Old guy

I agree that we have a bad history with Rhode Island, and I also agree they seem to have tightened their game considerably from the start of the season. It is an away game and it is in RI. However that said I do not see Rhode Island at a level that would give us significant reason for concern, I think Vanderbilt is a lot better than they are.

Please mark me as an MBM if you wish, but I really do not see any significantly challenging games for us in the schedule other than the away UMass, VCU and Dayton games. As of now we have a string of 6 wins. I see no reason at all we should not win against Yale or Rhode Island, which will give us a very doable 8 win string. Dayton's 1/11 game will be away and may be more of a challenge. However, if we win it, we will have a winning string of 9 games. After that we have a number of other very winnable games ahead (7 of them) until the VCU game of 2/15 which will be difficult. If we win over Dayton 1/11 we may have a string of 16 wins to look forward to before the VCU game. Not a bad prospect as far as I am concerned.

SLU went from #63 prior to the game last night to #45 today, in Team Rankings RPI ratings.

The Wiz is right again

I watched the game on ESPN and read this whole thread. This was not a pretty game for us but we did play good defense and won. In my opinion Glaze had enough rebounds to get him more playing time, and Jett was the key to our win. A win is a win, even if it is not a pretty win, and we won this one. Now on to Yale at the Chaifetz.

As per Team Rankings SLU is currently #63 in RPI ranking and Vanderbilt is #56 in RPI ranking.

Absurd Bills Fan, I am not criticizing anyone and certainly not you, however Bonwich with his inside connection to the PD has what I see as a valid point of view. When you are fighting for your life, as the PD is, you do not do what is correct but instead you do what you think will sell. And yes, I fully believe that people working for the paper are stretched very thin and have to do all kinds of things they do not want to do. I read sometime ago that another major paper in Chicago (the Tribune ?, not sure who it was) had laid off all of their photographers after deciding all they needed was to have reporters on the beat taking pictures with their smart phones. I think Bonwich is not in the path of kowtowing to his employer, but rather is in the path of explaining that right or wrong a business will do exactly what they think they need to do in order to survive! Again, I post this with no intention of upsetting or insulting anyone, and I am not stating that what the PD is doing is either right or wrong.

Thinking about the issues discussed here, I thought I would give an example as to how experience (ie games played and won, or in this particular example, mortality) affects the long term outcomes expected. From my area of expertise, the expected life span of a newborn US male is 76 years (2011 stats). So, lets move forward in time, at age 65, non smoking males in the US have an expected survival of 22.6 years. That is once you, a male non smoker, reach age 65 your expected survival has increased to 87.6 years, or 11.6 years over the expected survival of a newborn male. But that is not the whole story because at age 65, within the group of US surviving males (non smoking) there are a number that have a significant number of chronic degenerative diseases, and others that have few or no chronic degenerative diseases. Of course, barring accidental death (which occurs at all ages but which is NOT a significant cause of death over age 65 and over), those people with significant chronic degenerative disorders will survive less than those without the chronic degenerative disorders. Ultimately the longest survival within that group of 65 year old non smoking males will belong to those that have NO chronic degenerative diseases at age 65. These will live long lives indeed, with some of them becoming centenarians. The centenarians will, of course, have exceeded the life expectancy at birth by 24 or more years. So, let's look at basketball now. All the teams have their own statistics and different styles of play and player talent. At this time we can calculate, as we have done, the cumulative probability, based upon current statistics and experience, for SLU to win the next 15 consecutive games. This is not a highly probable event at this time. However, SLU is very strong and has a very great potential, not fully shown so far because of the quality of most opponents we have been playing against so far, in the way they play and are organized. As we play in A10, our capability to win games of increasing difficulty will be demonstrated. Every time we win a game, we have a situation similar to the example I gave before. As people in the 65 year old die the survivors have a longer life expectancy. In basketball as teams win against other teams of increasing difficulty the winning team has gained something that will help them continue winning. So, the estimate of the cumulative probability of a streak of 15 consecutive wins becomes progressively better every time we win a game in the series. Having only two losses against teams that stand undefeated at this time, only 8 teams are still undefeated in the NCAAB, is not bad at all. Considering how close we came to beat WSU is even better. I firmly believe we can win every single game in conference play, and in the A10 tournaments, barring injury of course. And for all of you, Wiz, MB, Zink, making meaningful contributions to clarify the situation as it stands now, I have nothing to say except thank you, I really appreciate and enjoy your efforts. I particularly like the classification of teams as A+, A, A-, etc... I think this is very meaningful and quite an interesting piece of data to keep in mind.

I am really quite happy about this discussion, thank you Wiz, thank you Zink.

But that is not the point each individual game will be played and the probability to win the particular game will not be readily determinable until prior to the game. So the probability to win 15 games in a row may be 1.5% at this time, but taken individually we may indeed have a much greater probability to win the whole spread of 15 games than what is determinable at this point in time. Probability changes with time and with results.

I do not think it works out the way you said. The winning probabilities in that table are most likely calculated as of now, in other words using the team's current stats to calculate the winning probabilities for each game. However whenever you win a game your team's stats change, even if just a little. If we win the next 13 games, the chances are that our stats will be improved, perhaps quite significantly, and therefore we are not likely to lose the following 7 games straight.

Thank you Pistol

Merry Christmas to all.

SLU is at 30 in the team rankings overall power rankings. Merry Christmas to all.

So why do you want so much to be noticed, sometimes it is better to be in a stealth mode and surprise them. Some of the upcoming conference games will be tough (Dayton, VCU, UMass) some will not be so tough. I believe we are capable of winning all of the remaining games until the end of the schedule.

Thank you Absurd Bills fan, your approval means a lot to me. Metadata analysis is something that is widely used in medical research, epidemiology, actuarial research, and market analysis. It is a good technique even if it does not appear to say much. Billslattermdropout, it is a lot more than 50 50.

If you add the observations made by NH, based upon a number of independent sources, to what MB said and what the Wiz has posted what you really have is a number of analysis using somewhat different techniques. None of these analysis is entirely right, none is entirely wrong. The differences may be due to different weightings used to process the raw data, etc... However you must note that all of the analysis are saying similar things about the Bills. We are not doing bad, we are below the 25th rank, how far down below is hard to determine but I personally do not think we are too distant from it. When you have data like this, you can reach conclusions by agregating the results and finding a mean to all the different analysis. This becomes metadata, not raw data, but data resulting from the analysis of various analysis results. Metadata is indeed valid, it derives its validity from the validity incorporated into the original set of analysis of the raw data. Therefore, at this time we have every reason to feel that, assuming there is no significant level of player injury, we are going to do well in conference play and that we will go to the NCAA tournament. I cannot say if we will or will not win the A10 tournament, and I cannot say how far we will go in NCAA or what seed we will get. However, we do have enough data and enough independent analysis at this time to start reaching broad conclusions like these.

Florida State beat UMass 60 55 Saturday 12/21, the same day Illinois beat Mizzou 65 64. Two undefeated (UMass and Mizzou) teams defeated the same day, must have been a bitter experience for both.

I was there and enjoyed the game. I thought NC A&T had more power than I expected them to have but were pretty disorganized. I liked to see Reggie out there and scoring, as a matter of fact all freshmen scored. Attendance was OK given the fact that school is off and many of the kids were back home.

One thing you can say about Hinson is that he was fair then. He dished it out and was willing to take it back. This is seldom seen nowadays, good for him.

West Pine Jim I do not underestimate either the Wiz or MB, I am delighted when they share their knowledge and ways to do things. There are many ways to do everything, these are not mutually exclusive. I like them both.

MB, my hat is off to you. Your brief summary above is very educational as well as concise. Thank you

Holding the 3rd best 3 point team to 11 tries and 3 completions is by itself a major achievement, I believe McCall was a major part of this.

This was a nice win anyway you look at it.

Kindly explain this, I read quotes about rankings in Kenpom, but I am aware this site does not give point spreads. Team rankings is a decent site open to all. They may not be perfect but they do this commercially and have some degree of success in what they say. What does Mb say about this particular game that clashes with what Team Rankings is saying? I am not trying to be opposite, I am just trying to understand why you are saying what you say to the exclusion of other information.