Old guy

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.

OK Cheeseman, it is a complex situation, that I do understand. You also know details that I was not aware of. The main thing is that it is over. Let the Administration worry about the money, the damage is done and it is time to close this sorry event.

Cheeseman I have issues with your post. The concepts about not performing adequately doing a specific job or a portion of a job is not a matter for an employee to determine (everybody thinks they are doing their job all the time), it is up to the supervisor, boss, etc.. to let the employee know and be clear about the specific performance levels required. No employee is going to voluntarily forgo his income because of self confessed performance failures, this just does not happen. If the AD does nothing the coach is also likely not to do anything. This is a shared responsibility between the coach and the AD. Crews is not the sole person responsible for damaging the team the way it was damaged. The responsibility for Crews' (and his coaching staff) actions is shared with the AD and whoever else it was that accepted what Crews was doing at the time. Now, that said I agree that we do not know how the AD handled the situation prior to the time when the coaching staff was terminated in a sudden fashion. It must also be understood that time must be allowed for fixes and remedies to take hold, which may indeed have been the case here. We could assume the AD discussed the situation with Crews and his staff and required remedies and fixes that did not materialize prior to the firing, but we just do not know what happened.

Don't count your chickens before they hatch, we may not wind up at the very bottom of A10 at the end of the season. And if we do, well, we can always blame Crews for it.

Wiz, thank you very much. You get what I mean, the $2 in a Power Ball ticket buys me the right to dream how I am going to spend it, does it not? At $2 for the experience this is truly a cheap thrill. Funny you should mention Vegas. For a long time I had a number of casinos in Vegas sending me offers for free rooms plus money to bet with. Never went though, call me uncommitted if you wish. Nope about the Bills Championship this year, I can read the numbers as well as you do, I just like to look at the tails of the distribution curve more than you do.

You are correct, of course, the numbers may be right most of the time. I had mentioned 95% of the time (2 SD) in my prior post. Perhaps even more than that (make it 2.18 SD), but there are still tails in the distribution curve and not every instance is covered by probability. True, it does not pay to bet against the numbers, small concern for someone who does not bet in sports games, but weird things do happen. Remember Bradley's Cinderella story when they won the NCAA? And yes, from time to time some poor slob wins the Power Ball whether I know him or not. As a matter of fact, I make a point in always buying a ticket or two to the Power Ball whenever the jackpot is over something like $150 M. No, I do not know any Power Ball winners, just like I do not know anyone who has ever died from small cell lung CA, but these things happen and they happen regularly. And hell, I really do not care if I lose my $2 ticket fee for the Power Ball, but just think what would happen if I win it. This is a bet with a minimal downside risk and a maximal upside potential with a probability of winning which is, of course, infinitesimally small. That is OK with me, I blow more money than that whenever I buy a Starbucks cup of coffee and I like to buy both my Starbuck's cups of coffee and my Power Ball tickets. Why not? So, yes you are correct that the model says the Bills will win only 3 more games, and in the vast majority of cases, as I already agreed to, you will be correct, However, I think there is a chance, a small chance for sure, they will win more than 3 games, and you really cannot prove mathematically that I am not correct until they have played all the season and all chances and lucky breaks possible have been exhausted. The eternal choices of life, go for the "sure thing" or take a flyer, boredom or excitement, scuba diving among sharks or staying ashore. Wiz the fact that I do not know any names of millionaire winners proves nothing, surely they exist just as Power Ball winners exist and people that have survived lightning strikes exist. There are not many of them, that is for sure, but they do exist.

Wiz, hate to tell you but numbers are not everything. There is always chance and even sheer luck. Who knows, our team may get lucky or have a chance they capitalize on, they have enough time in their hands and wouldn't it be nice if they could manage to win a few more games than what your model gives them. Models may work 95% of the time (2 SDs) but there are always tails in a distribution curve. We may perhaps find our way into the good tails sometime, even by chance, luck or mistakes. Models are not real life.

Something to look forward to.