Old guy

OK man-to-man defense then.

Wiz, After the first half I thought the game was winnable, to bad the second half was what it was. Going back to the argument that the numbers indicated this game was not winnable because SIUC was a C team and we were an F+ team, as it turns out we could very well have won this game had we played the second half as we did the first half. To quote you "the Saluki's did not win this game, we lost it." I know that if pigs had wings they would fly (or not like ostriches) but even when the numbers indicate a 95% chance of losing, there is a 5% chance of winning. The tails acting against the bulk of the distribution curve. We will not blow every single opportunity like this one when they present themselves, a few will turn out as wins. Too bad this was not one of them.

I do have a question in my mind, why did we change from a zone defense in the first half, which was working, to a player to player defense in the second half which did not work?

What can I say, the stats and the injuries said we would lose and lose we did. Too bad, they did OK in the first half.

Where is Reggie?

It is only half time and I do not want to jinx it but they are not doing bad, ahead by 2. Not bad so far.

No, I am watching the ESN3 stream, it is good.

This is the link for the game stream in ESPN3 http://www.espn.com/watchespn/player/_/id/2946022/

Feel sorry for the guy, from riches to bankrupt in a few years, and 27 years to wait before the pension kicks in! Not shocked by the child support he paid, if you divorce in certain states, the child support costs are very high.

If you read the PD article talking about "banged up Bills" it appears that our chances of holding our own against SIUC have been limited by injury during the last game to Crawford and issues with Bishop's ankle and Roby's hand. Moore and Johnson will be playing more minutes, probably a lot more.

As per team rankings the Vegas implied scores are expected to be: SLU 63, SIU C 72.5 for a spread of 9.5.

So, you are already calculating on a post Ford Billikens team? Wow, you must be a chess player calculating 5 moves in advance. And yes, I agree that Ford will take the Bills back to the dance and fairly soon too. I also agree that this will mean a significant amount of money for the Bills depending on the number of seasons he takes us to the dance and how we do once in it. I like this scenario.

Crawford was dizzy after the hit, so he may have sustained a concussion, likely a mild concussion but who knows. If this results in less time for Crawford, it may give more time to Moore and Johnson which might be an even exchange. Who knows what will happen, we really cannot go much lower than we are now.

I do not know what Johnson and Moore are capable of shooting if they play a lot, but I would be willing to try and find out.

I do agree that some of the statistics in basketball, as well as elsewhere, are a bit subjective. But that does not mean that assists are the only stat in basketball where subjectivity is found. For example what is the difference between a block and a foul? sometimes just the ref's call... In real life, when you are measuring end points of some kind, it is useful to realize that endpoints, other than death or birth, are hard to determine. What makes someone disabled? Basically, a decision by Social Security or the insurance carrier. You may think disability is a hard condition, easily identifiable, but it is not, there is a lot of looseness in this term, just take this on faith since we could discuss this issue for hours and reach no hard and fast general conclusion. The thing about assist stats is that they show how willing a player is to pass to another player to make a goal to benefit the team. Agree or disagree, assists are a good thing to have in a team that plays like a team.

Wiz, I agree you do not get to certain levels because of 1 person or 1 stat, agree this is a team effect. However, is it reasonable to ask how does a team get to that level? My answer is that the overall team rating depends upon all the individual players individual stats. For example Reggie's tendency to walk and cause turn overs, or his poor shooting score as the season advances. The lack of scoring from Roby, the non performance of Gillmann and Neufeld. When you have such player level trends going on inside the team, the overall team level sinks. True it is not easy to provide a fix that will raise the level of the team, and most likely this will not happen this season. However, not all players are sinking at the same rate, and some may be improving in some ways. Before we start, or continue, crucifying Ford we should think about what he is doing with the resources he has at hand. An important aspect of the job of a coach is to manage the way the players are trending in their play. This requires for the coach to detect who is doing what and who is improving or not, and what the improvement or the lack thereof is caused by. Some players will not improve, period, they just do not have it. Others may be improving in some ways. We will depend next year upon some of these kids to provide the needed depth in the bench. Developing this bench depth may be a tall order, judging by what we have seen so far. If I may say so, Crawford's poor performance is not a surprise, it is a disappointment most likely caused by his injuries. He will not need basketball skills for numbers crunching as an accountant after graduation, and we should all wish him well. Reggie may wind up being a basketball star in his native Ghana, or in some international league, and we should also wish him well. As for the other players, the best we can hope for is that Ford succeeds in building up some players and giving them the experience and skills necessary to provide some depth in the bench for next year's team. I believe we may win more games this season that what the numbers show, but these wins, if they happen, will be due to chance and to some specific players becoming able to exploit opportunities, more than overall basic team ability. We will see, there may be some (dim) light at the end of this tunnel, although it looks pretty dark now.

Depends it indicates a willingness to pass the ball to someone else to get the score. Do you prefer a blind run into a clutch of defenders like Reynolds used to do last year?

I went over the stats for the Chicago St. game. The only two players in our team that were involved in significant numbers of assists were Roby and Bishop. I know a lot has been written about these two, however they are the only involved in assists as a regular part of their playing style.

Come on Bonwich, the Wiz is just trying to educate us about the meaning of numbers and reaching conclusions (right or wrong) based upon numbers. That does not mean to say we will beat SIUC

I would not presume that the process of hiring a new coach included heavy discussion and calculation on how to rebuild the team and how to handle any remaining players after the exit of the prior coach. I think it is a lot more likely that they concentrated on the coach candidates and their fit into the program rather than anything else. This is not a negative comment directed to Ford, it is a negative comment directed to the administration.

I think they could be, they are basketball players after all, they should enjoy playing not only winning. Maybe I am being naive about this.

One observation about this game, our kids were playing cautiously like they were afraid of blowing it up, like they almost did. No one seemed to be enjoying the act of playing, there was no exuberance or enthusiasm in them. They appeared flat. Remember last year when Reynolds would get full of himself and bend over to hit the court's flooring with his hands. Nothing at all even remotely like that.

A win is a win, thank you Lord, but this was a sloppy game.

Neither is Teaam Rankings

Which is a perfectly good thing to say cheeseman, if you are going to say anything to him.