The Bills over Rich by 5

[The Wiz]

Yes ...you read it right...the Bills are favored. 

Rich is a C- team...The Bills remain at C

The Spiders are as bad as we are on offense. Rich can't shoot either.  The difference is our Def is better and that should be the difference in this game.

Let's look at the report card.....

..............SLU.....Off.......Rich...................................SLU........Def.........Rich

PPG.........F- ...................F........................................A- ..........................D

FG%.........F.....................D.........................................C+........................F- 

3P%........F.....................F...........................................D+.........................F+

FT%........F+ ..................D- ........................................................................

Reb........D.....................F- ..........................................B...........................D

Top performers in the nation

Blks......French....59th

Stls......Goodwin...26th

............Gilyard........22nd

So they have a Goodwin type player.....we need to protect the ball.

Bottomline......We are favored ...Is this game a gimme?  Heck no...but if we play a decent game we win....In other words, play like we did against Dav in the 1st half and we win easy...Play like we did against Dav in the 2nd half and we lose. A positive trend is we have shot 36.4% or better  (at least a B ) from 3 pt range  in the last 4 games.... and our defense at the arc has been improving too.   We need to start making 2 pt and FTs....for a whole game. We need to dominate on the boards...+7 on reb.....Who ever is bringing the ball up against Gilyard needs to protect it....No TOs...No mistakes....We need to have less TOs than Rich.  We are favored by 5 which means if it is close we need to shoot some FTs ..we need to match them in FT%..............Remember my target  slash....44/35 / 71...we need to make at least 2 of 3....Finally make the layups and short shots. 

Rich won't have much to say  concerning the outcome of this game ....It is ours to win........or to lose.

[Cowboy]

-I thought for a moment "why does this game scare me?" and then realized the obvious......It is very hard work being a Billiken Fan

[dlarry]

After reading that report all I see is....TAKE THE UNDER!!

[MattyMo213]

Free the 3 chant during free throws tonight?

[BillsBeliever!!!]

How much is Rhody gonna be favored by? 16?

[The Wiz]

11 minutes ago, BillsBeliever!!! said:

How much is Rhody gonna be favored by? 16?

I will work on that tomorrow ...but no it will be closer than that......For now I want to savor the win.

And what a win it was ...Goodwin goes out ...we are down 10 and the game slipping away...it looked bleak....AND THEN

JJ hit a 3 and was fouled ...the 4 pt play turned the game around...from that point we came storming back and eventually won.  In the final minutes we had a chance to fold as Richmond matched us  point for point.  Yet we held them off with good shooting and some clutch FTs.

I am cautiously optimistic going forward. We now have something we are in desperate need of.....an extra player...A tip of the cap to Foreman who had a great game ...team leading 16pt plus 5 reb....While those were important stats (we don't win the game without him) the encouraging factor going forward is,  he played 26 min...a productive 26 min.  This is significant for a team with no depth and will be a huge factor  whenever Goodwin comes back (the reason for the caution)

Lets see what happened tonight......let's look at the bottom line from my original post.

" Bottom line......We are favored ...Is this game a gimme?  Heck no...but if we play a decent game we win....In other words, play like we did against Dav in the 1st half and we win easy...Play like we did against Dav in the 2nd half and we lose. A positive trend is we have shot 36.4% or better  (at least a B ) from 3 pt range  in the last 4 games.... and our defense at the arc has been improving too.   We need to start making 2 pt and FTs....for a whole game. We need to dominate on the boards...+7 on reb.....Who ever is bringing the ball up against Gilyard needs to protect it....No TOs...No mistakes....We need to have less TOs than Rich.  We are favored by 5 which means if it is close we need to shoot some FTs ..we need to match them in FT%..............Remember my target  slash....44/35 / 71...we need to make at least 2 of 3....Finally make the layups and short shots. 

Rich won't have much to say  concerning the outcome of this game ....It is ours to win........or to lose "

First who thought my spread would be foiled by FTs...lol...I will take it every time though.  Of the above factors mentioned in the bottom line,  I said the most important thing  we need to do is make 2 of 3 on the slash line....we did...40/  36.4 / 73 ... 2 of 3... and the reason I listed 36.4% instead of 36 is this is the 5th game in a row we have shot 36.4% or better from the arc...very nice trend after a horrific start.  While we are still struggling with 2's especially layups and very close shots FTs improved this game...very important in a close game. I said we need to dominate the boards ...7 or better ...check ...9 extra boards by the Bills...we need to have  less TOs than Rich...check again...10 vs 15...not only 5 less but an outstanding number with 10...and we generated the 5 TO spread missing our best TO creator ...Goodwin. ....While we struggled on the layups and short shots in the beginning...they started to fall in the 2nd half especially down the stretch when it really mattered. These 2 teams were both very weak on offense coming into this game. I said the defense would be the difference and it was. This was a game we needed to win and we did....we had many chances to lose this one but we won it on grit...we wanted this win....That's what it takes.