HoosierPal

Coach's Show with Rammer: It was on Facebook Live. Apparently Rammer addressed the team at the Saturday practice. Coach complimented the trainers as they are going through this process for the first time also. They do hydration tests daily and the players are wearing heart monitors in practice. Some players have had good days followed by bad days. After 3 practices, Ford hasn't learned yet how to move forward. Situations change fast, in each practice. Dayton game: big wins against Ole Miss and Miss State. Crutcher is averaging 18 ppg and performing at a high level, shooting at 52%. Doing a scouting report, but not spending as much time on Dayton yet, as they are on SLU. How well will SLU shoot? Rammer saw one practice and Jimerson and Perkins were shooting fine. Coach: some days are better than others. (Only had 3 practices.) Coach" "We have shot the ball okay, but there are other things that we need to get back". Scheduling: There are 10 games left on the schedule plus the St B floater. Ford hasn't heard from the league on how many games will be made up. He mentions the buy weeks coming up but said both teams (that we missed) need to have the same open dates. Rammer: can the conference reschedule with the overall strength of the league in mind? Coach "All that plays a roll in it. I assume they will take that into consideration." Coach: Many conversations on league tourney's...if you are a team that pretty much will make the NCAA, do you want to go to a league tourney with it's risk? No decision from the A10 yet as to where the tourney will be. Decisions probably wont' be made until February (next week?) Coach has networked other coaches who have been paused. Protocols and guidelines differ around the country. Some teams have been allowed to do more than others. Talked to Jay Wright at Villanova this week. Rammer: Expectations for Dayton game, how have you dealt with this with the team: Coach "I don't have expectations now. We just want to be the best we can tomorrow. I don't know what to expect. I hope we are good enough to win. We need to play hard and play together." Rammer: how will you deal with stamina. Coach: "I won't know until we start the game. We are going to have to rely on our depth. Certain coaches will be monitoring certain players on the floor. We will have to use everybody, and use everybody early." Pre-COVID we were ranked Top 10 in Offensive Efficiency. Coach: There are a lot of things in Offensive Efficiency. You get a good number by a lot of ways. One thing Coach wasn't happy with last few games before pause was passing the ball. 'We weren't passing the ball as well as we wanted to. We were spending a lot of time prior to the Duquesne game, on target-on time passes. We thought we had gotten away from it a little bit." You need ball movement and player movement. Ball movement is different that being a good passing team. Player movement needs to be connected to everyone else to be efficient. Passes need to hit the shooter 'right in the pocket', gives the shooter confidence that they can score. Don't throw the ball at the big guy's knees. Coach: we want to be patient in decision making, but you have to be aggressive when making a move. Guys realize that when you are on the floor with Collins, you better not turn your head. Team has an extreme amount of confidence in Yuri. Coach has no problem with French handling the ball, bringing it up court. Wants guys to get up court as aggressive as possible. (Likes the word play aggressive rather than play fast.) Watching a lot of games while on quarantine, coach noted a significant number of games with large margin of victory on games he thought would be much closer. He thinks this is all due to the virus situation. Back to back games, 'that's weird'. Seeing first game 'I win by 10, second game you win by 30.' Boise State won game one by 52 points, and won the turn around second game 2 days later on a last second shot. Finished up talking about TeamBlue. It gives the team, the basketball family, a culture the team has adopted. They talk about it a lot internally, and they see it in action each day. We try to live it rather than talk about it. Attendance: with the Blues starting at 300, the Bills will be allowed to have 300 inhouse tomorrow. Chris May is handling the attendance issues. Rammer hopes to see students and the band back into Chaifetz. Coach, yeah, with more fans that means things are getting better around the city. Will have cheerleaders tomorrow. They are going to have a few students also. Keys to Dayton game: First key "I hope we can get through the game. No excuses. Have to stop Crutcher. They run really good offense, they haven't changed it a lot but have added a few items." https://twitter.com/KMOXSports/status/1353737105051062285 added these tweets, expanding on Coach's statement on league tourney's.

May covered this in an earlier interview. I'm not sure if you can find it, but I posted a recap of it on the Radio/TV thread. The short answer is yes, pretty much same as the KC game. Longer term, he said he foresees increasing attendance, but there will be no general admission to any games. They will use the priority list of Billiken Club and Donors to offer tickets, starting at the top of the list.

Agree. I will be disappointed if we see a marked lapse in defense. We do have the bodies to throw out there to defend. Bell, Hightower and Strickland can all be out on the floor to defend for a short shift. (Bell v Tshimanga - yeah.) I won't be surprised at all if our offense is sluggish. We really only go 6 or 7 deep on the offensive end, as far as significant scorers. Watching Richmond's return, their spacing was off at times and their second half shooting significantly faltered, perhaps due to tired legs?

This isn't a bad snapshot of the A10. Anyone can adjust the Tier's as desired. If you want to lose a Tier, move UMass up to Tier 2 and Duquesne down to Tier 4. For me, there are two questions TBD. Who will get the Top 4 seeds in the tourney (assuming there is a tourney with all teams) and who might still be in the running for an At-Large bid to the NCAA. For the Top 4 seeds, I'd certainly go with the Tier 1 teams and then flip multiple coins for the 4th. Today UMass actually is tied for 3rd place in the standings, but standings are at best an inconclusive mess. Rhody has played 9 league games (half of their season), SLU of course 0, and Richmond and GW 5. Will seeding be by winning percentage? It almost has to be. Or not. The selection criteria for the NCAA will remain a deep, closely held secret. Will 'the eye test' be used? Who will define the eye test? Is 'they didn't play anyone' hold merit? Even for those schools like SBU that had most of their OOC schedule wiped out? If you use historic methods, the A10 is likely down to the three Tier 1 schools for At Large consideration but who really knows. The stretch run starts tomorrow.

Chris May on KMOX this morning. I just listened to the podcast. News: May believes a home game will be scheduled between the @ Richmond game on the 29th the @ GW game on the 6th. "French looks as good as I have ever seen him. He was on top of his game. In the 1/2 hour I was there I didn't see Gibson Jimerson miss a shot."

Clemson was on pause for only 6 days, and had 11 days between games. Apparently only an assistant coach was positive, no players. Just shows you how this virus can impact teams differently.

There is no reason our defense should falter. Offense may take a while to get back into sync. Fitness on both sides of the line likely will be an issue for a few games. We will find out.

Richmond 14 day pause due to Covid 3 practices before first game back Lose at home Hmmm

This is totally OT, but WOW.

Chris May was on the Press Box today. He expects to play Tuesday. A handful of fans will be in attendance, like the KC game. He feels that with the COVID numbers decreasing, they will be able to increase the number of fans. He said he doesn't forsee general public sales, but will go through priority point process with season ticket holders and donors. They will start at the top and move down the list. He says expect more adjustments to the schedule. For example, if Dayton goes positive, the A10 would try to get another team to take that game. He believes Richmond is very close to returning. NCAA tourney has put the schedule together with two days off between the two rounds. Focus of the timing of the games is around testing protocols. Everyone will have to have 7 days of negative tests before playing. All teams will have to be in Indy on the Monday after Selection Sunday.

I am not sure who it was, but on a recent radio interview, (maybe it was Larry Sr) it was stated that Jr. is a better shooter at his age than Sr. was. The comment was then made that Jr. may be the better shooter, but Sr. was the overall better ball player.

https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/ncaa-tournament-q-a-dan-gavitt-discusses-plans-and-protocols-for-upcoming-march-madness/ Very good Q & A with David Gavitt on the Tourney. Why the First Four on Thursday? There is a 7 day / 7 test requirement before coming to Indianapolis. The First Four will be at Mackey and Assembly Hall on Thursday. There is consideration of naming over 68 teams to allow for teams COVIDing out. The First Four Out might be 'on call'. (The NIT is not for sure.) Sweet 16 will be at Hinkle and Banker's Life. Elite 8 games are at Lucas Oil so that all Final Four teams will have at least one game at Lucas. Lucas Oil won't be turned into an arena with a court in the middle of the stadium.

Good news for the A10, Bonnies jumped up to 42 (from 57) with last night's win. Richmond hanging at 50 and SLU at 16. Three in the top 50 isn't too bad. VCU dropped to 57 and Rhody dropped to 70 and Davidson remains at 73 today.

Yeah, you could be right. I'm glad I'm not the A10 scheduler.

Coach was on the Press Box yesterday. Just a few new items. The last practice was Dec 29. So if next practice is Jan 22, that's a lonnnnnnng time. Coach described his symptoms, which were fairly severe. Coach added that a couple of managers also were positive. So 80% of the players, at least 2 coaches and 2 managers were positive. Coach talked about the guidelines, which he said are the strictest ones he knows of, which he also said is probably a good thing. Other programs have allowed negatives to leave quarantine and work out. Looks like Dayton and then at Richmond. Tough comeback tour. https://590thefan.com/radio-shows/press-box/

https://www.a10talk.com/who-does-saint-louis-covid-pause-hurt-the-most/ Worth a read.

Prayers have been heard and answered.

https://www.stltoday.com/sports/college/slu/billiken-beat/slu-postpones-another-game-as-covid-process-nears-end/article_b68af686-945d-5eff-a15d-02267f74cb45.html#tncms-source=login A couple of interesting notes from Stu. Maybe mini-pods in the weekend prior to the A10 tourney.

Bonnies are going to play Duquesne now on Saturday instead of the Bills.

Okay, let's buckle up and ride. This won't be an easy return game.

LSU's buttstomp last night has to be the main reason SLU has slipped to 17 NET. Our LSU win now borders at the Q1/Q2 line. We need LSU to get on a win streak. They go to Kentucky (NET 94) this weekend, and we really need the Wildcats to continue their losing pattern. LSU's following game is at Texas A&M (NET 127). The NC State win is hanging in as Q2, with by an NET margin of 3. Indiana State remains a Q3 win, with no possibility of seeing the Q2 line, and hopefully not falling to Q4. Our four Q4 wins are buried in Quadrant 4.

Indy and the surrounding county, Marion County are under one consolidated governing body, commonly referred to as Unigov. Unlike our mess here, one voice, one protocol covers the entire city/county. Indiana has been, to me, nearer to forefront of the COVID program than other states. Early on they sourced one testing company and made the tests available state wide. I have relatives in Indiana, and they all have tested multiple times with minimal waiting for results. Indiana's numbers aren't stellar, but they do seem to have a better handle on this pandemic, than some other states.

Are the 4 players still testing, players who have been negative the entire time? This doesn't say that these 4 are out, so hopefully they are in individual workouts. Stu concludes 11 were positive. 11/16 = 68%, so I wonder the numbers included for 80%. It's not important, but just wondering about the count.