Old guy

Crawford shot poorly last night, had 3 Turnovers and 3 rebounds. Not one of his good nights but he did make 12 pts, Yacoubou only made 8 points, 3 rebounds 1 assist and 2 turnovers. Not one of his good nights either.

Agree

Yes, you #### it was an incredible play that cannot be reproduced. A Hail Mary pass that worked, a memorable play that should be recorded as something extraordinary.

Bullsh-t Dwayne's World, you should have been born in the time of the inquisition, I bet you would have had fun lighting pyres to save souls. You do not feel bad about anything except the loss of your self perceived status. You feel happy to invent cute phrases and think they give you status. Just look at the rebound numbers, 34 vs 35 does not make a meltdown. The numbers were close, only those blinded by raving hatred or attempting to look good in some way or the other would deny that. We could not score last night, and UTM had a couple of really lucky breaks like that 3 point bomb they sank just before mid time. Look at the numbers, just look at the numbers, and then try to explain them

OK guys let's look at the numbers for the game: SLU / UTM: Total rebounds 34 /35 (Offensive 9 / 6, Defensive 25 / 29), Assists 18 /12, Blocks 2 / 2, Steals 4 / 7. No major meltdown in any of these categories. Fouls 23 / 18, Trunovers 12 / 15, FTM - FTA (percentage) 22-25 (.880) / 24-32 (.750). Again no major meltdown here. Scoring: FGM - FGA (percentage) 23 -60 (.383) / 25 - 52 (.481), 3FG - FGA (percentage) 8 - 32 (.250) / 8 - 19 (.421). This was the problem. Overall, we had trouble with scoring. We attempted 60 2 point FGs and made only 23. Notably there was the layup by Crawford that did not go in after rolling on the rim. We attempted more 2 point goals than they did and made less than they did, very poor accuracy, this accounted for 4 of the victory points for UTM. We attempted many more 3 pointers than they did and made exactly the same number, no difference here, except to note the poor accuracy of the 3 point shooting. We made many more fouls than they did, they were less accurate in FT shooting than we were but made an extra 2 points in FT throwing over our score. Their additional 4 points in 2 point FGs and the additional 2 points in FTs made the winning margin for UT. I wanted to make a note about a few players. Reggie played 17 minutes, made 3 pts and 3 rebounds, had 2 fouls and 1 turnover. Neufled played 8 min made 1 steal, had 1 foul. Yacoubou played 21 min, made 8 pts, 1 assist, 3 rebounds, had 4 fouls and 2 turnovers. Gillmann played 13 minutes, made 2 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 block had 3 fouls and 1 turnover. As we all know, we have a problem with bigs. None of these played very well. Jolly played only 1 minute and did nothing. Given the way other bigs are playing, it might be appropriate to give him more minutes to see if he can do any better than the others. I also wanted to compare the numbers of Bartley and Bishop. Let's remember that Bishop is a freshman with very few minutes of D1 play and Bartley played a fair amount last season. Bartley played 19 minutes, made 6 points, 4 assists, and 1 rebound, had 3 fouls. Bishop played 11 minutes with a face mask, made 5 points and 3 assists, no fouls or turnovers. Yarborough, Reynolds, Roby, and Crawford played well. My conclusions are these, when Yacoubou is not playing particularly well we have problems. Our bigs are, to be kind, still developing. I would like to see Bishop getting more minutes. Yes, we lost. We lost because our shooting accuracy was very poor. Just a few more scores might have made the difference. One more point to be made, that long bomb they threw at the mid time and went in accounted for half their margin of victory. This was something that could not be considered more than a lucky shot.

OK guys let's look at the numbers for the game: SLU / UTM: Total rebounds 34 /35 (Offensive 9 / 6, Defensive 25 / 29), Assists 18 /12, Blocks 2 / 2, Steals 4 / 7. No major meltdown in any of these categories. Fouls 23 / 18, Trunovers 12 / 15, FTM - FTA (percentage) 22-25 (.880) / 24-32 (.750). Again no major meltdown here. Scoring: FGM - FGA (percentage) 23 -60 (.383) / 25 - 52 (.481), 3FG - FGA (percentage) 8 - 32 (.250) / 8 - 19 (.421). This was the problem. Overall, we had trouble with scoring. We attempted 60 2 point FGs and made only 23. Notably there was the layup by Crawford that did not go in after rolling on the rim. We attempted more 2 point goals than they did and made less than they did, very poor accuracy, this accounted for 4 of the victory points for UTM. We attempted many more 3 pointers than they did and made exactly the same number, no difference here, except to note the poor accuracy of the 3 point shooting. We made many more fouls than they did, they were less accurate in FT shooting than we were but made an extra 2 points in FT throwing over our score. Their additional 4 points in 2 point FGs and the additional 2 points in FTs made the winning margin for UT. I wanted to make a note about a few players. Reggie played 17 minutes, made 3 pts and 3 rebounds, had 2 fouls and 1 turnover. Neufled played 8 min made 1 steal, had 1 foul. Yacoubou played 21 min, made 8 pts, 1 assist, 3 rebounds, had 4 fouls and 2 turnovers. Gillmann played 13 minutes, made 2 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 block had 3 fouls and 1 turnover. As we all know, we have a problem with bigs. None of these played very well. Jolly played only 1 minute and did nothing. Given the way other bigs are playing, it might be appropriate to give him more minutes to see if he can do any better than the others. I also wanted to compare the numbers of Bartley and Bishop. Let's remember that Bishop is a freshman with very few minutes of D1 play and Bartley played a fair amount last season. Bartley played 19 minutes, made 6 points, 4 assists, and 1 rebound, had 3 fouls. Bishop played 11 minutes with a face mask, made 5 points and 3 assists, no fouls or turnovers. Yarborough, Reynolds, Roby, and Crawford played well. My conclusions are these, when Yacoubou is not playing particularly well we have problems. Our bigs are, to be kind, still developing. I would like to see Bishop getting more minutes. Yes, we lost. We lost because our shooting accuracy was very poor. Just a few more scores might have made the difference.

My turn, I was there, ugly 1st half, ugly 2nd half. At least in the second half we managed to come back from the depths to a -3, it did not last. We lost. A few comments, Reynolds played well and gave it his all. Bartley has totally lost his touch for scoring threes, if he shoots one that goes in it is an exception. Reggie appeared a lot less eager to go for the rebounds tonight. We had basically no rebounding in the first half. Not a good game at all. We may not be a C team after all.

About 8 per TeamRankings

Nope, you still have residency and post residency to deal with.

Agree getting hit by lightning and a meteorite on the same day is a very remote possibility, probably verging on a miracle. However this may become a fit subject for prayer asking for miraculous intervention in order to get rid of this record.

Med students in their second year think they are the main holders of smarts in the universe, and cannot wait to get to their clinical years. Well, not so fast Brigadier, life is not a bowl of cherries. I know what follows has absolutely nothing to do with basketball or with the ongoing narrative, but I certainly think it is more entertaining that the constant and repetitive "fire Crews" slogan. I think the following map through a medical education and training may interest our friend Big MouthBilliken. What I say is all true and based upon personal experience. Let me give you a glimpse of what a medical education may be like. Freshman year is like your introduction to memorization 101, you and the other freshmen are still fully fleshed people, freshly graduated from college, with diverse interests and avocations. By second year the level of cut throating has risen to incredible levels. You take your notes and books with you to go to the bathroom if you are studying for an exam in the library, otherwise when you come back some of your "friends" may have disappeared them to improve the curve and things like that. Everyone has a cute nickname like Buddha, or Dirt Bag, or Broccoli. Most of the kids in the class are getting married to basically anyone that will say yes to them, I think this is the case just so that they can have sex in the few occasions they are free... I had a roomate in freshman year of med school who went to Florida for spring break. He met this gal making a line at a hot dog stand and married her within 2 weeks of meeting her, she said yes. By the third year you are in the hospital and you go from thinking you are a great intellect to thinking you are a complete baboon that knows nothing at all. You are forced to cone down on business (patient care and diagnosis), this literally takes most of your time when you are not asleep or in the bathroom. By Senior year you become harder and more aggressive, and choose your specialty. The harshest and most aggressive become orthopods (7-10 years), the most laid back, psychiatrists (3-5 years), the most touchy feely pediatrics (3-5 years), they ones that have no use for other human beings become pathologists (3-7 years). The money hungry guys go into ophthalmology, dermatology, or plastic surgery (lots of money in mammary implants). The topics of conversation become totally restricted to medicine, making money, and football. And let me tell you that it gets harsher as you get into residency. By the time you are a senior resident you find out that your whole universe consists of medical or medical affiliated people. All the women you know are nurses (we only had 2 girls in my med school class, one was a missionary nun going back to Africa for residency I cannot recall where). Worse, if you go to a party, a real party, there will always be someone among those giving the party that is an MD. Holy Moly, nothing worse than being an internist and going to a party full of surgeons talking about bad gallbladders they have known and taken off... Occasionally you think you have hit the jackpot because the surgeon who is giving the party is married to someone in the foreign service. So you go to the party thinking you are finally going to talk about something other than medicine (which by that time you have been talking incessantly with others for years on end), and what do you find out? When you go into the living room or dining room or whatever place it is that the foreign service people are congregated at (no, they do not talk with surgeons either) then you find out that they might as well be talking Japanese or something like it. You feel once more like you felt at the beginning of hospital service, an ignoramus, a baboon that knows nothing about the world. You have been left behind in the dust by your years of medical education while other people learned about the world and all it has to offer. What do you really know after all of these years? You know medicine for sure, you know a bit about money, and a fair amount about football. What can I say, it is or can become, a hell of a way to make a living. There are a lot of years of personal experience in the paragraph above. The issue about getting married to just about anyone that crossed your path and was willing to put up with your medicine was insane or so I thought. Of course there were divorces, etc... Those 7 years of my life were surreal, like living inside a Salvador Dali painting... All the best to our friend BigMouthBilliken in his pilgrimage through a medical education. I often thought that there were two training programs that, in my limited knowledge of the subject, aimed to destroy the person that came into the program the very first day and replace that person with something that fitted the mold of the profession. I think those two training programs are the Marine Corps (once a Marine always a Marine and proud of it forever), and a medical education. So, BigMouthBilliken, hope you like it and you fit the mold, life is very tough if you do not. Oh, and when you hear the nurses in the wards talking about a Dr. they call "Friendly Frank" just try to stay the hell away from him, and never go into practice with him. One last thing, when the nurses give you a party on the last day of your rotation through a service and present you with a fleet's enema bottle wrapped as a present, take it with a smile, you probably deserve it.

A record we would gladly pass to someone else.

Hsmith19. OK I can see your point of view, it is hard to make a jump from what you know and have seen before (George Mason ripping us apart last year at our own home) with a new reality, but the truth is that sports teams are dynamic systems always changing. Let me give you a couple of examples from our own Bills. At the end of the terrible last season, there was a view among SLU fans that Bartley was pretty good. He had shown an ability to shoot lots of 3 pointers, and was expected to be playing in the PG role this year. As it stands now, he has played 8 games and made 4 out of 15 attempts at 3 pointers, not very good. Other than that he has had a total of 6 rebounds, 11 assists, 1 block and 2 steals. He has scored 24 points in 8 games and played 107 minutes. These are not stellar results for Bartley Reynolds finished last year with people in this blog seeing him as a possible transfer or at least someone who would spend a lot of time in the bench. Not so, so far this year Reynolds has played very well as a guard, has made 3 out of 6 attempts at 3 pointers. He has made 12 rebounds, 29 assists, 2 blocks and 13 steals. He has scored a total of 93 points in 8 games and played 213 minutes. As you can see clearly, Reynolds has contributed substantially more to the team than Bartley has. Our pre season expectations for their performance this year was entirely incorrect. Please keep in mind that this happens within a year as well, players get motivated and advance. Sports teams are dynamic, changing entities. We may, however improbable it may appear to large numbers of posters, improve in the course of this year and wind up winning more games than we currently have any right to expect. This is, of course, something that cannot be predicted with any certainty but it may happen.

GW and Georgetown, possibly Howard as well although I do not know about their tuition levels, have to have very high tuition levels because being located in DC they lack state funding. I am glad they are ranked at #22, good for the A10.

Moytoy is A Bomb working in Brazil or just having fun there? Brazil is a mess or so it looks like in the news.

Glad you are still alive Moytoy, and hope A Bomb is too.

Amen

SLU Nick, life looks real dark when you are surrounded by darkness. A lost basketball game and the realization that our team will not go to NCAA this year are not reasons to lose all hope and start chasing miracles, unless this appears like your only hope of bringing a ray of light into your life. Sunshine comes from everywhere around you and also from inside. If this is the case you can freely pump sunshine anywhere you experience something unpleasant. Darkess also comes from everywhere around you, and also from inside. If this is the case every little bit of extra darkness coming into your life assumes gigantic proportions and takes away whatever little hope there is. I know this for a fact, I have been there and done that. Truthfully, sunshine is by far the better option.

OK, so what is it, let's define it if you wish. Please share your analysis.

Wiz, the idea of a median value surrounded by tails on both sides (deviations from the median) has not crossed the minds of a lot of people who think of rankings and spreads as a quasi magical determination (not approximation) of reality. Basketball, as any other sport, is a very complex system that depends upon a myriad of details that are highly variable, are not easy to approximate, and are not correctly reflected on the statistics of prior games. This is where judgment and expertise has to be used to fill gaps on the generally available data. Some people, yourself included, are very good at this, others are not so. Not one prediction system is exact, all systems provide approximate results only. Reality is not predictable, but approximations of reality can be achieved in a regular basis by people, like yourself and others, that have developed a feeling for these fuzzy details.

Thicks, I would look at the dichotomy you describe from a different point of view. There are those that panic when results are not as expected or desired and lash out, or go out witch hunting to assign blame for what they are seeing that upsets them. On the other hand there are those that can take a certain amount of upsetting results without lashing out and looking to assign blame. I think the key factor that determines what group you are in is your personality, what you call in your post "their crystal balls." Some people lash out and assign blame, others are more tolerant towards bad results. It is a matter of your personality, who you are and how you look at things. Regardless of how you analyze this issue, this blog has become a highly polarized forum.

Wiz, you have a very nice system and we should be very happy that you choose to share it with us. However, there are those that cannot live with approximate results and fail to realize that in terms of prediction systems there is always some (variable) degree of leeway between the prediction and the actual results.

I entirely missed your point, apologize Kwyjibo. What I was trying to point out is that a lot of these improvements and changes in how games are predicted (and Vegas incorporating computer models) are still based upon value judgments, and these can always be improved. By the way the use of computers in predictions does not give you an automatic advantage. The actual prediction accuracy depends on the assumptions made and the data used, all the computer does is to make the calculations faster and easier.

Of course I agree with 3star.

Kwjibo, please remember that there is nothing final or terminal about predictors, you can juggle them and modify them at will. You must remember to backtest your modified predictors against prior seasons results to attempt to find the validity of the results obtained using the modified predictors vs the standard predictors. Suggest that you use the initial 7 or 8 results for data and then see how well your modified predictor does with the rest of the season. Remember to use only a single variable change in each test run, if you change several items you will never be able to determine what caused the changes in the results. The site you provide is interesting and allows comparison between multiple existing prediction systems. However please remember that given enough time and effort, any such system can be improved to a greater or lesser extent since all predictive systems contain arbitrary assumptions which may be improved on.