RUBillsFan

He was moving his feet there. Crap call on the charge on Evans.

CALL THAT BOTH WAYS ZEBRA!!!

I like Gottlieb, too. He also seems like a genuinely good person/father if you follow him on twitter.

I love that aggressiveness on defense by Grady guarding the inbounds pass after the make. It can be so effective if you don't do that often to jump in there every once in a while. Easy to get a 5 second call or steal one if they aren't paying attention. Conklin was the king of doing that.

A few over the back calls on VCU would be nice.

Not at the game, but based on the audio it sounds like VCU has a very sizeable contingent there. Nothing to be ashamed of if VCU has more fans there. It is like a 5 and 1/2 hour drive from Richmond to NY vs a 15 hour drive from St. Louis. I'm sure a lot of VCU fans headed up for the day after they made the finals. Most SLU fans would have had to plan the whole weekend ahead of time.

Half time: Bills have played pretty well so far. I'd like to seem them knock down a few more FTs and cut down on the turnovers. They have done pretty well against the press, but have 8 turnovers which is a little high. Most have been "aggressive" turnovers though (iirc 50/50 charge on Barnett, trying to force it inside to Loe or Evans) which aren't that bad. They have missed some open looks from 3 as well (iirc McCall with 1 and Ellis with 2), but 2/6 isn't bad. The refs have done pretty well and called it fair so far. It is almost comical because VCU fouls so much. If they keep calling over 50% of the fouls that VCU commits, we should be okay.

KWAMAIN IN THE MEMBRANE

I agree he has done well with the press.

Just seems like he has had a chance on some rebounds that he didn't get and he hasn't been posting him as much as I would like.

Loe is playing soft. Need him to man up.

They are certainly playing some "defense" on Evans in the paint. Mostly just grabbing and holding him.

that should be intentional

Shaka flashing the ****** sign.

All about defense. If VCU doesn't score, they can't set up their press as well. I'm nervous about they way the refs call the game. Obviously VCU benefits if they swallow their whistles and I could see that happening if they don't want to make a big time TV game "unwatchable" by calling a bunch of fouls.

I thought the white/black thing was referring to the fact that the JUCO big who was at the LaSalle game and was being discussed in the other thread is black whereas Stivrins is clearly white. To take a page out of slufan13's book "As a subscriber to billikenreport.com, I can confirm [both of these]"

I believe there were some CBC kids at the game, but I don't think they were the "7 footer" you are talking about.

I think I'll be rooting for Charlotte. Richmond can be tough with the match up zone and the Princeton offense.

Highlights here: http://collegebasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/03/09/video-no-16-saint-louis-claims-share-of-a-10-title-with-win-over-la-salle/

I thought Redford's block was probably clean. He could have probably been called for a blocking foul while Jett was driving to the hoop (as McCall & Mitchell were a few times on Semaj's drives), but the zebras don't make that call late in the game against the home team. Taj is absolutely correct re the blocks of Dwayne. Twice an X bruiser (might have been Taylor both times, not sure) "blocked" Evans shot after going through his arm to get the ball. X bigs were leaning into and over Dwayne all night with no calls. I have to give them credit though, they did a good job of bumping our guys with their bodies while keeping their hands high. Playing D like that makes it a lot tougher for the ref to call fouls.

Bills poor execution and terrible shooting lost us the game, but I think the officiating was almost inexcusably bad. In the first half, Dwayne was getting bumped and shoved around down low, but there were no fouls called on X. Twice Dwayne had his shot "blocked" and on the replay it looked like the defender got mostly arm. The Xavier "timeout" in overtime was horrible. Christon's entire game is based on carrying the ball and hooking his defender, but he wasn't called for either at all. Multiple times when X traveled there was no call or a phantom foul called on the Bills. It is difficult to win 5 on 8. Despite all of that the Bills should have won the game. There were multiple defensive lapses where Taylor or some other X bruiser would get wide open duner the basket. Somehow Reford got off a few 3s which should never happen with any of our guards on him because they are so much quicker than he is. On offense, we just didn't look as crisp and didn't move the ball very well. There were a few times when we had someone open under under the basket, but the guy with the ball tried to do something himself rather than get it to the open man. Jett took outside jumpers twice early in the shot clock down the strech. For some reason, the guy that was being guarded by Reford didn't just ask for the clear out and take him off the dribble.

FYI: Here is the info about the Royal Banks tickets on Facebook.

Shelvin Mack was another very good guard on those Butler teams, but I think Nored was the PG.

Here are links to the Butler runner up team rosters: 2010-11 2009-10 There are quite a few Indiana kids on those rosters including probably the 2 best players (Hayward & Howard). The guy you talked to may have had a point. Although Butler has had a decent run of success (10 NCAAs in 16 years) going back to 1997, so its not like they just popped up out of nowhere during IU's down years.

I will be disappointed, but will continue to root for and support SLU almost unconditionally (barring something like a move down to D-II or some crazy bad infractions). Creighton has fared decent for themselves in the Valley, perhaps SLU could do the same.