Minerva N. Owl

A10 programs are NOT part of the College Insider Mens Mid Major Top 25 poll, for some reason. From College Insider website: The Mid-Major Poll is made up of teams from the following conferences: America East, Atlantic Sun, Big Sky, Big South, Big West, Colonial, Horizon, Ivy, Metro Atlantic, Mid-American, Mid-Eastern, Missouri Valley, Northeast, Ohio Valley, Patriot, Southern, Southland, Southwestern, Summit, Sun Belt, West Coast, Western Athletic.

I probably should have made #4 two distinct questions. I take it that you are saying NO to this part: Is there any meaning to the ESPN "Mid-Major Top 10 list" with regard to dance invitations? I mostly agree with that. But I am still interested in getting an answer to this question: Does the selection committee typically include at least ten non-conference-tournament-winning "Mid-Majors"? I haven't done the work to look at the pattern of dance invitations in terms of non-conference-tournament-winning Mid-Majors, but it strikes me as an interesting and worthwhile question. After all, there is a general sense that it is getting harder and harder to come by dance invitations for Mid-Majors, that the NET and other tools are biased against Mid-Majors, that scheduling is difficult because the Power Five schools generally don't want to risk playing Mid-Majors, etc. So, while I agree that the ESPN Mid-Major Top Ten list is mostly just a way for ESPN to produce content and sell ads, I think it might be worthwhile to learn whether there is a pattern regarding how many non-conference-tournament-winning mid-majors get dance invitations.

Questions: 1) Is it new this year that ESPN has Kevin Collins do a "Mid-Major Top 10" list? It seems this weekly list began several weeks ago, at the beginning of January 2022. Is this new, or was there such a list in past years? (I recall Mid-Major Top 25 lists, especially pre-season, but I don't recall a weekly ESPN Mid-Major Top Ten list until January 2022.) 2) In recent years, how many from the group that ESPN now treats as "Mid-Majors" typically go to the dance? Or maybe better, after auto-qualifiers, is there a typical number of spots on the dance card for non-conference-winning Mid-Majors? 3) Which schools count as "Mid-Majors" according to ESPN? After all, ESPN seems recently to treat Gonzaga as "transcending labels", so the category of "Mid-Majors" seems arbitrary. Maybe ESPN has in mind these: not-Gonzaga, but every other from A10, C-USA, Ivy, MAC, MV, SoCon, SunBult, WCC. See here and here. Is that correct? 4) Is there any meaning to the ESPN "Mid-Major Top 10 list" with regard to dance invitations? Does the selection committee typically include at least ten "Mid-Majors", or is this just ESPN hype, producing a meaningless category/ranking?

Two Net milestones for the Bills today: cracked the top 50 (#49) and tops in the Atlantic 10. Davidson slips to #53 after their wobbly overtime victory at home against St. Joe's. https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basketball-men/d1/ncaa-mens-basketball-net-rankings

Travis Ford was on 101.1 Karraker & Smallmon earlier today. 11 minute interview about tonight's game here.

It's a great photo, and even better in the online version, which shows more clearly FT's elevation.

That was a pretty crazy way to win. We made only three baskets in the final 8 minutes (plus a lot of free throws). Here's the scoring for the final 8 minutes:

SLU game states here:

Bills halftime stats here:

Classic scene at the beginning. Brian Piccolo tells Gale Sayers that George Halas is "a little deaf in his left ear ... so you gotta stand on his right hand side if you want him to hear a word you say." Pretty humorous classic scene, as Gale Sayers sort of dances around Halas to constantly talk into his "good ear". That's at the beginning, before the heart wrenching stuff later in the story.

Bingo. Both Iona and St. Mary's are Christian Brothers. It's historically an Irish order. The St. Mary's mascot looks like a knight, unlike the Iona mascot, which sort of looks like Abraham Lincoln or something. For Iona's game against Alabama, the Tuscaloosa paper did this lighthearted story on Iona's mascot.

It's also the mascot of Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas. They claim that a Gael is a "mounted Irish knight". Trivia question: What's another NCAA Division 1 School with the Gael as a mascot?

For those planning to travel to Olean, take the advice of brownindian; from the airport it might be better to hire a buggy rather than a bus.

Some don't like the announcers on Stadium TV, but it's handy that their website stores the games aired on their network. For example, the Tuesday SLU-Boise State game (Nov 30, 2021) is here: https://watchstadium.com/videos/11-30-21-saint-louis-at-boise-state-mens-basketball-mens-basketball/ *** Stadium TV's website still has a link to the SLU-St. Bonaventure game (March 7, 2020) at Chaifetz, which was the last game before COVID forced the cancellation of the remainder of that season: https://watchstadium.com/videos/st-bonaventure-at-saint-louis-mens-basketball-3-7-2020-2/

Halftime stats:

https://stats.statbroadcast.com/statmonitr/?id=372458

Among the best pre-game analysis I have seen for the SLU-Mississippi State game is from the Wiz (pasted below). MS State Coach Ben Howland is interviewed about the gamed here. The numbers crunched by the Wiz show the Bills over MS State by 3. Posted by the Wiz on Monday: We come into this game as an A- team trending at B+....MsSt shows up with an overall grade of B+ trending at B (15-14...8-10). Two good defenses, close to equal...we are the better team on offense. This will be a low scoring game...70pts should win the game. A concern I have is that by the time we take the floor it will be nearly 2 weeks....We may have to shake off some rust. Let's see what we are dealing with .... ..........................SLU.............................MsSt.............................SLU...................................MsSt ..........................................OFF..........................................................................DEF............... PPG......................B+...............................D+................................A-........................................B+ FG%......................B+...............................B-................................B+........................................A 3Pt%.....................B-................................C-................................C+.......................................B FT%......................C-....... ........................F................................................................................. Reb.......................A-.................................A.................................A+...12th ITN........................B+ OFF Rebs = total rebs...DEF Rebs = opp reb UP....Offense...None..............Defense .......3P% Down...Offense....FG%...3P%...Reb.........Defense......none Top 100 ITN (In The Nation) Assts...Collins...9th ...up Rebs...Goodwin....13th....dn Stls......Goodwin...62nd....up FT%....Perkins...52nd......unch Double Double....Goodwin...7th ....dn Double Double %....Goodwin....2nd MsSt Reb....T Smith....56th FG%....T Smith...81st Blks...Ado...28th Injuries ....Strickland...3/6/21...Covid protocols A report card note...I have added a new category ...Double Double %...This stat doesn't appear anywhere...I decided this would show the true position of Goodwin. The NCAA uses just the raw numbers...ie total double doubles...Goodwin will always be at a disadvantage because he has played the fewest games. Doing it this way makes for a better comparison.....number of double double games divided by total games = 14 /20=70% which is a very high %.... good for 2nd place in Div 1. This game presents some unusual challenges ...They have 2 big men T Smith (6'11") their reb guy and Ado (6'10") their blocker and other reb guy. ...and yes they are both in at the same time. Needless to say they are a good rebounding team. On the plus side (for us) they can't shoot FTs...only Molinar and Stewart can shoot from the charity stripe. More good news ....this team is TO prone, we have got to bother them...if we do they will give us the ball. WWN2D2W.....MsSt is a 3 man team ...stop their 3 main guys and we win....Molinar, Stewart and Smith...hold them to 35pts. Don't let them jump out to an early big lead...control the game ...pressure them. We need to win the TO battle by 3 or 4 . Reb will be tough ...we need to better them even if only by 1 board....Don't let Ado turn into a fly swatter...that strategy didn't work well against St. B..... no more than 2 blocks for Ado. And finally, makes some shots...48/36/72 Bottom line...we are the better team especially on offense. We have to make them play our game...........If we do...it'll be round 2.

Six minutes viewing time: Richard Chaifetz makes his case for SLU as a tournament team.

Is there a way to get an updated NET ranking after the last game of the day and before 5 p.m.? SLU jumped ahead of Drake overnight. Did SLU gain another spot or two after the Bonnie's win today? Is there a way to get an updated NET ranking?

Sure SLU lacks road wins, but that's partly because most of the road games got cancelled. Remember last summer when our schedule had us playing in the Orlando Invitational from Nov. 26 to 29 with a field that included Gonzaga, Michigan State and Auburn? It's not SLU's fault those games were cancelled. The out-of-conference schedule that got cobbled together had just one road game. Instead of nine conference road games, we ended up with only four (LaSalle, Dayton, Fordham, VCU). At VCU, we were tied with five seconds to go, and we had the ball, about to cross midcourt, when a delayed mystery-whistle time-travelled back to a "foul" before the previous shot. During the A10 tournament, we were 1-1. (Plus SLU ended up having to play at two venues.) Here's the point: In response to the tendency to hold it against SLU for a lack of road wins, let's point out that the shuffled schedule gave us only five road games total before the tournament, plus two in the tournament. In a year of constantly shuffling schedules, we need to examine why SLU's schedule didn't produce more road wins. SLU planned a schedule that would have had us playing a lot more road games, including quite a few against very good teams, but Covid changed the schedule.

What are the best available arguments that SLU should be in, and that other bubble teams should be out? It seems helpful to have a string that puts all of these arguments together in one place. If you were in a situation similar to the SLU elevator-pitch contest (with a 1-minute time limit), what are the most compelling arguments that can be stated briefly for the Billikens to be in over the others on the bubble? On Twitter, what's the most compelling way to make SLU's case? This or this or this or something else? If you were In a longer conversation, what's the most persuasive support for the Billikens and/or against other bubble teams? What media sites, articles, bracketology prognostications, podcasts, and other sources best help make the case for SLU? SLU seems to be sitting squarely on the bubble. Other strings focus on the best path (as we watch and wait) or whether an extra game should be scheduled. That still leaves this question: if it's 50/50 now, what's the best case (currently) that the Bills should be in? What additional points need to be added to tip the balance for the Billikens? Could we assemble a handy list of top five or top ten reasons for SLU to be in?

https://watchstadium.com/videos/st-bonaventure-at-saint-louis-mens-basketball-3-7-2020-2/