RUBillsFan

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.

Here is a look at who the teams that are #21 - 36 are playing this coming week: 36. UNLV - 2/6 @ Fresno St. and 2/9 vs New Mexico. Predicted to win both games, hopefully they lose to NM as that will make SLU look better and knock UNLV down. 35. San Diego St. - 2/6 vs Boise St and 2/9 vs Fresno St. Both should be easy wins. 34. Kentucky - 2/5 vs South Carolina and 2/9 vs Auburn. Again, both should be easy wins. 33. Louisiana Tech - 2/7 vs UT San Antonio and 2/9 vs Texas State. LA Tech should not be ahead of SLU (Wiz can probably back this) they are #78 on Kempon. They have a gaudy record due to not playing anyone good (best win is at home over So. Miss and worst loss @ McNeese St). Alas, these are both easy Ws. 32. St. Mary's - 2/7 @ Santa Clara and 2/9 @ San Deigo. Predicted to win both (but SC is basically a toss up), same as UNLV-NM, SLU would benefit double from a Santa Clara win. 31. Wisconsin - 2/6 vs Iowa and 2/9 vs Michigan. Iowa should be a W and Michigan is a toss up. 30. Memphis - 2/6 @ So. Methodist and 2/9 @ So. Miss. These are projected to go W and L. 29. Wichita St - 2/5 @ SIU-C and 2/9 vs MO St. Both should be easy Ws, an SIU-C upset would be super awesome for the Bills. 28. Colorado St - 2/6 @ Nevada. Projected to win. 27. NC State - 2/7 @ Duke and 2/10 @ Clemson. L in Durham and toss up @ the Tigers. 26. Mississippi - 2/6 vs Miss St and 2/9 @ Missouri. W in the battle of MS and toss up in Columbia, MO. 25. Notre Dame - 2/4 @ Syracuse and 2/9 @ Louisville. Both are probable losses. 24. Marquette - 2/6 @ South FL and 2/9 vs DePaul. Both are probable wins, but @ South FL could be tough. 23. Pitt - 2/4 vs Seton Hall and 2/9 @ Cinci. W and a toss up. 22. OK St. - 2/6 vs Baylor and 2/9 @ Texas. Favored to win both, but by narrow margins. 21. Missouri - 2/7 @ T A&M and 2/9 vs Ole Miss. Again, favored to win both, but by even narrower margins. An A&M win would be doubly nice for SLU. As you can see from above, it will be very difficult for SLU to be ranked next week. Jumping 12 spots will be tough, a lot of things will have to break right. These are the most important things SLU needs to move into the top 25: #1. SLU needs to take care of business @ Fordham and especially @ Richmond. Nothing short of a blowout will cut it in NY and a comfortable win over the Spiders would help as well. #2. We need NM (@ UNLV), Santa Clara (vs St. Marys), and Texas A&M (vs Missouri) to win their games (an SIU-C upset over Wichita St. would help greatly as well).

+1 I root for the Billiken laundry no matter who is coaching or playing in it. Sure I would be a little disappointed we didn't get some great big name coach, but I'm not pulling my support.

I won't go jumping off a ledge if Crews is retained as head coach as long as we have a great recruiter as his top assistant Many have pointed out before that it is more about the support the university give the program then the head coach (unless the coach is phenomenal). If he gets the right people around him, Crews will be fine. He wouldn't be my first choice, but I think he can succeed in the right circumstances.

This is the one that really sucks. Tony Mitchell was supposed to be dominant for North Texas and they were supposed to win their league. His stock has dropped quite a bit and North Texas's winning % has dropped with it.

Perhaps, Manning still not fully back from the concussion. I know for a while they were saying Glaze was still dealing with shoulder issues. Also, Kwamain may not be fully back from the broken foot yet. Have to keep everyone else healthy while we heal. Having that week off between Richmond and Charlotte will suck for us fans, but will be good for the team if there are guys that aren't 100%.

Am I imagining things for did Conklin have a similar hitch? Also, this seems to be a new thing for Dwayne this year? Maybe he worked with Conklin? Either way, awesome that he gets so many extra attempts. I'm sure it also pisses the other team off quite a bit and maybe distracts them for a bit. Makes you look like an idiot when you get a lane violation especially if it is like Butler's Fromm where you fall into the lane. You would think other teams (especially A-10 opponents) would scout this and know about Dwayne's hitch, but I guess there isn't much to scout on FT shooting so they probably don't focus on it much.

Welcome to the board Trader Rick. That button to the left of the A on the keyboard is called "Caps Lock" if you hit it again then you can type lowercase. All kidding aside, I'm hopeful that your predictions continue to come true.

Obviously, this was a big factor in Larry choosing SLU. However, I think Larry's story should be a huge recruiting tool for SLU. He was a star and was a lottery pick despite not having more "expose" being with a big time BCS program. The lesson is that if you are a good enough player, it doesn't matter what school you go to, you will still be recognized and make it to the NBA if you are talented and put the work in. In fact, you may get more exposure at a school like SLU because you will be THE star on the team rather than one of many at a "big time" school and you will be THE star in a large media market in St. Louis.

No, this is Roy we are talking about. Think about geography and Roy and you might be able to put it together better.

I think there may be some confusion here: RPIForecast has 2 sites. #1 is up to the minute RPI - this has been updated for SLU's win over Butler as it is constantly updated #2 is forecasted end of season RPI along with the % chances of final records & whatnot - this has NOT yet been updated for SLU's win over Butler http://www.rpiforecast.com/teams/St.%20Louis.html Look at the top of the page where it says "Through games of Jan 30, 2013" that means it does not yet include the win over Butler. Those % will all increase a little bit for the win, but perhaps not as much as you would think because SLU was projected to win the game.

Coach Stone continues to impress.

I saw the post before Roy edited the name out of it. I'll never tell who it was though.

Chaifetz seems like a jeans guy to me. He should have rocked the white sports jacket with jeans Miami Vice style. Honestly, though the guy can do whatever he wants as far I am concerned.

I'd like to thank all of you for the tremendous effort putting all of the shirts out. That time lapse video of it was awesome. Don't let the idiots that didn't put it on get to you. On the pirated TV feed it looked pretty sweet and like almost everyone had their white on.