Crewsorlose

Almost perfect opening victory. Huge lead. No stress in 2nd half. Yes, Williams missed a million open 3s so they didn't win by 30. So what. It was a coast game. Everyone shoot 50 FTs.

To me the potential Dayton-VCU semifinal clash is a knockout game. Whoever wins that game should be sitting in a nice position for an at-large bid. Davidson probably can't afford a quarterfinal loss. But a semifinal loss yields a bid. Slim chance for a 3-bid league with all seeds between 10-12.

The remaining schedule doesn't seem tough, but it's 3 Q2 games (although URI is dropping like a lead balloon) and 1 Q1 game. If we win all 5 our NET will likely be in the low 40s going into the tourney. 6 weeks ago people thought 15-3 wouldn't get us an at-large. Things have worked in our favor though (thanks Boise St., Auburn, and late Memphis surge), and 14-4 will do it. Damn that UMass loss hurts.

Per KenPom our offense is 46th. That's very good. The shooting has been excellent, as has the offensive rebounding. The problem is the turnovers. We're 175th in protecting the ball. On defense we're very good at forcing bad shots but we're mediocre at defensive rebounding rate (120th) and forcing TOs (180th).

2ndary market picking up. Just in the past few hours the number of tickets available on Stub Hub has dropped and the lowest price is up from $13 to $20

Diablitos has no crowd and also parking. West Pine and Vanderventer

Faculty have access to two tickets tonight so if you know any faculty and want tix, hit them up.

Losing @ Bonnies is only a Q-2 loss and not a killer. Bills have anywhere from 3-6 tough games left (2 w/ Bonnies, @ Richmond, @ Davidson, @ URi, VCU). Two are Q4 games at home. 6-2 probably lands SLU inside the NET top 40 and puts us at 14-4 in league play. I agree that winning two in a row against SBU won't be easy, esp. on short rest. The key I think is hitting them with pace and playing the aggressor. We have a real bench with TJ, Linssen, and Jones. Williams I hope too. Punch them hard on Friday and build confidence for that road trip.

It's a different author and it's more narrative than seeding. Only runs for six weeks. Bracketology is more of a year-round brand.

ESPN came out with their first edition of Bubble Watch. Not the same thing as Bracketology. SLU among the teams considered.

That's the only A-10 game of the year on a national network in a nice slot. There's a window between football and baseball where college hoops gets a lot of eyeballs. I personally think the NCAA tourney and the conference tourneys should lower their ticket prices. Sorry, it's not the NBA. I don't need to pay $80 to watch a 1st round NCAA tourney game on a Thursday afternoon. Drastically reduce and get the stands full. Atmosphere at anything but the Final Four now sucks because of the greed.

Sure we can. If we go 8-1 with a loss to URI, we will be in the dance. Our NET will get a huge bump from 5 Q2 or Q2 victories.

All of the at-large teams are competing against each other for at large spots. If the Mountain West deserves 4 bids this year, it will get them. The ACC sucks and will likely get 4 bids. The issue comes in the fact that teams in other conferences have more chances to improve their resume, and we have more chances to tank it with a bad loss. But we also play an objectively weaker schedule from here on out than a team like Notre Dame.

Be more positive. I think 7-2 gets us on the right side of the bubble, barring bid thieves and an early A-10 exit. Does it matter against whom we lose? I'd personally rather we win the one remaining Q-1 game, @ Davidson, than anything else. 7-2 and we dance. You heard it here. Almost none of those other bubble teams are going anything like 7-2 down the stretch.

Nice to see this. That's what two Q2 wins in a week will do for you. 7-2 on the back 9 probably puts us right there at tourney time: NET in the low 40s, good non-con SOS, and a nice showing in a weak A-10. Keep rolling Bills!

I've been watching the 2ndary market on Stub Hub. Tuesday there were almost 1000 tickets starting at around $15. Now there are 62 tickets starting at $38. I imagine more ticket holders will put tickets up, but this is easily the hottest home game since Auburn.

NET will continue to climb. A double-digit win on Saturday probably lands us around 50. A win of any kind gets us to the 55-53 range. Either probably brings us into Lunardi's "next 4 out." NC SOS ranked 38 will make the committee happy. 1 Quad 1 game left, 4-5 Quad 2 games. Closing out the regular season 8-2 probably means we breathe easy on Selection Sunday.

The team played well without him. Ford would have probably brought GJ back in if GM took the lead.

2/19/21: Perkins vs. Dayton: 2-14 (1-7), 7 points in 33 minutes. It happens. Jimerson is a baller and he will scorch the flyers on Saturday. See you all there.

BC beat Pitt today. Blew them out. Their NET is bad, but they're 4-6 in the (admittedly very weak) ACC. Every little bit helps.

Teams stopped pressing full court when 3s became a bigger part of the game. 3-4 guys who can nail and open 3 = too much risk to a press. Same goes with 1-3-1 press. Corner 3 is always there. Houston lived in that press in the Phil Slama days. Georgetown played it too. You almost never see it.

Net ranking jumped all the way to 62. Man, what a bummer that we couldn't close out Auburn or Belmont, and/or the UMass loss. Mason is a Q2 game. If Dayton finishes top 75, our game on Saturday is also Q2. Throw in the road Game @ SBU as another Quad 2 game. SLU is currently 1-3 in Q2 games. Even winning 2 of those 3 gets us to 3-4 in Q2. 4-1 in the next 5 probably lands us in the mid 50s. 5-0 puts us on the right side of the bubble. The opportunity is still there and I think 9-2 to close the league slate puts us in the tourney.

Javonte has attempted 215 3s at SLU and made 78 of them. That's a 36% clip. Nothing special. He's a great mid-range scorer and relatively strong going to the hoop. The emergence of Jimerson, and Okoro, simply means that Perkins gets fewer shots. If he comes back 100%, he's the best player on the team, but it's not "his team." Jimerson is more efficient this year than Perkins was last year. Yuri has doubled his scoring. There just won't be as many shots going around.

It's hard to imagine Javonte coming back. The sell was always that with Goodwin and French gone, he could be a high volume scorer who could win A-10 POY and possibly parlay it into a 2nd round draft selection or a summer league invite. Given how Jimerson, Okoro, and even Yuri have developed as scorers, everything looks different now. Make no mistake, Perkins would make the team better, but he'd be a 6th year guy averaging 15ppg in the A-10. Just get yourself right, train at SLU, and prove you can play overseas in summer workouts.

KenPom has us at 61. I'm assuming that includes today's game. Imagine a slight bump in NET, landing somewhere between 68-66. Team needs another blowout and then a Q2 victory over Dayton next weekend. Dayton's November, with 3 Q4 losses, absolutely brutal. They're a really good team. Will be fun.