Bills by 2 over X

[SLUMedBilliken15]

Does anyone know if Majerus has been feeling better this week? I know he missed a practice or two last week. He also sat on the bench the entire game on Saturday instead on his usual standing on the court.

[The Wiz]

I'm shocked that you are favoring us by 2, Wiz. We tend to struggle on the road and Xavier has a 43 game win streak at home against A10 opponents. If you look at both of those, I would think you would favor X. We're going to beat X and when we do I think it will be a slight upset.

Like Pistol, I am worried about Wells as well as he could be the X factor. We know what we're going to get from Tu and Lyons. Shrek is Shrek. Dez is a 6'5" very athletic player and outstand rebounder for a guard. If he puts up 15 or 16 we could be in trouble.

Those are some pretty impressive numbers...43 in a row. But that just shows you how good the Bills are this year ...to be favored in an away game at a difficult venue. . The fact that we are favored doesn't mean we win. It means we should win. I have noticed a number of posters fretting about X. As a B+ team they are a force not to be taken lightly. But remember, we battled NM to the final seconds, a game we could have just as easily won. We battled a tougher team in NM ( A ) in a tougher venue (the Pit) down to the final wire. If we represented ourselves well there, then if all goes as planned we should do even better at X.

[MB73]

I'm shocked that you are favoring us by 2, Wiz. We tend to struggle on the road and Xavier has a 43 game win streak at home against A10 opponents. If you look at both of those, I would think you would favor X. We're going to beat X and when we do I think it will be a slight upset.

Like Pistol, I am worried about Wells as well as he could be the X factor. We know what we're going to get from Tu and Lyons. Shrek is Shrek. Dez is a 6'5" very athletic player and outstand rebounder for a guard. If he puts up 15 or 16 we could be in trouble.

You should not be shocked, Wiz is the all time Billliken optimiist. He has us 18th in the NCAA.

Vegas has Xavier by 3, this is a big bounceback home game for Xavier and I think they are dangerous off a loss and we are in trouble here, Xavier off a loss, needs this one, they are one game out behind Dayton in A-10, will not take us lightly like last year when they were coasting and we were struggling. Last yr, it was a "Milton Berle" game for them. Not this time.

HUGE game for us, a victory puts us in a different category (though not "elite").

[Taj79]

Lyons and Holloway are not jump shooters. I've seen X play Vandy, Purdue, Duquesne, the Bonnies, SIU, Butler, Cincinnati and Gonzaga. (Wow! Didn't realize I had seen THAT many!) Lyons and Holloway live off the drive to the basket. Lyons can get totally out of control at times. They can and will shoot a jumper here and there, but it is not their preference as it seems to be for Loe, Ellis, McCall and some of our guys. The only "real" spot-up shooter X uses is Redford, who's shooting 30% from three-point land. Will Lyons, Holloway and Wells take them? Yes but it's not their game to do so.

During the Duquesne/Xavier game, Duquesne played matador defense. I thought the effort Duquesne exhibited would be the nadir of the season; then they played us just as bad or worse. Remember when Rammer said the Dukes had quit? They played that way the whole time against X. Wells' dunkfest came against the Dukes, not the Bonnies. Couple in the fact that Duquesne plays four or five gaurds and you can easily figure Everhardt had no one large enough to match up with Wells with behemoths like Frease and Walker on the courtn and if he did, the guy wasn't quick enough. I would expect Evans to match up 100 times better.

As said in an earlier thread, jump shooters don't traditionally get fouled. If Holloway was a jump shooter, he'd also have more a free throw number down near Cassity than at the 129 currently. He drives, and has the ball in his hands when the game is close. He Lyons and Redford all shoot FTs at a 74% rate or better. Tutu is at 85%.

And if they drive, the help defense will come. Meaning behind those shots come board crahsers Frease, Walker, Robinson and Taylor, not to mention Wells. I have seen no real set offense in the Mack playbook designed to get and of those guys any shots whatsoever. All those guys, sans Wells, are 6'7" or taller. Wells is too frankly based on his athleticism. All this worked to perfection in their dismantling of a good Vandy team and a good Cincy team prior to the end of the brawlgame.

Wiz is predicting that we are the better team. Do not know that I disagree with that. Do know that I'd take Xavier at home getting points just about any time. I think the Wiz' system does not take into account trends, tendencies and emotion. All that is up for Xavier tonight ---- they're mad, they are focused (read Timmerman), they are coming off a loss, and they are at home where they rarely lose. Couple into that our still inabiulity to win on the road.

I'l be stunned if we win. So stun me.

[kshoe]

You should not be shocked, Wiz is the all time Billliken optimiist. He has us 18th in the NCAA.

Vegas has Xavier by 3, this is a big bounceback home game for Xavier and I think they are dangerous off a loss and we are in trouble here, Xavier off a loss, needs this one, they are one game out behind Dayton in A-10, will not take us lightly like last year when they were coasting and we were struggling. Last yr, it was a "Milton Berle" game for them. Not this time.

HUGE game for us, a victory puts us in a different category (though not "elite").

He is not the all time Billiken optimist. He has a computer program that is very similar to Pomeroy's and Sagarin's and it thinks the Billikens are good. It's not like Wiz put a bug in his program that says "add 5 points to the Billikens every time they play."

[brianstl]

You should not be shocked, Wiz is the all time Billliken optimiist. He has us 18th in the NCAA.

Vegas has Xavier by 3, this is a big bounceback home game for Xavier and I think they are dangerous off a loss and we are in trouble here, Xavier off a loss, needs this one, they are one game out behind Dayton in A-10, will not take us lightly like last year when they were coasting and we were struggling. Last yr, it was a "Milton Berle" game for them. Not this time.

HUGE game for us, a victory puts us in a different category (though not "elite").

Which Billikens do you predict will be targeting Shrek?

[Cowboy]

As said in an earlier thread, jump shooters don't traditionally get fouled. If Holloway was a jump shooter, he'd also have more a free throw number down near Cassity than at the 129 currently. He drives, and has the ball in his hands when the game is close. He Lyons and Redford all shoot FTs at a 74% rate or better. Tutu is at 85%.

And if they drive, the help defense will come. Meaning behind those shots come board crahsers Frease, Walker, Robinson and Taylor, not to mention Wells. I have seen no real set offense in the Mack playbook designed to get and of those guys any shots whatsoever. All those guys, sans Wells, are 6'7" or taller. Wells is too frankly based on his athleticism. All this worked to perfection in their dismantling of a good Vandy team and a good Cincy team prior to the end of the brawlgame.

I'l be stunned if we win. So stun me.

-i am concerned about our ability to deny/stop dribble penetration by the x guards, when we don't stop the ball it seems all under the basket go for help defense and the weakside is wide open for a pass or offensive rebound if the shot is missed

-yes, let's get stunned!!!

[West Pine Jim]

I am expecting to be stunned in 9 hours. In a good way. Can't wait ! We're due for our big win.

[kwyjibo]

He is not the all time Billiken optimist. He has a computer program that is very similar to Pomeroy's and Sagarin's and it thinks the Billikens are good. It's not like Wiz put a bug in his program that says "add 5 points to the Billikens every time they play."

His program is efficiency based so it is like Pomeroy's (score and wins not relevant directly). "Sagarin" is actually three methods in one--he had a modified margin-of-victory for a long while then a number of years ago he switched to his ELO/Points hybrid. Sagarin ranks everyone by ELO (which is the most logical ranking method that uses just wins and losses--more logically elegant than RPI for example) and his Points/Predictor method (which is based ONLY on the margin of victory). He blends the two methods together for his "ranking".

This is not a pedantic point as SLU has played efficiently this year AND had big MOVs. Pomeroy (13) and Wiz's Efficiency as well as Predictor Sagarin (15) rank SLU highly while Sagarin ELO (53), current RPI (50), and some other win based or subjective rankings (e.g. Rothman has SLU at 65) have SLU lower. If SLU wins games the Sagarin and RPI will move SLU down as well as they are generally going to play some good teams.

Now there is also an issue and argument about which system is "RIGHT". Well, that depends obviously. Because of Wobus ranking the rankings I know each week a different rating system has an edge but there are patterns that emerge over time. I find it a bit comical that MB73 defends RPI as it is NOT a predictive method NOR does it generally work great for prediction (near the bottom of Wobus rankings this year but more importantly generally a little below average and well below consensus). The best rankings come from a variety of approaches but in general the more "eggheaded" the rankings are the better. That is, the more time you put into running numbers, testing, and tweaking your models the better the results (the worst rankings tend to be older methods that do not update their coefficients or approaches). This year nearly all the efficiency based rankings have done very well (Pomeroy is most famous but Adjusted Stats is another) but so have some of the sophisticated non-efficieny ratings because of MOV (like LRMC which use very sophisticated statistical methos--like use information on playing a team more than once and Raymond Cheong). The point is the LRMC and Cheong are loving SLU this year as well.

There are a lot of related issues I could talk about (like tournament selection "profile" / "eye test" methods are EVEN WORSE prediction methods or Coaches polls are terrible predictors or that there is a lot more variance in college basketball than people realize so comments like I "know" one team is better than other are best left to Ohio St. v. Chicago St. type matchups, etc.) but if we are just talking about the ability to predict than maybe the proof should be the ability to predict the NCAA tournament. In that case the LRMC professors claim their method is significantly better than all other methods. Even if you want to ignore potential bias in their own method the rest of the info is quite revealing. Efficiency and some "Egghead Tweaked" MOV Power ratings clearly do better (there are some mediocre andbad MOV methods as well). Seeds/Committee, Polls, RPI do generally worse and Las Vegas Oddsmakers are just OK.

WOBUS: http://sports.vaporia.com/bb-fwin.html

[HusakAttack]

over/under 4.5 punches landed tonight? i took the over in vegas but my computer is predicting 3.8, just gotta go with my gut on this one

[The Wiz]

His program is efficiency based so it is like Pomeroy's (score and wins not relevant directly). "Sagarin" is actually three methods in one (he had a modified margin-of-victory for a long while then a number of years ago he switched to his ELO/Points hybrid. Sagarin ranks everyone by ELO (which is the most logical ranking method that uses just wins and losses--more logically elegant than RPI for example) and his Points/Predictor method (which is based ONLY on the margin of victory). He blends the two methods together for his "ranking".

This is not a pedantic point as SLU has played efficiently this year AND had big MOVs. Pomeroy (13) and Wiz's Efficiency as well as Predictor Sagarin (15) rank SLU highly while Sagarin ELO (53), current RPI (50), and some other win based or subjective rankings (e.g. Rothman has SLU at 65) have SLU lower. If SLU wins games the Sagarin and RPI will move SLU down as well as they are generally going to play some good teams.

Now there is also an issue and argument about which system is "RIGHT". Well, that depends obviously. Because of Wobus ranking the rankings I know each week a different rating system has an edge but there are patterns that emerge over time. I find it a bit comical that MB73 defends RPI as it is NOT a predictive method NOR does it generally work great for prediction (near the bottom of Wobus rankings this year but more importantly generally a little below average and well below consensus). The best rankings come from a variety of approaches but in general the more "eggheaded" the rankings are the better. That is, the more time you put into running numbers, testing, and tweaking your models the better the results (the worst rankings tend to be older methods that do not update their coefficients or approaches). This year nearly all the efficiency based rankings have done very well (Pomeroy is most famous but Adjusted Stats is another) but so have some of the sophisticated non-efficieny ratings because of MOB (like LRMC which use very sophisticated statistical methos--like use information on playing a team more than once and Raymond Cheong). The point is the LRMC and Cheong are loving SLU this year as well.

There are a lot of related issues I could talk about (like tournament selection "profile" / "eye test" methods are EVEN WORSE prediction methods or Coaches polls are terrible predictors or that there is a lot more variance in college basketball than people realize so comments like I "know" one team is better than other are best left to Ohio St. v. Chicago St. type matchups, etc.) but if we are just talking about the ability to predict than maybe the proof should be the ability to predict the NCAA tournament. In that case the LRMC professors claim their method is significantly better than all other methods. Even if you want to ignore potential bias in their own method the rest of the info is quite revealing. Efficiency and some "Egghead Tweaked" MOV Power ratings clearly do better (there are some mediocre andbad MOV methods as well). Seeds/Committee, Polls, RPI do generally worse and Las Vegas Oddsmakers are just OK.

WOBUS: http://sports.vaporia.com/bb-fwin.html

Nice analysis....+1

[slufan13]

You should not be shocked, Wiz is the all time Billliken optimiist. He has us 18th in the NCAA.

Vegas has Xavier by 3, this is a big bounceback home game for Xavier and I think they are dangerous off a loss and we are in trouble here, Xavier off a loss, needs this one, they are one game out behind Dayton in A-10, will not take us lightly like last year when they were coasting and we were struggling. Last yr, it was a "Milton Berle" game for them. Not this time.

HUGE game for us, a victory puts us in a different category (though not "elite").

Again, last year they were coming off a loss to Charlotte so they were fired up.

[moytoy12]

Again, last year they were coming off a loss to Charlotte so they were fired up.

stupid facts, always getting in the way.

[Box and Won]

Again, last year they were coming off a loss to Charlotte so they were fired up.

Don't let facts get in the way.

[jbizzle09]

His program is efficiency based so it is like Pomeroy's (score and wins not relevant directly). "Sagarin" is actually three methods in one--he had a modified margin-of-victory for a long while then a number of years ago he switched to his ELO/Points hybrid. Sagarin ranks everyone by ELO (which is the most logical ranking method that uses just wins and losses--more logically elegant than RPI for example) and his Points/Predictor method (which is based ONLY on the margin of victory). He blends the two methods together for his "ranking".

This is not a pedantic point as SLU has played efficiently this year AND had big MOVs. Pomeroy (13) and Wiz's Efficiency as well as Predictor Sagarin (15) rank SLU highly while Sagarin ELO (53), current RPI (50), and some other win based or subjective rankings (e.g. Rothman has SLU at 65) have SLU lower. If SLU wins games the Sagarin and RPI will move SLU down as well as they are generally going to play some good teams.

Now there is also an issue and argument about which system is "RIGHT". Well, that depends obviously. Because of Wobus ranking the rankings I know each week a different rating system has an edge but there are patterns that emerge over time. I find it a bit comical that MB73 defends RPI as it is NOT a predictive method NOR does it generally work great for prediction (near the bottom of Wobus rankings this year but more importantly generally a little below average and well below consensus). The best rankings come from a variety of approaches but in general the more "eggheaded" the rankings are the better. That is, the more time you put into running numbers, testing, and tweaking your models the better the results (the worst rankings tend to be older methods that do not update their coefficients or approaches). This year nearly all the efficiency based rankings have done very well (Pomeroy is most famous but Adjusted Stats is another) but so have some of the sophisticated non-efficieny ratings because of MOV (like LRMC which use very sophisticated statistical methos--like use information on playing a team more than once and Raymond Cheong). The point is the LRMC and Cheong are loving SLU this year as well.

There are a lot of related issues I could talk about (like tournament selection "profile" / "eye test" methods are EVEN WORSE prediction methods or Coaches polls are terrible predictors or that there is a lot more variance in college basketball than people realize so comments like I "know" one team is better than other are best left to Ohio St. v. Chicago St. type matchups, etc.) but if we are just talking about the ability to predict than maybe the proof should be the ability to predict the NCAA tournament. In that case the LRMC professors claim their method is significantly better than all other methods. Even if you want to ignore potential bias in their own method the rest of the info is quite revealing. Efficiency and some "Egghead Tweaked" MOV Power ratings clearly do better (there are some mediocre andbad MOV methods as well). Seeds/Committee, Polls, RPI do generally worse and Las Vegas Oddsmakers are just OK.

WOBUS: http://sports.vaporia.com/bb-fwin.html

Superb post! +1

[moytoy12]

His program is efficiency based so it is like Pomeroy's (score and wins not relevant directly). "Sagarin" is actually three methods in one--he had a modified margin-of-victory for a long while then a number of years ago he switched to his ELO/Points hybrid. Sagarin ranks everyone by ELO (which is the most logical ranking method that uses just wins and losses--more logically elegant than RPI for example) and his Points/Predictor method (which is based ONLY on the margin of victory). He blends the two methods together for his "ranking".

This is not a pedantic point as SLU has played efficiently this year AND had big MOVs. Pomeroy (13) and Wiz's Efficiency as well as Predictor Sagarin (15) rank SLU highly while Sagarin ELO (53), current RPI (50), and some other win based or subjective rankings (e.g. Rothman has SLU at 65) have SLU lower. If SLU wins games the Sagarin and RPI will move SLU down as well as they are generally going to play some good teams.

Now there is also an issue and argument about which system is "RIGHT". Well, that depends obviously. Because of Wobus ranking the rankings I know each week a different rating system has an edge but there are patterns that emerge over time. I find it a bit comical that MB73 defends RPI as it is NOT a predictive method NOR does it generally work great for prediction (near the bottom of Wobus rankings this year but more importantly generally a little below average and well below consensus). The best rankings come from a variety of approaches but in general the more "eggheaded" the rankings are the better. That is, the more time you put into running numbers, testing, and tweaking your models the better the results (the worst rankings tend to be older methods that do not update their coefficients or approaches). This year nearly all the efficiency based rankings have done very well (Pomeroy is most famous but Adjusted Stats is another) but so have some of the sophisticated non-efficieny ratings because of MOV (like LRMC which use very sophisticated statistical methos--like use information on playing a team more than once and Raymond Cheong). The point is the LRMC and Cheong are loving SLU this year as well.

There are a lot of related issues I could talk about (like tournament selection "profile" / "eye test" methods are EVEN WORSE prediction methods or Coaches polls are terrible predictors or that there is a lot more variance in college basketball than people realize so comments like I "know" one team is better than other are best left to Ohio St. v. Chicago St. type matchups, etc.) but if we are just talking about the ability to predict than maybe the proof should be the ability to predict the NCAA tournament. In that case the LRMC professors claim their method is significantly better than all other methods. Even if you want to ignore potential bias in their own method the rest of the info is quite revealing. Efficiency and some "Egghead Tweaked" MOV Power ratings clearly do better (there are some mediocre andbad MOV methods as well). Seeds/Committee, Polls, RPI do generally worse and Las Vegas Oddsmakers are just OK.

WOBUS: http://sports.vaporia.com/bb-fwin.html

Another MB smackdown.

[moytoy12]

His program is efficiency based so it is like Pomeroy's (score and wins not relevant directly). "Sagarin" is actually three methods in one--he had a modified margin-of-victory for a long while then a number of years ago he switched to his ELO/Points hybrid. Sagarin ranks everyone by ELO (which is the most logical ranking method that uses just wins and losses--more logically elegant than RPI for example) and his Points/Predictor method (which is based ONLY on the margin of victory). He blends the two methods together for his "ranking".

This is not a pedantic point as SLU has played efficiently this year AND had big MOVs. Pomeroy (13) and Wiz's Efficiency as well as Predictor Sagarin (15) rank SLU highly while Sagarin ELO (53), current RPI (50), and some other win based or subjective rankings (e.g. Rothman has SLU at 65) have SLU lower. If SLU wins games the Sagarin and RPI will move SLU down as well as they are generally going to play some good teams.

Now there is also an issue and argument about which system is "RIGHT". Well, that depends obviously. Because of Wobus ranking the rankings I know each week a different rating system has an edge but there are patterns that emerge over time. I find it a bit comical that MB73 defends RPI as it is NOT a predictive method NOR does it generally work great for prediction (near the bottom of Wobus rankings this year but more importantly generally a little below average and well below consensus). The best rankings come from a variety of approaches but in general the more "eggheaded" the rankings are the better. That is, the more time you put into running numbers, testing, and tweaking your models the better the results (the worst rankings tend to be older methods that do not update their coefficients or approaches). This year nearly all the efficiency based rankings have done very well (Pomeroy is most famous but Adjusted Stats is another) but so have some of the sophisticated non-efficieny ratings because of MOV (like LRMC which use very sophisticated statistical methos--like use information on playing a team more than once and Raymond Cheong). The point is the LRMC and Cheong are loving SLU this year as well.

There are a lot of related issues I could talk about (like tournament selection "profile" / "eye test" methods are EVEN WORSE prediction methods or Coaches polls are terrible predictors or that there is a lot more variance in college basketball than people realize so comments like I "know" one team is better than other are best left to Ohio St. v. Chicago St. type matchups, etc.) but if we are just talking about the ability to predict than maybe the proof should be the ability to predict the NCAA tournament. In that case the LRMC professors claim their method is significantly better than all other methods. Even if you want to ignore potential bias in their own method the rest of the info is quite revealing. Efficiency and some "Egghead Tweaked" MOV Power ratings clearly do better (there are some mediocre andbad MOV methods as well). Seeds/Committee, Polls, RPI do generally worse and Las Vegas Oddsmakers are just OK.

WOBUS: http://sports.vaporia.com/bb-fwin.html

MB after reading that:

[Cowboy]

-perfect!!!

[moytoy12]

Some great stats here about SLU:

http://www.bannerson...t-louis-preview

Not that it means too much, but the author forgot our road win at UNCC.

Also, I wouldn't call the X guards "greatly superior" to their SLU counterparts.

[Cowboy]

Some great stats here about SLU:

http://www.bannerson...t-louis-preview

Not that it means too much, but the author forgot our road win at UNCC.

Also, I wouldn't call the X guards "greatly superior" to their SLU counterparts.

-some interesting stuff in there, thanks

-i would have never bet we rank so high in not allowing offensive rebounds

-i will try to look to see what x's team ft% is versus ours as this guy is not impressed with x at the line

-recalling that i looked at our offensive pace ranking earlier this season and, while not sprinting, we were no where close to that low, i wonder if the pace is something that needs adjusting to return to the anaheim team?

[moytoy12]

-some interesting stuff in there, thanks

-i would have never bet we rank so high in not allowing offensive rebounds

-i will try to look to see what x's team ft% is versus ours as this guy is not impressed with x at the line

-recalling that i looked at our offensive pace ranking earlier this season and, while not sprinting, we were no where close to that low, i wonder if the pace is something that needs adjusting to return to the anaheim team?

The rebounding stats definitely surprised me.

[Billiken Rich]

I love the line about "the glacial men of Majerus." I picture Conk, with ice in his beard, ripping the spines out of wolves and sewing the bloody pelts for clothes.......

[mccarthyirish7]

Some great stats here about SLU:

http://www.bannerson...t-louis-preview

Not that it means too much, but the author forgot our road win at UNCC.

Also, I wouldn't call the X guards "greatly superior" to their SLU counterparts.

I wrote the author with the these two gripes. Hopefully, he'll fix the article....he did a nice job with the stats and research.

Brad,

Nice preview article on tonights game! Great job compiling the stats on Saint Louis. I'm a SLU alum, so I appreciate a well writte, fair analysis. I only have two gripes. Both small Many people do the first one, so it's not for a lack of bad research.

1) St. Louis is the city, but the school is Saint Louis (with St. spelled out Saint). I know that seems trivial but we take a lot of pride in it being 'Saint' Louis.

2) In your "homecourt advantage?" section you said: "St. Louis is 1-4 in true road games and only beat the something less than fearsome Salukis of Southern Illinois." Saint Louis actually won on the road at Charlotte and one of our losses was at home against Temple. So we are actually 2-3 on the road this year.

[mccarthyirish7]

I wrote the author with the these two gripes. Hopefully, he'll fix the article....he did a nice job with the stats and research.

Brad,

Nice preview article on tonights game! Great job compiling the stats on Saint Louis. I'm a SLU alum, so I appreciate a well writte, fair analysis. I only have two gripes. Both small Many people do the first one, so it's not for a lack of bad research.

1) St. Louis is the city, but the school is Saint Louis (with St. spelled out Saint). I know that seems trivial but we take a lot of pride in it being 'Saint' Louis.

2) In your "homecourt advantage?" section you said: "St. Louis is 1-4 in true road games and only beat the something less than fearsome Salukis of Southern Illinois." Saint Louis actually won on the road at Charlotte and one of our losses was at home against Temple. So we are actually 2-3 on the road this year.

Sure enough...he wrote me back....

"Mike,

Thanks for the feedback. I honestly did not know that about the different spellings of school and city. As for the 2-3, well, I guess I misread somehow.

Thanks again,

Brad"

[BACKHANDtheRICAN]

Sure enough...he wrote me back....

"Mike,

Thanks for the feedback. I honestly did not know that about the different spellings of school and city. As for the 2-3, well, I guess I misread somehow.

Thanks again,

Brad"

Translation:

"Mike, I could give a sh*t. Get lost."

Brad > Mccarthyirsh7