RUBillsFan

College BBall Talk, the NBC Sports blog, has a post up about the A-10 action this weekend: http://collegebasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/02/15/weekend-preview-who-breaks-loose-in-the-atlantic-10/

FYI: On the Chaifetz ticket website, for the $12, $20, and $32 price ranges only single tickets are available for the VCU game. Groups of tickets are still available in the $40 price range. As far as I can tell the 1/2 price tickets for VCU in the $20 and $32 are still available via the StlToday.com deal. I would assume they would remove the game from the list if these were sold out.

Don't forget the cheerleader who is in remission.

Matt Norlander giving this story some love on his CBS sports blog: http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/blog/eye-on-college-basketball/21698393/wakeup-call-what-are-kentuckys-new-odds-to-win-it-all "And yet another good story on Saint Louis basketball. The program is the feel-good team of the year."

Seems like Charlotte might be close to a sell out. The Groupon deal for Charlotte is sold out. Poking around on the Chaifetz ticket website, I was only able to get single tickets for the game. I wonder if they will release "obstructed view" seats like they did for the Butler game.

I'm hoping that it speaks more to the fact that the AD wants all of the remaining games to be as close to sell outs as possible than it does to tickets not selling well (ie hopefully they had around 9,000 for the VCU game, but wanted to sell out so they put up the deal). I am optimistic we will see 9,000+ crowds at all of the games from here on out (with the possible exception of St. Joes on a Wednesday).

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Given that this is a Tuesday game, it is not that surprising, but Butler was Thursday and sold out. I suppose Butler being top 10 put a lot more butts in the seats. I will say I am glad the AD is using these deals to try to sell more tickets rather than just sitting on their hands.

Amen. I like watching teams run an offense much more than just seeing the a bunch of 1 on 1 drives to the basket.

The VCU game has been added to the StlToday.com deal: http://upickem.stltoday.com/engine/SplashDetails.aspx?contestid=17232&productid=8315268

And there is another StlToday.com deal up for 1/2 price tickets: http://upickem.stltoday.com/engine/SplashDetails.aspx?contestid=17232&productid=8315268&LID=36 Description Today's Deal is good for: - 50% off a reserved seating ticket to the SLU Men's Basketball game! - Limit (6) coupons per person. - Coupon must be redeemed at the box office and swapped for a scan-able ticket. - Coupon valid only for game listed on coupon when purchased. - Game options include: Saturday, Feb. 16 at 6 p.m. - SLU vs. Charlotte Wednesday, Feb. 27 at 7 p.m. - SLU vs. St. Joseph's Saturday, March 9 at 12:30 p.m. - SLU vs. La Salle - Each game has three ticket options: $6 for upper level end reserved seating ($12 value) $10 for upper level corner reserved seating ($20 value) $16 for lower level end or upper level corner reserved seating ($32 value) March Madness excitement may be quickly approaching, but why wait? Get your basketball fix now! Cheer on the St. Louis University Billikens Men's Basketball team in one of their final home conference games of the season! The Billikens have carried out an impressive season that is quickly coming to a close, and hopefully headed into the NCAA Tournament. Choose from three game options (or just make it simple and go to all three!), including Charlotte on February 16, St. Joseph's on February 27, and La Salle on March 9. Make sure you're part of the action with your reserved seat ticket!

Front the video it looks like Bowers got the best shot in with a shove of the Ole Miss player then as the Ole Miss player is going back at him the ref is pushing him so he lands a sloppy hit on Bowers. Oriakhi blatantly grabbed the guy's foot as he (Oriakhi) was lying on the floor the refs called it intentional immediately. Oriakhi didn't do any real "fighting" other than go into a crouch and put up his dukes, but he was obviously being an aggressor trying to instigate things with another Ole Miss player while Bowers did his dirty work. It looked to me like the refs handled it well. The one ref goes to shut down the Ole Miss player aggressively going toward Oriahki after the foul and the only reason Bowers got hit was because he came over and shoved the guy. IMO, Bowers looks worst on video, then Ole Miss guy. Oriahki is a clown and should also be suspended, but he didn't do much other than instigate everything.

Sure enough. Looks like the Bills have put out another Groupon deal to replace the one that ended (I wonder if these sites have a limit on how many days the deals can go on). http://www.groupon.com/deals/gl-saint-louis-university-billikens-1 This Groupon is only available for the regular price $32 tickets for Charlotte & Lasalle, but for $32, $20, and $12 price for St. Josephs. That means the Charlotte & LaSalle games must be selling better presumably because they are Saturday games and St. Joe's is a Wednesday game.

Bump for the last day to buy 1/2 price tickets on Living Social: https://www.livingsocial.com/events/580724-saint-louis-men-s-basketball-tickets Over 2,200 sold so far, not too shabby.

It is even worse when the teams that share a mascot are in the same conference. There are 3 Tigers in the SEC and 3 Rams in the A-10. That means there are multiple Tigers vs Tigers and Rams vs Rams games each year. How awful is that?

Random observation that has nothing to do with Mizzou. I saw that the Illini knocked off #1 Indiana. Illinois is not a good team, but they have so many opportunities at home to beat great teams that it makes them look good. They will have a crappy record and still make the tournament. If they are hot from the outside they might even win a couple of games. In reality they have no business being in the tournament.

Just about the only thing I know about women's college basketball is that UConn is generally always awesome. Therefore, I have very little basis for this comment, but the Lady Bills seems to be doing very well this season under Coach Stone. Their current RPI is 166 which might not seem very good, but when you consider that the last 3 years their RPIs were 229 (2011-12), 279 (2010-11), and 231 (2009-10), it is definitely an improvement. In fact, going all the way back to the 2003-04 season, the only season where they finished with an RPI below 166 was 2008-09 when they finished at 143. This tells me that usually the Lady Bills are pretty much equivalent to the men's Fordham team year in and year out. However, this season they have improved into the Rhode Island/George Washington range. Baby steps.

Reed, Mitchell, Conklin, and Cassity is right up there (even with only 2 years of Reed). I'm not sure if you deduct points for Cotto & Thompson. Obviously Gray & Douglass, Claggs & Highmark, and Lisch & Liddell would be up there as well (not sure who else was in those classes if anyone), but they don't have the same quantity. Technically, you could consider Liddell a year before Lisch since he committed and then went to prep school for a year, but I think you count them because they started at the same time.

If you look at the RPI forecast with conference tournaments simulation, it seems like 23+ wins going into selection Sunday should get us in. That means some combination of regular season and conference tournament wins so 6-2 reg (0-1 conf tourney), 5-3 reg (1-1 conf tourney), 4-4 (2-1 conf tourney), 3-5 (3-1), 2-6 or worse and we need to win the conf tourney.

I think the Bills were just tired of not getting in love in the A-10 player of the week voting. They decided to play lax on D so they could score more points and get more consideration.

Wiz, I'm curious about how much the SIU-C upset of Witchita State helped the Bills ranking. Hopefully our OOC opponents continue to do well and score a few more upsets.

If this is true, then that is awesome. Way to go. Perhaps all of us should call KPLR and suggest that they pick up the entire 2013-2014 season.

The main difference between Creighton and SLU is that SLU is in the St. Louis media market while Creighton is in Omaha. cgeldmacher's post highlights that other differences are fleeting. That is why SLU should appeal to the C7 more than Creighton.

You beat me to it, Jimbo. He's like one of those EYE-talian sports cars. Classic.

Check out the Media Information for Fordham / Richmond thread

Bob Staak trades up from X to Wake Forest in 1985 and is replaced by: Pete Gillen who trades up from X to Providence in 1994 and is replaced by: Skip Prosser who trades up from X to Wake Forest in 2001 and is replaced by: Thad Matta who trades up from X to Ohio State in 2004 and is replaced by: Sean Miller who trades up from X to Arizona in 2009. Wikipedia doesn't mention why Staak or Gillen left, so I'm not sure on those circumstances, but the rest left Xavier after being offered the HC position somewhere else. Pretty impressive consecutive run of coaches who all used Xavier as a stepping stone. It remains to be seen if Chris Mack can pull off the same feat.