The Wiz Posted March 5, 2017 Share Posted March 5, 2017 Many have wondered if the turnaround is a fluke...Are we playing over our heads? What's going on with this team? We are a D team.... one of the worst offensive Bills teams ever. Yet we have been trending up. My numbers show the turn around started on Jan 25...the game against UMass. . That is when the Bills started to gel. That is when the new Bills team started to emerge. Since that date we have been playing at a B- level ...or about the same as a Geo Mason. So what does this mean ? Are we a D team or a B- team? If we have been playing at a B- level why haven't we been favored in any games since then?....not to mention we won't be favored going forward either.. In other words, what is the difference between a real B- team and a trending B- team. The difference is the sample size. In the case of GM, we are looking at 30+ games ...in the Bills case 12 games. Theoretically, if you trend long enough the 2 grades come together. And in fact that is starting to happen as the Bills have moved from F+ to D. Again though , what does this mean as far as spreads go? A real B- team should be able to beat all teams below B- . A trending B- team may be able to beat all the teams below but also are still likely to lose all the games down to D+. Another difference is a true B- team can have an off day and still win ....a trending team has an off game and they will lose. B- for the trending team is generally the ceiling. A true B- team can exceed that ceiling occasionally.. Bottomline...If GM played the Bills now ..GM would be favored ...If the Bills had a good game they would have a 50-50 chance of winning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soderball Posted March 5, 2017 Share Posted March 5, 2017 i think the a10 is overrated in your model. there are some dumpy teams in this conference. SLU has been winning at home vs teams that dont defend. its fun. reality should be checked. What is true is that these guys play HARD for Ford. The effort is enormous. Roby has become a deadly 3pt shooter.. an aspect of his game that used to be shaky at best. Ford started having them play a solid zone. Ford deserves coach of the year in the a10 for what he got out of these guys. Archie should and will get it due to the miserable things that happened in this offseason, then winning the conference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorydays2013 Posted March 5, 2017 Share Posted March 5, 2017 2 hours ago, Soderball said: What is true is that these guys play HARD for Ford. Competing to be here next year? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soderball Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 12 hours ago, Glorydays2013 said: Competing to be here next year? No, just happy to not be playing under Crews and Platt. Bottom line is that Gillman and Neufeld have to GO. Everyone else? I could take them or leave them. I see potential in them, I don't see indispensable all-conference talent. Zeke has shown a little the past couple games. Roby has looked good(deadly spot-up shooter.. best returning player we have by far and away). Welmer has shown flashes of what could be(but goodness that kid cannot finish around the basket) Jalen looks great for an April recruit. Ford pulled the rabbit out of the hat landing someone that could play 6 months before the season started. Hines doesn't take a scholarship and his ball handling may be needed before Graves is eligible. Hopefully Hines can push himself further into that ball handling niche and avoid the ill-advised drives and shots. We aren't going to miss Crawford or Agbeko. The guy who compared Crawford to Kyle Cassity hit the nail on the head, decent player, asked to do too much, overhyped on a roster that has been devoid of anything good. Reggie plays hard and is strong but has "hands of stone" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old guy Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 15 hours ago, The Wiz said: Many have wondered if the turnaround is a fluke...Are we playing over our heads? What's going on with this team? We are a D team.... one of the worst offensive Bills teams ever. Yet we have been trending up. My numbers show the turn around started on Jan 25...the game against UMass. . That is when the Bills started to gel. That is when the new Bills team started to emerge. Since that date we have been playing at a B- level ...or about the same as a Geo Mason. So what does this mean ? Are we a D team or a B- team? If we have been playing at a B- level why haven't we been favored in any games since then?....not to mention we won't be favored going forward either.. In other words, what is the difference between a real B- team and a trending B- team. The difference is the sample size. In the case of GM, we are looking at 30+ games ...in the Bills case 12 games. Theoretically, if you trend long enough the 2 grades come together. And in fact that is starting to happen as the Bills have moved from F+ to D. Again though , what does this mean as far as spreads go? A real B- team should be able to beat all teams below B- . A trending B- team may be able to beat all the teams below but also are still likely to lose all the games down to D+. Another difference is a true B- team can have an off day and still win ....a trending team has an off game and they will lose. B- for the trending team is generally the ceiling. A true B- team can exceed that ceiling occasionally.. Bottomline...If GM played the Bills now ..GM would be favored ...If the Bills had a good game they would have a 50-50 chance of winning. Wiz, it is nice to see that you are scratching your head and trying to figure out why statistical analysis is not showing the level of play SLU has been showing as of late. Sample size, etc... Let me start by saying that from a statistical and probability point of view you are absolutely correct in what you say about sample size although it is not really true that a sample size of 30 games constitutes a large enough amount of samples to make the results totally valid, but neither is a sample size of 12. It is a well known fact that teams playing peak at some time in the season, we seem to be peaking late in this season, other teams may be well over their peak. So, what gives? I think your bottom line says it all (highlighted in the quote), we are not going to be favored by any of the big statistical shops (nor by your numbers), unless it is realized that we are currently playing at a level much higher than what the statistics for the full season show us to be at. As such I think we probably are over 50-50 in our chances of beating Duquesne when the tournament starts (the spread of 3 in favor of Duquesne is not likely to happen). We will, of course, see in due time. One thought is that if we do indeed beat Duquesne, our chances of getting another win in the tournament will go up, that is if we consider the trend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Wiz Posted March 6, 2017 Author Share Posted March 6, 2017 3 hours ago, Old guy said: Wiz, it is nice to see that you are scratching your head and trying to figure out why statistical analysis is not showing the level of play SLU has been showing as of late. Sample size, etc... Let me start by saying that from a statistical and probability point of view you are absolutely correct in what you say about sample size although it is not really true that a sample size of 30 games constitutes a large enough amount of samples to make the results totally valid, but neither is a sample size of 12. It is a well known fact that teams playing peak at some time in the season, we seem to be peaking late in this season, other teams may be well over their peak. So, what gives? I think your bottom line says it all (highlighted in the quote), we are not going to be favored by any of the big statistical shops (nor by your numbers), unless it is realized that we are currently playing at a level much higher than what the statistics for the full season show us to be at. As such I think we probably are over 50-50 in our chances of beating Duquesne when the tournament starts (the spread of 3 in favor of Duquesne is not likely to happen). We will, of course, see in due time. One thought is that if we do indeed beat Duquesne, our chances of getting another win in the tournament will go up, that is if we consider the trend. One of he reasons we won't be favored in any future games this year is that while we are trending up, the competition line is moving up faster than the trend line. For each game we win the spread will widen. On the miracle chance we would win the A-10 tourney ( a 20pt + spread ...which would also knockout VCU and RI from the Dance) ....we would then be a 16th round seed in the Dance against Nova or the Zags with a 30 pt spread. ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old guy Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 Oh, I am not going as far as all that, I think the chance for us to win the A10 tournament is very small. However, every game we win will increase, even fractionally, our chance of winning the next one and so on and so forth. In all likelihood we will be bounced out somewhere along the line, but our tournament appearance does not have to end with the game against Duquesne or the next game in line. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zink Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 On this note, when looking forward to next year does it make sense to use our trending grade (B-) as the baseline for improvement? Many times you have mentioned that two grade levels is about the extent to which teams can improve from year to year, but perhaps in situations with young teams and new coaches it makes more sense to look at the end of the season when looking ahead. A small sample can be better than a large sample if the extra data is mere noise... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cowboy Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 2 hours ago, Zink said: On this note, when looking forward to next year does it make sense to use our trending grade (B-) as the baseline for improvement? Many times you have mentioned that two grade levels is about the extent to which teams can improve from year to year, but perhaps in situations with young teams and new coaches it makes more sense to look at the end of the season when looking ahead. A small sample can be better than a large sample if the extra data is mere noise... -for me, I would be okay with not seeing a ranking until all teams had played 8 games (I think that is the 'magic' number), especially with us next season with the potential or probability or likelihood of 5 new starters Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillsBeliever!!! Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 Could you imagine playing Kansas or Nova? That would be amazing even if we got killed by 50. It would give everyone a big heads up for next year Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorydays2013 Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 36 minutes ago, BillsBeliever!!! said: Could you imagine playing Kansas or Nova? That would be amazing even if we got killed by 50. It would give everyone a big heads up for next year ? No that wouldn't be good at all. How would that give anyone a heads up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old guy Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 3 hours ago, Zink said: On this note, when looking forward to next year does it make sense to use our trending grade (B-) as the baseline for improvement? Many times you have mentioned that two grade levels is about the extent to which teams can improve from year to year, but perhaps in situations with young teams and new coaches it makes more sense to look at the end of the season when looking ahead. A small sample can be better than a large sample if the extra data is mere noise... From my point of view, every year you start with a blank slate. Oh, you can make guesses as to where we are or we will be based upon the prior year's performance and the performance expected from the new recruits. However you must take into account that next year we will have, for all extents and purposes, a brand new team with brand new talent and brand new possibilities. I think it will be better to wait for Wiz's 8 games to collect actual performance data before decide where we appear to be headed for the year. If you have been following my posts you will understand that I write "appear" because statistics are not written in stone, the team can trend and improve (or get worse) with the passage of time. And besides we have Ty Graves that cannot play for the first part of the season but will be coming in the second half. If he is as good a PG as I think he may well be, our level of play may trend up rapidly in the second half of the year when compared to the first half. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorydays2013 Posted March 6, 2017 Share Posted March 6, 2017 Also note that when we are saying our current team has been improving under Ford, that should also include the transfers at practice correct? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old guy Posted March 7, 2017 Share Posted March 7, 2017 I would think that having the transfers present during practice has helped improve our team, yes. How much I have no idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old guy Posted March 7, 2017 Share Posted March 7, 2017 I am happy to report that Team Rankings has SLU as favorite to win against Duquesne, they only gave us 1 star out of 5 but that is better than Wiz's estimate of a loss by 3 pts. When I get a spread I will report it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Wiz Posted March 7, 2017 Author Share Posted March 7, 2017 6 hours ago, Zink said: On this note, when looking forward to next year does it make sense to use our trending grade (B-) as the baseline for improvement? Many times you have mentioned that two grade levels is about the extent to which teams can improve from year to year, but perhaps in situations with young teams and new coaches it makes more sense to look at the end of the season when looking ahead. A small sample can be better than a large sample if the extra data is mere noise... No it doesn't make sense to use the trending line as a base line for next year. Unless all the new people are going to be the same or worse than the existing players, it is better to use the actual 2016-17 finish as the base + 2 full letter grades as a max. So right now we are at D. If we finish at D then upside next year will be B ...or about the same as Dav, St, B or Rich. That would be a move of about 160 places on the D-1 scale. History has shown that when you have a turnover of 5+ players max improvement is 2 letter grades. That doesn't mean you get 2 letter grades...that is the max. It could also be anywhere between D & B too. There are many reasons that upside can be limited....Here are some of them New players adjusting to college life New players adjusting to a bigger, stronger and faster game Players learning the Ford system (remember the transfer are playing the opposition team not the Ford's system) The team needs to gel...sometimes takes a little time ...sometimes a lot... sometimes not at all (see Crews) Finding the right combo of players to put on the floor at the same time. Learning how to play under pressure...big crowds ...time running out in a close game etc Injuries & .dropouts Additions (Graves)...more adjustments. Basketball IQ....who has it ..who doesn't And finally....luck...over time this averages out ...but in the that one game ...tied near the end and the ball bounces 3 times on the rim...does it go in? One point I think is important as far as this year's trending up vs next year's team. With the team trending up that bodes well for next year. Even if no one on this team starts next year...trending high now means a better bench...more depth. Could we do better than B? Possible but not probable. To do better than B all those above items would have to fall into place. It is possible but not probable. Sorry, just trying to be real. Personally, if we could finish where Richmond is this year ( B ) I would be OK with that. That should be good for an NIT. Want something more definite....see me Thanksgiving (Game 8) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorydays2013 Posted March 7, 2017 Share Posted March 7, 2017 Wow you guy s really aren't used to having too 100 guys. This team next year will be no worse than a B+ whatever that means Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3star_recruit Posted March 7, 2017 Share Posted March 7, 2017 I don't think this team can be better than a B because we don't have a A-10 first teamer to lead this squad. I think Goodwin will eventually grow into that role but I don't foresee it happening as a freshman and learning a new position. Henriquez may be a great outside shooter but disappeared at times at UCF and hasn't shown an ability to get to the line. And we're going to drop a couple of games we shouldn't due to our poor free throw shooting. But man, are we going to be a good rebounding team next year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zink Posted March 7, 2017 Share Posted March 7, 2017 3 hours ago, The Wiz said: No it doesn't make sense to use the trending line as a base line for next year. Unless all the new people are going to be the same or worse than the existing players, it is better to use the actual 2016-17 finish as the base + 2 full letter grades as a max. So right now we are at D. If we finish at D then upside next year will be B ...or about the same as Dav, St, B or Rich. That would be a move of about 160 places on the D-1 scale. History has shown that when you have a turnover of 5+ players max improvement is 2 letter grades. That doesn't mean you get 2 letter grades...that is the max. It could also be anywhere between D & B too. There are many reasons that upside can be limited....Here are some of them New players adjusting to college life New players adjusting to a bigger, stronger and faster game Players learning the Ford system (remember the transfer are playing the opposition team not the Ford's system) The team needs to gel...sometimes takes a little time ...sometimes a lot... sometimes not at all (see Crews) Finding the right combo of players to put on the floor at the same time. Learning how to play under pressure...big crowds ...time running out in a close game etc Injuries & .dropouts Additions (Graves)...more adjustments. Basketball IQ....who has it ..who doesn't And finally....luck...over time this averages out ...but in the that one game ...tied near the end and the ball bounces 3 times on the rim...does it go in? One point I think is important as far as this year's trending up vs next year's team. With the team trending up that bodes well for next year. Even if no one on this team starts next year...trending high now means a better bench...more depth. Could we do better than B? Possible but not probable. To do better than B all those above items would have to fall into place. It is possible but not probable. Sorry, just trying to be real. Personally, if we could finish where Richmond is this year ( B ) I would be OK with that. That should be good for an NIT. Want something more definite....see me Thanksgiving (Game 8) I appreciate the reality check. The optimist in me hopes we are an exception to the rule. But that is hope, not reason, talking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorydays2013 Posted March 7, 2017 Share Posted March 7, 2017 2 hours ago, 3star_recruit said: I don't think this team can be better than a B because we don't have a A-10 first teamer to lead this squad. I think Goodwin will eventually grow into that role but I don't foresee it happening as a freshman and learning a new position. Henriquez may be a great outside shooter but disappeared at times at UCF and hasn't shown an ability to get to the line. And we're going to drop a couple of games we shouldn't due to our poor free throw shooting. But man, are we going to be a good rebounding team next year. I would put money down that French and Goodwin get A10 freshmen team and 1st 2nd or 3rd team Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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