Sticking to my guns...10-2 the rest of the way (12-4 in conf)

[mccarthyirish7]

Good 2nd half on the road today.

McCarthy's updated keys:

McCall, Jett, Mitchell, Evans, Conklin should see the majority of minutes from here on out. Ellis first in, then Kyle.

McCall and Ellis need the green light whenever they are open. I'm also fine with Mitchell and Cassity shooting open looks.

Evans needs to continue to be aggressive when he plays

[slu72]

Let's look at the roadies. They're gonna be the key to how this season plays out.

X- The gangstas are finding their mo jo. Not impossible but it's gonna be tough to win at the Cintas. Our inside guys are gonna have to play tough hard nosed Big 10 style to beat the Muskies on their home court. Probable L.

UMass- 3 days later we travel to Amherst. Does RM take them right from X or do they come home then fly to Boston then a 2 hr bus ride to Amherst. This is where being in the A-10 puts a burden on SLU. Don't know much about UMass other than they press a lot. We should be picked for a W, but look at Richmond v Temple yesterday. Probable W

St. Joe's and LaSalle- This will be an extended stay in Philly (games on the 8th and 11th). Both tough home teams. A split 1-1. A sweep would be sweet but really how likely?

RI- The worst team in the A-10 should be about ready to crumble by the time we arrive. Stone cold W.

Duquense- An up and down team. Still should be a probable W. But may depend on how we're doing at this point. If we're on a roll then a W. If we're looking to be a 4 or 5 seed in the A-10, who knows who'll show up. Probable W.

So that's 4-2 on the road. Hold court at home, won't be easy w/ X and UD coming to town, and we end up 24-6 going to AC. A couple of W's there, and one of them will likely have to come against UD, X, or Temple, we should be renting our Tux. But also keep in mind we are fully capable of winning the A-10 tourney and all of the above won't amount to a hill of beans.

[West Pine Jim]

Let's look at the roadies. They're gonna be the key to how this season plays out.

X- The gangstas are finding their mo jo. Not impossible but it's gonna be tough to win at the Cintas. Our inside guys are gonna have to play tough hard nosed Big 10 style to beat the Muskies on their home court. Probable L.

UMass- 3 days later we travel to Amherst. Does RM take them right from X or do they come home then fly to Boston then a 2 hr bus ride to Amherst. This is where being in the A-10 puts a burden on SLU. Don't know much about UMass other than they press a lot. We should be picked for a W, but look at Richmond v Temple yesterday. Probable W

St. Joe's and LaSalle- This will be an extended stay in Philly (games on the 8th and 11th). Both tough home teams. A split 1-1. A sweep would be sweet but really how likely?

RI- The worst team in the A-10 should be about ready to crumble by the time we arrive. Stone cold W.

Duquense- An up and down team. Still should be a probable W. But may depend on how we're doing at this point. If we're on a roll then a W. If we're looking to be a 4 or 5 seed in the A-10, who knows who'll show up. Probable W.

So that's 4-2 on the road. Hold court at home, won't be easy w/ X and UD coming to town, and we end up 24-6 going to AC. A couple of W's there, and one of them will likely have to come against UD, X, or Temple, we should be renting our Tux. But also keep in mind we are fully capable of winning the A-10 tourney and all of the above won't amount to a hill of beans.

Hope you are right about U Mass, Larry. We are capable of anything from very very good to p.u.

[The Dude]

Still waiting to see who the Bills go-to player is late in games whether ahead or behind. I can very well see them with a January conference record of 3-4. For the year, 11-5 would be a nice result. 8-4 the rest of the way and 10-6 seem more likely. Could be 3rd or 4th. NCAA or NIT.

[Taj79]

larry72 sounds reasonble ---- it this were a reasonable program with reasonable logic. It's not. I'll call larry72's the rosy side. Mine, not so much. Here's hoping his kicks mine in thebutt really good.

[slu72]

Taj Mahal 79, you ignorant ######. You're doomsday scenario is due to the fact you're a friggin' Iggles fan. Iggles fans are conditioned to accept the bad and the ugly. Never the good. The Dream Team produces a nightmare. Meanwhile, the Gmen are pulling out old videos of 2007. Find someone who smokes and take the cellophane wrapper of their pack of cigs. Stand it up on the bar and look at it. That is the Iggles trophy case. Now, if your local tavern offers free peanuts, take 4 peanuts and place three of them under the wrapper. Voila, the Gmen's trophy case. Now with the 4th peanut slide it behind the wrapper and imagine what it's gonna look like after SB 46. So, point being if my Gmen can pull of the impossible then so can the Bills.

[Pistol]

This week is one of two full-week breaks we get in between games; those breaks precede Duquesne this Saturday at home and Rhode Island, away, on 2/25. I'd hope we can take both of those without too much trouble. I just wish they came before tougher matchups.

Going to Xavier and UMass next week is going to be a bear; I just want to come back 1-1 and then sweep the Bonnies and Sweatervests here. That would put us at 6-3 before going to Philly for St. Joe's and LaSalle. I'll call 1-1 again on those, putting us at 7-4 before coming back here to play Richmond and Fordham. That should make us 9-4, then a week before @URI should see us 10-4 for Xavier at home and finishing at Duquesne. 12-4 in conference is not unreasonable, but I'll call one more misstep and 11-5 before A10 Tournament play.

The question is- do we want that Tuesday before AC off, or do we want one more probable win for the overall profile?

[kshoe]

This week is one of two full-week breaks we get in between games; those breaks precede Duquesne this Saturday at home and Rhode Island, away, on 2/25. I'd hope we can take both of those without too much trouble. I just wish they came before tougher matchups.

Going to Xavier and UMass next week is going to be a bear; I just want to come back 1-1 and then sweep the Bonnies and Sweatervests here. That would put us at 6-3 before going to Philly for St. Joe's and LaSalle. I'll call 1-1 again on those, putting us at 7-4 before coming back here to play Richmond and Fordham. That should make us 9-4, then a week before @URI should see us 10-4 for Xavier at home and finishing at Duquesne. 12-4 in conference is not unreasonable, but I'll call one more misstep and 11-5 before A10 Tournament play.

The question is- do we want that Tuesday before AC off, or do we want one more probable win for the overall profile?

That is a good question but given how this conference is beating up on eachother I have to believe 11-5 will be in the top 4.

[SShoe]

Good analysis. Definitely some tough stretches in there (X and UMass, St. Joe's and LaSalle). If we can at least split those, we'd be in pretty good shape.

Definitely want that Tuesday off. Finishing in the top 4 has us probably at or above 11 wins, which we all agree is sort of the cut-off for us in getting to the tourney. Plus, the bye is nice and getting another win vs. a lower-end team in the league probably won't help much.

[Cowboy]

-not playing on tuesday would seem better to me as if we then hold serve in game one it would seem real unlikely the team we would have defeated could leapfrog us into an at large

[AMDG]

gonna be tough

[slufan13]

This week is one of two full-week breaks we get in between games; those breaks precede Duquesne this Saturday at home and Rhode Island, away, on 2/25. I'd hope we can take both of those without too much trouble. I just wish they came before tougher matchups.

Going to Xavier and UMass next week is going to be a bear; I just want to come back 1-1 and then sweep the Bonnies and Sweatervests here. That would put us at 6-3 before going to Philly for St. Joe's and LaSalle. I'll call 1-1 again on those, putting us at 7-4 before coming back here to play Richmond and Fordham. That should make us 9-4, then a week before @URI should see us 10-4 for Xavier at home and finishing at Duquesne. 12-4 in conference is not unreasonable, but I'll call one more misstep and 11-5 before A10 Tournament play.

The question is- do we want that Tuesday before AC off, or do we want one more probable win for the overall profile?

I'd say your analysis is pretty dead on.

We definitely want the Tuesday off because if 11-5 or 10-6 for some reason doesn't get us a bye, it will at least give us the 5 seed and then we're playing the 12 (probably Fordham or GW) and that won't be a quality win. Much rather get the bye and have a full week to rest and prepare. I'm really hoping we can be on the opposite side of the bracket as Temple because it might take a conference final appearance to secure a bid and if we play Temple before that it will be tough playing in Atlantic City.

[Duff Man]

Unless something dramatic happens and our OOC opponents all go on simultaneous tears through their remaining regular season schedules, our at-large resume is going to hinge on our high standing within a tough A-10 conference. 5th place ain't gonna cut it...and 4th puts us on the bubble, with the A10 quarterfinal against the 5th (or 12th) place team serving as an eliminator game.

We need to distinguish ourselves in the A10. A tie for 2nd at 12-4 should be enough, provided we don't embarrass ourselves getting blown out by a lower seed in A10 quarterfinal. If we finish in 3rd place at 11-5, we're going to need a solid showing in Atlantic City to get in.

Forget the A10 tournament...just split with X, win every other game and claim the goddamn regular season A10 title (last split regular season championship was 1971, last outright was 1957).

[moytoy12]

We're not losing another regular season game. Everyone should quit fretting.

[AlumniFan]

Unless something dramatic happens and our OOC opponents all go on simultaneous tears through their remaining regular season schedules, our at-large resume is going to hinge on our high standing within a tough A-10 conference. 5th place ain't gonna cut it...and 4th puts us on the bubble, with the A10 quarterfinal against the 5th (or 12th) place team serving as an eliminator game. We need to distinguish ourselves in the A10. A tie for 2nd at 12-4 should be enough, provided we don't embarrass ourselves getting blown out by a lower seed in A10 quarterfinal. If we finish in 3rd place at 11-5, we're going to need a solid showing in Atlantic City to get in. Forget the A10 tournament...just split with X, win every other game and claim the goddamn regular season A10 title (last split regular season championship was 1971, last outright was 1957).

I think this is spot on.

[SLU_Nick]

Nice analyses in this thread. I can't disagree with any of it. But for just squeaking out a win against Charlotte after being down by 14 at one point, we sure are counting a lot of chickens.

[Duff Man]

Nice analyses in this thread. I can't disagree with any of it. But for just squeaking out a win against Charlotte after being down by 14 at one point, we sure are counting a lot of chickens.

No one is counting anything, just realistically sizing up the task at hand. There's not one game we've played that we couldn't have won, had we cut down on the turnovers and made better use of critical possessions.

The Charlotte game was in many ways our most impressive win to date, and there's still much room for improvement. We proved we can beat an RPI top 100 team in their gym (something we'll need to do at least twice more if we're to have any chance of an at-large bid). We proved we can erase a double-digit deficit.

Most importantly, we saw a glimpse of Mitchell/McCall/Jett on the floor together wreaking havoc. Not to slight the heroics of Conklin, Evans, and Ellis, but this team is only going so far as our triumvirate of speedy guards can carry us.

[drkelsey55]

No one is counting anything, just realistically sizing up the task at hand. There's not one game we've played that we couldn't have won, had we cut down on the turnovers and made better use of critical possessions.

The Charlotte game was in many ways our most impressive win to date, and there's still much room for improvement. We proved we can beat an RPI top 100 team in their gym (something we'll need to do at least twice more if we're to have any chance of an at-large bid). We proved we can erase a double-digit deficit.

Most importantly, we saw a glimpse of Mitchell/McCall/Jett on the floor together wreaking havoc. Not to slight the heroics of Conklin, Evans, and Ellis, but this team is only going so far as our triumvirate of speedy guards can carry us.

Just think what it would be like if you could add the "Jake B" we all thought we were getting to those three. BOMBS away!!!

[slu72]

Just think what it would be like if you could add the "Jake B" we all thought we were getting to those three. BOMBS away!!!

I think that ship's pretty much sailed.

[Billboy1]

Agree. JB has certainly been a disappointment. Considering what he did as a fresman I expected he would be a great addition to our roster.