Contenders or Pretenders?

[Schasz]

I agree 100% with Coach Soderberg's statement that our season starts tomorrow night. The games starting with Charlotte get progessively tougher for a program that in recent times has been rather lethargic on the road. Let's hope this team can make our road woes a thing of the past, as we start our journey for what we all hope will lead to a NCAA bid.

While I would not call this road trip the end all for the season, it will certainly give a very good perspective on our chances for postseason play. We did exactly what we had to do on the home stand, and that sets us up nicely if we have what it takes to win a few of our 6 road games.

I don't like to go out on the limb making predictions, but I do have a good feeling about our chances at the start of the road trip. Frankly, I'd like to believe that we have not played our best basketball yet. Can anyone say that we have put two outstanding halfs together in any one game? No question in my mind that in order to win at some of these tough gyms that we will have to put it in a little higher gear.

Let's hope that our defense remains rock solid on this trip, as it can certainly keep us in the games where we will hopefully find just enough offense to steal a game or two. With the exception of a couple games, this team has shown lots of heart. Here's hoping that we get the trip off to a flying start with a big win over Charlotte. Let's Go Bills!!!

[gister]

A win tomorrow would really help their confidence going into UAB. This is the key game.

Memphis beat USF tonight. But some of their fans are upset with their tendency to shoot 3's, and miss so many. In watching the online play-by-play of the Charlotte-Marquette game, Demon Brown kept shooting 3's and was consistently missing. I hope he continues. Our defense should be in their face all night.

Charlotte is favored by 6.

Some interesting statistics from Conference USA:

Scoring defense: Bills 1st, Charlotte last

Scoring offense: Charlotte 2nd, Bills 12th

Scoring margin: Bills 3rd, Charlotte 5th

Free throw %: Bills 4th, Charlotte 10th

Field goal %: Charlotte 3rd, SLU 7th

3 point %: SLU 7th, Charlotte 10th

Rebounding offense: Charlotte 1, SLU 13th

Rebounding defense: SLU 1, Charlotte 10th

3 points made: Charlotte 3, SLU 6th

Attendance: SLU 5th, Charlotte 7th

[TheGoat]

Personally, i think that we can take Charlotte and UAB, Memphis is the one I am worried about more than anything. Just have a feeling that the guys are gonna be really up for Brown and Co., along with Tom's return to UAB. Never have really liked playing in the pyramid, and when I look at Memphis, it doesn't appear that we match up real well with them.

[billiken_roy]

i think athletically we match up closest with charlotte. but coachingwise, lutz is a wizard compared to calipari. i havent seen uab enough to have an opinion on williams, the coach at uab. i do know that they have their whole team back except one from last year and they were athletic galore last year. supposedly they added two very good juco guards and the lewis kid, who is a wide body juco inside player that brad also recruited. i.e. uab will be very good. and as we all know, our track record in birmingham with spoon and romar was terrible. i think spoon never won there and romar won once.

while "aint no sunshine" withers is going to be the focus player besides their three point shooters, the big center bothers me as we have not played exceptionally well when the opponent had a shot blocking inside guy.

we can win them all simply because i believe that soderberg has developed a tough, mature, nearly mistake free team. no team wants to play us. if we continue to protect the ball and frericks stays out of foul trouble to keep us even on the inside, we can will them all.

[Major Majerus]

I think we match up well where it's most important - head coach...