For those who viewed LaSalle game

[slu72]

Looking at the stat sheet, especially WR w/21 and CE w/ 14, it sound like we had a good game of in and out against the Explorer's. Hopefully, WR will emerge from his little funk and establish himself as a force inside from here on out. Would appreciate any comments on how our offense flowed/looked in the game. Especially, since it appeared we had no flow against Richmond.

[Taj79]

For what its worth, my dad watched the game and had a few comments. I think they are telling, seeing as he rarely sees the Bills in NE Pennsylvania. He said 1) the can't shoot free throws and questioned why this was so, 2) that he heard on many ocassions from the TV crew that this is the youngest team in the nation and said with the way they played,the future is certainly bright. 3) That Willie was the worst free throw shooter he has ever seen but he noticed that as the game went on, Willie seemed to concentrate better and have better form. 4) Wanted to know the point guard's name because "that kid was going places."

Finally, and the most telling part, he asked where we get these refs from. Not quite sure what to make of that but I have to admit he's is 80 years old now and a retired high school and college referee and took great pride in that "skill." He said that for the life of him, he couldn't understand where or how half the calls were coming from. I don't know who the announcers were, but they were as perplexed as he was given their comments.

Anyone who watched --- who were the announcers? And for the other guy who asked about Tom Gola Arena --- I have seen tons of high school venues better than that place. It, the Smith Center, the Palumbo Center, Rose Hill Gym and Hagan Arena are some of the crappiest college venues I have ever seen. And they're all in thr A10. West Pine Gym had some company.

[cheeseman]

First of all, eras have different approaches to how they do things - perhaps the refs today just have evolved to looking at the style of play differently then those who reffed 30 or 40 years ago - not saying it is better just evolved differently. Second, some of these gyms might be lacking but clearly some of the coaches there have not let it interfere with their recruiting. I know that LaSalle is not doing as well as they were suppose to do but injuries have played a part in that and St. Joes has had its success perhaps not as recently. Third, the Post today said that there was 177 people in attendance - if that is true what a terrible statement. You could not tell on TV because they never showed the crowd. Finally, I think the announcers on TV were a CBS College Sports A10 crew because the one guy had coached at Nova and played against LaSalle years ago and he gave his first team pick at mid season team for the A10.

[SLU_Nick]

For what its worth, my dad watched the game and had a few comments. I think they are telling, seeing as he rarely sees the Bills in NE Pennsylvania. He said 1) the can't shoot free throws and questioned why this was so, 2) that he heard on many ocassions from the TV crew that this is the youngest team in the nation and said with the way they played,the future is certainly bright. 3) That Willie was the worst free throw shooter he has ever seen but he noticed that as the game went on, Willie seemed to concentrate better and have better form. 4) Wanted to know the point guard's name because "that kid was going places."

Finally, and the most telling part, he asked where we get these refs from. Not quite sure what to make of that but I have to admit he's is 80 years old now and a retired high school and college referee and took great pride in that "skill." He said that for the life of him, he couldn't understand where or how half the calls were coming from. I don't know who the announcers were, but they were as perplexed as he was given their comments.

Anyone who watched --- who were the announcers? And for the other guy who asked about Tom Gola Arena --- I have seen tons of high school venues better than that place. It, the Smith Center, the Palumbo Center, Rose Hill Gym and Hagan Arena are some of the crappiest college venues I have ever seen. And they're all in thr A10. West Pine Gym had some company.

72,

LaSalle came out in a man and stayed in it for about 12 mins and our offense was moving the ball well but not hitting jumpers. The key to the offense in my opinion is that someone has to penetrate by their man when we are swinging it around the top of the key. KC, KM, and CS started doing this with KM being by far the most effective, followed by KC and then CS. This is also how KM got most of his points after blowing past his man. After the drive, Ellis always seem to drift to open spaces for the three. We also showed another wrinkle 6-8 times in the game and that was a high-low where the wing passes to the free throw line to Conk/Ellis/Smith and then they throw the over-the-defender pass to WR on the block. This seemed to be a good strategy except whoever caught it thought they had to shoot no matter if they had a good shot or not. That led to some forced shots by WR, JS, and Conk.

LaSalle obviously saw on film that we had trouble with Zone D, but we did not today, they probably went into it 3-4 times and we got and hit open threes each time which made them switch back to man.

One thing I would like to see more of is the transition game. KC never seems to want to run even when we have numbers. I wish he would push it.

So in short, I would say it was more of the same stuff except more effective due to the fact that LaSalle does not play as good of D as Richmond.

-Nick

[Parks 68]

Watched the LaSalle game.

The Bills have no transition game. They get the ball either after a basket or rebound and then walk the ball down every time.

Numerous times, LaSalle had the fast breaks going for them and caught the Bills flat footed. It was luck that the Explorer's couldn't make their shots drop.

St. Louis had many chances to get out on a fast break but again, they play what seems like a forced slow offense. With a guard like QM who is fast and can take advantage of that speed, it seems like they are not taking advantage of that skill.

Perhaps that is what RM has "Beat" into them but easy buckets are there for the taking especially with the likes of WR and BC under the basket.

Missing free throws was also an issue. In the "Clutch" KM made the important ones and the Bills survived. It would have been a 10 point lead if all others had made their FTs during the game.

When the Bills encounter a team that is quick and running, they will be in trouble. Their slow/paced rate of play will be their down fall.

[Billikan]

Watched the LaSalle game.

The Bills have no transition game. They get the ball either after a basket or rebound and then walk the ball down every time.

Numerous times, LaSalle had the fast breaks going for them and caught the Bills flat footed. It was luck that the Explorer's couldn't make their shots drop.

St. Louis had many chances to get out on a fast break but again, they play what seems like a forced slow offense. With a guard like QM who is fast and can take advantage of that speed, it seems like they are not taking advantage of that skill.

Perhaps that is what RM has "Beat" into them but easy buckets are there for the taking especially with the likes of WR and BC under the basket.

Missing free throws was also an issue. In the "Clutch" KM made the important ones and the Bills survived. It would have been a 10 point lead if all others had made their FTs during the game.

When the Bills encounter a team that is quick and running, they will be in trouble. Their slow/paced rate of play will be their down fall.

I do not agree with most of this supposed analysis. While we did not run the ball wildly up the floor, when we were effective--in a road game where every possession is valuable and precious--we did bring down the ball and set up our offense in a way that we could take the ball to the basket if opportunities were open and that is why KM got to the hoop and Willie shot so many free throws. KM, KC and CS all did a nice job of moving the ball with the pass and on the dribble.

The other team was huge and their guards had about 5 to 7 inches on KM yet he did a fine job of moving the ball and getting to the hoop. They posted their huge guard almost every time against him and when help came they often used the other player to drive to the hoop. For the most part we did a good job of stopping any "running game" they had and very few teams this year have been able to run on us. Many of the team we have played have run up big scores on other teams but we do a very respectable job of getting back and stopping the fast break. The only time we have had issues is when we do dumb things and turn the ball over in the open court which leads to an easy layup on the other end.

Willie did a better job in the post and when he gets stronger he will be very hard to stop. Although he did miss some free throws early, it was nice to see him come back and hit a bunch in the second half. His shot actually looked ok on several of his misses-- they were just short. others were a little ugly but overall he was better in the second half.

Cody is still a big time work in progress on the defensive end and so it causes the entire defense some issues at times. On the other hand, he is willing and has pretty quick hands so there is hope. Overall, the entire offense seemed to have a plan and the high low game will be better when our young kids get stronger and understand the angles a little better.

It is hard as heck to win on the road and the A 10 refs are just terrible. They are so inconsistant that it must be impossible for the players to understand what is going to be called. KM is hammered to the ground--yet no call. Their player barges straight into BC who is just standing with his hands straight up and they call the foul. I will give Willie a lot of credit. Many times he just pushed through the hands and arms and forced the refs to make a call. For some reason the A 10 refs seem more willing to call fouls on the bigs than they do on the perimeter when people are holding, hand checking and grabbing arms like in the last 5 minutes of our game against GW when our guards were getting mugged and no calls at all.

[Runnin'Billiken]

First of all, eras have different approaches to how they do things - perhaps the refs today just have evolved to looking at the style of play differently then those who reffed 30 or 40 years ago - not saying it is better just evolved differently. Second, some of these gyms might be lacking but clearly some of the coaches there have not let it interfere with their recruiting. I know that LaSalle is not doing as well as they were suppose to do but injuries have played a part in that and St. Joes has had its success perhaps not as recently. Third, the Post today said that there was 177 people in attendance - if that is true what a terrible statement. You could not tell on TV because they never showed the crowd. Finally, I think the announcers on TV were a CBS College Sports A10 crew because the one guy had coached at Nova and played against LaSalle years ago and he gave his first team pick at mid season team for the A10.

The boxscore on SLUBillikens.com says 1177. I wonder how many people would show up to the Fetz in 1-2 feet of snow. Probably not 7500, because people in Missouri drive like horsesh** in the RAIN, let alone the snow. I doubt 1177 is accurate. The few crowd shots that snuck in looked like a mid-size high school game.

[ARon]

When the Bills encounter a team that is quick and running, they will be in trouble. Their slow/paced rate of play will be their down fall.

People said that slow-paced play would Richmond's downfall when they played Mizzou earlier this year. We all saw how that turned out.

If you have a pace or style of play that suits your team you can win, so long as you impose that pace on the other team. Casual b-ball fans love to assume that slow-paced defensive-minded teams are bad just because they are "not as fun to watch". They saw the same things in football, baseball etc etc etc. However, this premise has been proven to be flawed again and again and again.

It is not about your style, its is about how well you execute.

[Runnin'Billiken]

People said that slow-paced play would Richmond's downfall when they played Mizzou earlier this year. We all saw how that turned out.

If you have a pace or style of play that suits your team you can win, so long as you impose that pace on the other team. Casual b-ball fans love to assume that slow-paced defensive-minded teams are bad just because they are "not as fun to watch". They saw the same things in football, baseball etc etc etc. However, this premise has been proven to be flawed again and again and again.

It is not about your style, its is about how well you execute.

+1

If it was, The San Antonio Spurs (The Most Boring Team In The History Of Professional Sports) would never have won 4 championships in less than a decade.

Every teams' fans come away from the game with us saying their team looked out of rhythm, shot bad from outside, and just plain couldn't get things done. There's a reason. It's called defense. Most people don't seem to realize that even if you only score 60 points, you still win if the other team scores less. But in a short-attention-span, shock-and-awe, sportscenter-top-10-seeking culture, what do you expect?

[Training Room All Star]

The boxscore on SLUBillikens.com says 1177. I wonder how many people would show up to the Fetz in 1-2 feet of snow. Probably not 7500, because people in Missouri drive like horsesh** in the RAIN, let alone the snow. I doubt 1177 is accurate. The few crowd shots that snuck in looked like a mid-size high school game.

Living in Philly myself, I watched the game and can tell you that the boxscore is accurate with regards to attendance. Here in Philly, they dont do a whole lot to get rid of snow, so no one but student really had a reason to go. 20" of snow does not make for a good time to move around in Philly. See you all at the St. Joe's game.

[cheeseman]

Watched the LaSalle game.

The Bills have no transition game. They get the ball either after a basket or rebound and then walk the ball down every time.

Numerous times, LaSalle had the fast breaks going for them and caught the Bills flat footed. It was luck that the Explorer's couldn't make their shots drop.

St. Louis had many chances to get out on a fast break but again, they play what seems like a forced slow offense. With a guard like QM who is fast and can take advantage of that speed, it seems like they are not taking advantage of that skill.

Perhaps that is what RM has "Beat" into them but easy buckets are there for the taking especially with the likes of WR and BC under the basket.

Missing free throws was also an issue. In the "Clutch" KM made the important ones and the Bills survived. It would have been a 10 point lead if all others had made their FTs during the game.

When the Bills encounter a team that is quick and running, they will be in trouble. Their slow/paced rate of play will be their down fall.

I could not disagree with you more. It is difficult to have a transition game when you are not getting rebounds - we were badly out rebounded in the first half and it was not until we made our last run in the game did we turn that around somewhat. Yes LaSalle did get some baskets on transitions but it is not like they were eating us up after all they shot about the same % from the field as us so if they were getting transition basket after another then that would not have been true. No one would argue that we are not a good FT shooting team - even a blind man could see that. We have encountered fast teams and in fact have beaten them - speed is not our problem our problem is not being able to hit our perimeter shots consistently. Finally, we are #3 in the nation in defending the 3 pt shot - so to say we were lucky that they did not have their shots falling is just silly - our defense had something to do with that - look at that last shot they took it was not even close and they darn near lost the ball in that sequence before getting the shot off.

[cheeseman]

The boxscore on SLUBillikens.com says 1177. I wonder how many people would show up to the Fetz in 1-2 feet of snow. Probably not 7500, because people in Missouri drive like horsesh** in the RAIN, let alone the snow. I doubt 1177 is accurate. The few crowd shots that snuck in looked like a mid-size high school game.

I only quoted what the paper listed. I do think we would have had more than 177 or 1177 at our game unless the roads were just completely blocked.

[cheeseman]

People said that slow-paced play would Richmond's downfall when they played Mizzou earlier this year. We all saw how that turned out.

If you have a pace or style of play that suits your team you can win, so long as you impose that pace on the other team. Casual b-ball fans love to assume that slow-paced defensive-minded teams are bad just because they are "not as fun to watch". They saw the same things in football, baseball etc etc etc. However, this premise has been proven to be flawed again and again and again.

It is not about your style, its is about how well you execute.

Even the announcers on TV said that the reason the Bills were winning the game and ultimately won was that they never panicked and played their style of game regardless of the score in the game. It was their patience that eventually won out.

[bills10]

I could not disagree with you more. It is difficult to have a transition game when you are not getting rebounds - we were badly out rebounded in the first half and it was not until we made our last run in the game did we turn that around somewhat. Yes LaSalle did get some baskets on transitions but it is not like they were eating us up after all they shot about the same % from the field as us so if they were getting transition basket after another then that would not have been true. No one would argue that we are not a good FT shooting team - even a blind man could see that. We have encountered fast teams and in fact have beaten them - speed is not our problem our problem is not being able to hit our perimeter shots consistently. Finally, we are #3 in the nation in defending the 3 pt shot - so to say we were lucky that they did not have their shots falling is just silly - our defense had something to do with that - look at that last shot they took it was not even close and they darn near lost the ball in that sequence before getting the shot off.

According to Kenpom today, we are now ranked number 1 in the nation for 3-pt defense Too bad we are 322 in FT%. Better than DePaul though, who is bringing up the rear!

[kshoe]

I only quoted what the paper listed. I do think we would have had more than 177 or 1177 at our game unless the roads were just completely blocked.

The box score on ESPN.com says 1,177. While that is certainly nothing to brag about, I think the 177 number is another example of the Post Dispatch ###### up the details.

[kshoe]

The box score on ESPN.com says 1,177. While that is certainly nothing to brag about, I think the 177 number is another example of the Post Dispatch ###### up the details.

It looks like some sort of language filter is now in place on this board. I can understand the need to get rid of some four letter words but is $ c r e w i n g up really a word that need to be #####?

[billikenfan05]

It looks like some sort of language filter is now in place on this board. I can understand the need to get rid of some four letter words but is $ c r e w i n g up really a word that need to be #####?

that ###### made your ######ing post look like you said "fawking up"

[kshoe]

that ###### made your ######ing post look like you said "fawking up"

good point. By ##### out the PG 13 stuff you make eveything look like its R rated.

[bonwich]

It's also a question of whether LaSalle uses real attendance or Sears attendance. I still haven't figured out if we've reverted to truth-in-reporting since we moved to Chaifetz or we still use the Kielvis VP Fair attendance estimation method.

[Billsrmajic]

+1

If it was, The San Antonio Spurs (The Most Boring Team In The History Of Professional Sports) would never have won 4 championships in less than a decade.

Every teams' fans come away from the game with us saying their team looked out of rhythm, shot bad from outside, and just plain couldn't get things done. There's a reason. It's called defense. Most people don't seem to realize that even if you only score 60 points, you still win if the other team scores less. But in a short-attention-span, shock-and-awe, sportscenter-top-10-seeking culture, what do you expect?

Amen to that - Rick's team has always focused on defense. When Utah played for the national championship in 1998, here were the scores for their first five games of the tournament: 85-68 over San Franscisco, 75-69 over Arkansas, 65-62 over West Virginia, 76-51 over Arizona (bit of an anomoly - triangle and two defense totally shut down the Wildcats), 65-59 over North Carolina (a team that featured Antwan Jamison and Vince Carter). Those scores seem a lot like the Billikens games this year. Rick wins games with defense. The close games are a coin flip now, but in the next two years we'll win a large percentage of those games.

[slufanskip]

Watched the LaSalle game.

The Bills have no transition game. They get the ball either after a basket or rebound and then walk the ball down every time.

Numerous times, LaSalle had the fast breaks going for them and caught the Bills flat footed. It was luck that the Explorer's couldn't make their shots drop.

St. Louis had many chances to get out on a fast break but again, they play what seems like a forced slow offense. With a guard like QM who is fast and can take advantage of that speed, it seems like they are not taking advantage of that skill.

Perhaps that is what RM has "Beat" into them but easy buckets are there for the taking especially with the likes of WR and BC under the basket.

Missing free throws was also an issue. In the "Clutch" KM made the important ones and the Bills survived. It would have been a 10 point lead if all others had made their FTs during the game.

When the Bills encounter a team that is quick and running, they will be in trouble. Their slow/paced rate of play will be their down fall.

It's not Quamain

La Salle is probably just as lucky that we missed shots.

After 22 games in a season I think you begin to get a clue regarding a team's identity.

Here's where we rank nationally as a defense.

3pt % 1st

2pt % 23rd

Effective fg% 4th

Block % 42nd

I'd say it wasn't luck that LaSalle missed.

You're right we didn't want to get up and down the floor with them. They have scored over 75 points 15 times this season. We held them to their 2nd lowest total at home this season. Overall though they shot slightly better from 2 pt land in this game than they had been averaging, but they shot only 15% from the 3, when they had been averaging just over 37% on the season.

If you had been paying attention all year, you'd know it's not luck, it's by design, and it's why we won the game.

[slufanskip]

According to Kenpom today, we are now ranked number 1 in the nation for 3-pt defense Too bad we are 322 in FT%. Better than DePaul though, who is bringing up the rear!

I still say not only do we need to do a better job making our f/t's. We're 322nd in the nation. We also need to do a better job defending it, we're 299th.

[TheBand]

I still say not only do we need to do a better job making our f/t's. We're 322nd in the nation. We also need to do a better job defending it, we're 299th.

Ok, excuse my ignorence, but how do you defend a free-throw better? And how is that a meaningful stat?

[willie]

Ok, excuse my ignorence, but how do you defend a free-throw better? And how is that a meaningful stat?

Fouls committed?????? Free-throws given?????? Students jumping up and down behind the basket??????

[slufanskip]

Ok, excuse my ignorence, but how do you defend a free-throw better? And how is that a meaningful stat?

There are many tried and true ways such as the tactic that worked in the 1983 Florida class A high school semifinal .... the ###### flash.

or ... what worked in the 1978 NYC championship game ... the "your mama wears army boots line delivered just before the release.

It's widely known that f/t defense though, not talked about is one of the more important aspects of success.