 Duke 21 Zags 22 Fla St 23 K St 24 Purdue 25 Ala. A few observations...... Nothing that happened from Jan on changed my mind that we were and are an elite team. The confirmation for the doubters should have come during the tourney. The beating of Mem and the close call with MSU should have opened some eyes. In a series with Mem over time we would split with them and in a series with MSU we would compete in all the games and win about 3/8 of them. And yes, in a series with Mizzou we would split...each team winning their home games. Also we were the class of the A-10 even though X was rated in the polls and we were not. Not to mention Temple was slightly better than X too. The fact that X is 24th is another confirmation that we should be at 15th. And Ohio U??? ranked at all???, much less ahead of us...I don't know what they are thinking. Why not rank Norfolk and Leigh? Bottomline is we had a great season and as the next year rankings from assorted pundits start to come in, it is clear that we are no longer the only ones who think we are elite. The rest of the world is starting to catch on too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/04/sports/ncaabasketball/kentucky-built-a-title-team-on-underclassmen-expected-to-leave-early-for-the-nba.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=sports

Our banner was up at the Superdome between Purdue and St.Mary's...So we must have been in the tourney.

@SSG.... as for the picks... the computer had Ky by 6 1/2 over Lville but I went against it trying to outsmarted the pool...fail...on the Oh St/Kan I had osu by 2...that didn't work....I was showing OSU & KY even...would have been a good game...So instead.....Ky by2 over Kan.

@brm.... Because their freshman take enough hours before they get drafted...it is a sham..

The thing that has the locals buzzing in New Orleans is the use of hand signs by the Ky team. These are not vague signs that can be misinterpreted as fun gestures but the sign of the Bloods gang. Their fan base not only uses them but wear t shirts with the symbols. New Orleans police shudder when they see thousands of visiting fans using the signs of crime, violence and drugs in their city...not to mention the glorification of these hoodlums. Is this what an institution of higher learning should represent? ...with no graduates in their program in sight it is truly winning at all costs.

20-28?? give or take??...So if you "give" a few from 20th that brings the Bills down to the 15th I have.. So after 3 months you have finally come to my level. Whew...that was painful.. I think the thread that pushed you over the edge was back in Jan. when I made the"ridiculous" statement "from outer space" .....the post thread was titled ..."the Bills are an elite team".. I believe it was that thread that drove you to vodka. You say in this current thread quoting your past statements "for the record we deserved a 30 to 40". You seem to be big on "reality". The reality of the Jan thread is you posted we are a 60th team. It was in that same thread you refer to KenP as "ca-ca", Sagarin as "erratic" and the Wiz as "done". You further said you wouldn't be a believer unless we went 9-2 (We actually went 9-2). Your big thing is reality. Your reality is not that important but but changing your statements after the fact is neither reality or truth. Unlike general opinated statements (the PD is a "commie rag") numbers are easy to quantify and check in retrospect. I should know. I have been doing it all season (and previous seasons). I put my spreads out there always before Vegas and usually before most pundits. I call those rankings the way I see them. I don't come back after the game and say I had Bills winning if I had them down by 3...or I meant the Bills were really 28th.(give or take) I try to be consistent. In Jan. I said we were 15th and at the end of March we are still 15th. The only thing that has changed is you are now in agreement with me .."give or take". My sense is you have not watched the Bills through the front windshield but rather through the rearview mirror.

March and Oct are usually the 2 months I don't go to Vegas. (I try to go to March Madness and Cardinal baseball playoffs those months). Next March I will be at the Geargia Dome watching the Bills play in the Final 4..

Nice job BRM. In my office pool I am 1st out of over 100 entries. If Louisville beats Ky on Sat. I win no matter who wins on Mon. Even though Ky will be favored by the pundits (and by me ...Ky by 7 1/2) I chose Louisville not only because recent numbers suggest they have a good chance to win but more importantly for pool strategy. I knew if it was close, everyone would choose Ky and if I chose Lville the odds would be in my favor. ...and that is exactly what happened. Bottomline I have traded the 7 1/2 points for 50 to 1 odds. Seems like a good risk to reward ratio. I am getting ready to head to New Orleans in a couple of days. I will cheer for the Ville in the first game and OSU in the 2nd. Hopefully we both win something.

Well all 4 of the teams I picked in the bracket made it to the FF. How is everyone else doing? Are you still in the the running in your pool BRM?

For those that are interested (I know BRM is) we got our office pool results today. I was tied for 1st with 2 others (out of 101 entries) And out of the top 16 there is only 1 other entry besides myself that has its Final Four still intact. It should get interesting from here as I varied a bit from the program by taking Louisville to win it all. I did this for 2 reasons. One is that Louisville had the best second half numbers. The other reason was to differentiate myself from the other pool entries. I figured most would take Ky or Kan (which they did) and the risk return ratio was better with Lville. The only problem I have now is all these Ky people want to take a side bet with me straight up. Well if I don't win maybe BRM will win his pool as it sounds like he is staying the course.

1...Oh St 2...Ky 3...Mich St 4...Kan 5...NC 6...Wisc 7...Syr 8...Fla 9...Ind 10..Mizzou 11..Marq 12..Gtwn 13..Wich St 14.. THE BILLS 15..Mem 16..Baylor 17..Duke 18..Lville 19..Vandy 20..N Mex 21..Zags 22..Fla St 23..Purdue 24..Kan St 25..Ala. As we are now done it will be hard for us to move up or down. (unless one of the teams below us gets hot and goes to the Nat Champ game) While these rankings didn't make sense to many a few months ago, I think the predictive nature of the rankings is now more evident. Now for some fantasy basketball or "what if" Had we beat MSU we would have been rated 11th. Had we had a "normal" (average) game against MSU we would have scored 12 more points and would have won by 8. Had we beat MSU by 8, we would have been rated 8th after that convincing win. We would have been favored to win the next 2 games and would have projected to the Final Four against Ky. ...where Ky would have been favored by 5...and being that close...we would have said..."this game is winnable" And then if we were able to work the "RM effect" ...we make it to the Nat Ch game against Oh St...well we just dominated Columbus this last weekend ...so why not again. Bingo... Champs While the above is fantasy and I took some liberties particularly in the last 2 games the point of all this is ....we are an elite team and possibly were within a few shots of going to the Final Four. Maybe there are still doubters (are you crazy...we are not better than Duke) but with each passing game the doubters become fewer. We are an elite team. Bill-lieve

I think in the next game I will be rooting for Louisville. I leave on Wed for Phoenix to see my 3rd MSU game (ugh) in a row. (LIU, The Bills and now Lville) I was hoping the Bills would be in this game. I don't think I could take a 4th game of Green ...either the player or the school color. Computer says MSU by 5 again...but I chose the Ville over them in the bracket because Lville numbers are better in the 2nd half. If MSU wins again , I may have to ditch the tourney and go to Vegas.

Not on sports teams.

Grats to you BRM...you'll have to buy me a drink if you win. The Wisc pick over Syr was the right pick. Those 2 teams are showing even now. I think this will be the first game in the tourney where Fab Melo missing will make a difference. I am surprised that Syr is favored by 4 especially with Fab out ...Vegas is usually closer to me. In my pool they haven't put out the results yet but those running it said I am "up there" I will probably lose to the gal who picks the teams based on mascots. ...lol

+1.....maybe next year we will cut a month off.

There is a baseline at the beginning which takes into acct player changes, data from the previous year etc. It is at best sketchy...not too bad but not as good as later in the season. The key is sometime after the first few weeks of the season there is what's called a "connect". Where enough teams have played each other to make a connection....kind of like 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon.....A "small world" phenomenon where every actor in Hollywood can be connected to Kevin within 6 steps. Well the NCAA Div 1 is even a smaller world ....only 345 teams. It generally takes a few weeks (end of Nov) to connect. So sit tight and bask in the glory of a great season. Next season will be here soon enough.

What a great effort by the Bills battling the Spartans the entire game. Columbus headlines read ..."MSU survives scare by St. Louis". We are now officially on the basketball map. We coulda/shoulda won that game. Had we played a "normal" game we would have made 2 more 3's and 3 more 2's for an additional 12 points. This could have been an 8 point win against an MSU team that shot above average (54%) ...a #1 seed and a top 5 team by any ranking. All is not lost though. What the Bills gained is the knowlrdge and confidence that they are an elite team. That they can play with anyone. After the tournament in Anaheim, I remember seeing we had become a top 25 team in the polls as well as my rankings. After Loy M, we disappeared from the polls yet continued to climb in my rankings until in January I made the"ridiculous" exclamation that we are an "elite" team. (at that point #15) It was ridiculous to the doubters. I know what MB 73 stands for now. When asked the question of where the Bills rank...he answered ....May Be 73rd. (sorry couildn't resist) But it wasn't just the doubters. The faithful had trouble swallowing the full notion of elite too. It was tough to accept after a decade of no dancing. There were always the doubts. But in the end, we battled MSU the "official elite" to the final seconds. Izzo said after the game , that the Bills were his toughest opponent of the year. Pretty heady stuff from an elite coach who faced the likes of Oh St., Wisc and Ind this year. Just another validation that we belong....that we are more than good ....we are elite. Bottomline for next year is ....we go in with the confidence and experiece of knowing we can play and beat anyone. We go into the season not with the hope of making the Dance...but expecting to make the Dance. Next year when someone says we are elite....you can answer ..."Yeah baby"

I liked the quote from Jackson in the PD who said "we never saw anything like that before" and "it kind of messed us up" ...even though Memphis trolls said all week that whatever we threw at them was nothing they hadn't seen before and that it would be no big deal. Oops. Where are the trolls now? Win=troll repellant

Yes, I would say using the B10 for comparison,,,,we are most like Wisc......Using D, tempo and taking care of the ball. I believe Wisc gave you a rough time at the Kohl Center where they forced you into OT before you beat them 63-60. I also have Wisc fairly close to us in my rankings. The Bills at 14...Wisc at 6...MSU at 3...so fairly tight. Should be a good game.

Crowd estimate from ESPN....Fail Wearing Blue does not equal Memphis.

No surprise here. As I pointed out in some other threads after seeing MSU (you gotta see the kids play) they are beatable, The RM factor was worth 8 in the first game...that would be enough in this game. The Bills are now 14th ranked...moving ahead of Memphis. At the 13th spot is Marq yet another West pod seed. This is not an easy road but a doable road. We took the first step Fri and on Sun we will take a bigger step. Win or lose it will be great for the Bills to play one of the top teams in the country. If we protect the ball, mix it up with them in the paint and make our 2 footers we could be headed to Phoenix. Go Bills

I agree with the above posters ...we need to nix (mix) it up a bit with them. As mentioned RL, CE, and DE would be good choices . Maybe this new kid Miller that Memphis has loaned us can help out. He seems to be quite the stud. Back on a serious note, I think a player we are forgeting who would be perfect against MSU would be CR. I hope he steps up on Sun. One thing the LIU game showed is that when LIU did mix it up MSU struggled. We are much better than LIU and deeper,,,,we could give State a lot of trouble ...enough to cause a loss.