2018-2019 Season Prediction Contest

[TheA_Bomb]

25-6 regular season 

3-0 conference tournament

2-1 NCAA

[Iggy]

We have 4 losses heading into the NCAA tournament. 

[BillsBeliever!!!]

On ‎11‎/‎2‎/‎2018 at 2:17 PM, slufan13 said:

Start the season with a comfortable win over SEMO after a tight first half, but the board panics about French's free throw shooting. After two blowout wins over Troy and North Alabama, we have a 200 post thread on whether a win over Seton Hall will get us into the top 25. SLU beats Seton Hall and then tops Pitt but we spend our Thanksgiving weekend wondering if any of the freshmen will transfer after not getting a lot of early playing time. The board starts arguing and SLU sneaks out a 1 point win over Central Arkansas. The board is hyped for the big game against Butler and SLU has a performance like they did against Washington and they win big. The athletic dept organizes a bus trip to SIUC and skip gets ejected for telling the ref to blow the whistle. SLU loses a sloppy game and 05 misses the bus home because he wanted another beer. He is stuck in Carbondale. SLU bounces back with a win over Oregon St and then gets a huge road win in Houston to stop the newly created thread titled "Will our tournament resume be good enough?". We get an easy win over NC Central and everyone skips their family Christmas party to watch SLU lose to Florida St. The board panics a bit until Steve puts up the Christmas wreath on the homepage of the site and everyone calms down by predicting an 18-0 conference season. SLU crushes App St to head into A10 play on a solid note.

We get a mid-season transfer over Christmas break and we wonder which player will transfer again. A few board members start tracking all flights out of St Louis and into Iceland as they are worried about Thor. A heartbreaking buzzer-beater loss to Rhode Island brings out the true anger in Billiken fans, but they all turn their anger on brownindians annual appearance to remind us when we are going to Olean. Wins over UMass, La Salle, and Fordham cheer us all up and the team blows out St Joes on a Friday night on ESPN. Somebody then creates a thread pointing out that we haven't seen 05 since he got left in Carbondale. Everyone is too happy about the big win over St Joes to create a search party. After beating Duquesne and Davidson, glorydays asks if anyone still believes Grady is better than Isabell or Goodwin. We all say yes. SLU beats Richmond and gets a big road win before beating Dayton at home. The old fans ask why the game is at 8 pm on a school night. SLU loses to St Joes and then beats GW by 1 and we all wonder again if we can make the tournament. SLU beats La Salle but loses to Dayton sending the board into chaos before the VCU game. SLU wins that game and beats an overrated, underachieving George Mason. SLU tops Duquesne and beats Bona to finish the regular season.

SLU heads to the A10 tourney as the top seed but all the experts say we're overrated. SLU loses in the A10 championship to Davidson after giving up 22 3's in a blowout loss. We all discuss how to fix out 3 point defense but HoosierPal reminds us that Welmer's presence and French's free throw shooting are more important. 

SLU gets a 6 seed in the tournament against a sleeper, mid-major 11 seed. We all book our flights and hotels and half the people in the billikens.com bracket contest pick SLU to win it all. After a comfortable win that shuts up the doubters, we face a 3 seed from a power conference. Those fans try to overrun our board but oldguy sends them into mass confusion when he explains how the board is comparable to a chimpanzee's ligaments. SLU is down 13 with 3 minutes to play but a wild comeback forces overtime where a grizzled, bearded, billikenfan05 emerges from the concourse and explains to all of us how he fell asleep on a bench in Carbondale and woke up in Bentonville, Arkansas 8 days later. After migrating further south with the birds for the winter, he hits the jackpot with his last $5 at a Florida casino and makes enough money to catch a last second flight to the SLU 2nd round tournament game. While listening to this story, we all miss SLU falling just short in overtime and the season ends.

So far this is pretty dang accurate except the Pitt game. slufan13 called beating Seton Hall and Butler but losing a sloppy game to SIUC

[RUBillsFan]

On 11/2/2018 at 10:12 AM, RUBillsFan said:

Regular Season: 20-11

Non-conference: 8-5 - There are basically 5 games that I think we'll be projected to lose or toss up (@Seton Hall, Butler, @SUIC, @Houston, FSU).  I think we'll win one or two, but I'm also banking on us dropping a game we shouldn't from the group of (Troy, Pitt, Oregon State).  I'd rather set low expectations and be excited than be disappointed.  I also think this team takes some time to really hit it's stride.

Conference: 12-6 - I think we're the best team in the league, but there is a ton or parity in the top 8/9, so we'll drop some games, but will hopefully finish with the best record (or at least get a favorable draw in the A-10 tournament)

A10 Tourney: 3-0 - No idea how to predict this because it will be all about who we draw and how we match up.  At this point, I think we're the best in the league.  If we stay healthy (excluding current injuries - RIP Welmer), then we should be gelling more some tournament time.  Also might be motivated after dropping a tough road game in Olean to end the regular season on a sour note.

NCAA Tournament: 0-1 - We get stuck in a real sh*t draw by the selection committee and are like a 12 seed matched up against an underrated mid-major powerhouse like Nevada or a dominant power conference team with less name recognition  like K-State.  Close low-scoring game, but our lack of outside shooting / FT shooting bites us in the ass down the stretch.

Overall: 23-12

Bumping this for analysis post-season. 

My overall prediction above was pretty accurate (off by 1 loss).  We ended up a little better OOC then I thought and a little worse in conference.  I expected out OOC schedule be end up being stronger than it actually was.  Among my expected losses Seton Hall, Butler, and SIUC all finished worse than I would've guessed.  I probably overestimated A10 strength as well.  I was thinking that record going into the A-10 tournament would put us just on the wrong side of the bubble, but we weren't that close.  My A-10 tournament tourney prediction is pretty much spot on with the exception of us having to win 4 games instead of 3.

I'm too lazy to go back and look at everyone else's to see if anyone else was more accurate than I was.  Kudos if anyone was!

[ACE]

29 minutes ago, RUBillsFan said:

Bumping this for analysis post-season. 

My overall prediction above was pretty accurate (off by 1 loss).  We ended up a little better OOC then I thought and a little worse in conference.  I expected out OOC schedule be end up being stronger than it actually was.  Among my expected losses Seton Hall, Butler, and SIUC all finished worse than I would've guessed.  I probably overestimated A10 strength as well.  I was thinking that record going into the A-10 tournament would put us just on the wrong side of the bubble, but we weren't that close.  My A-10 tournament tourney prediction is pretty much spot on with the exception of us having to win 4 games instead of 3.

I'm too lazy to go back and look at everyone else's to see if anyone else was more accurate than I was.  Kudos if anyone was!

Nicely done. As it turned out, we could have very easily been paired against K-State another #4 seed, In fact, I wish we had been matched up with them instead of VaTech - the had a little revenge factor on their side and certainly didn't take us lightly.

[wgstl]

40 minutes ago, RUBillsFan said:

 

  I expected out OOC schedule be end up being stronger than it actually was.  Among my expected losses Seton Hall, Butler, and SIUC all finished worse than I would've guessed. 

Agreed.  I still respect it thought, Seton Hall and butler are stronger most times. 

[RiseOfTheBillikens]

1 hour ago, ACE said:

Nicely done. As it turned out, we could have very easily been paired against K-State another #4 seed, In fact, I wish we had been matched up with them instead of VaTech - the had a little revenge factor on their side and certainly didn't take us lightly.

Yep I think having beat them last year really hurt us. We weren't going to sneak up on them and I'm sure they had it out for us. 

[RUBillsFan]

1 hour ago, RiseOfTheBillikens said:

Yep I think having beat them last year really hurt us. We weren't going to sneak up on them and I'm sure they had it out for us. 

Yeah.  VA Tech came out with a chip on their shoulder and a great game plan.  They negated our strengths (offensive rebounding & defense) by forcing all of those 1st half turnovers.  Can't grab offensive rebounds if you don't have shots to rebound and our half court D isn't any good against breakaways off turnovers.