The Bills over Troy by 12

[almaman]

Thnx

[White Pelican]

1 hour ago, wgstl said:

 11/26/95 Away L 66-72

 12/29/00 Away L 67-75

12/4/04 Home L 52-53

11/26/05 Away L 64-82

Hey thanks! The only one I remember was the home game I guess cuz I was there. I remember being surprised and disappointed that we lost. Didn't remember it being a one point loss though. Low scoring game too.

[Cowboy]

-the Hawaii coach at that time was from Alton, Riley Wallace

[Glorydays2013]

I just hope Ford is taking our feedback and implementing it in practice for the upcoming game. (Blue)

[Compton]

13 hours ago, Taj79 said:

This will be Troy's opening night.  On Tuesday, they beat DII Fort Valley State 95 to 60 in an exhibition.

That wasn't an exhibition game. Fort Valley State was the first game of Troy's actual season. They're 1-0. 

[Old guy]

I was looking over the stats for the game against SEMO. One thing that is very evident is that neither Isabell nor Goodwin have a significant number of assists and they both have a significant number of TOs. Talking about stats that should be improved more assists and less TOs from these two would be nice.

[philliken]

15 hours ago, White Pelican said:

Hey thanks! The only one I remember was the home game I guess cuz I was there. I remember being surprised and disappointed that we lost. Didn't remember it being a one point loss though. Low scoring game too.

Back in those days 53-52 could be considered a high scoring game.
IIRC, we only scored in the 40s and 50s majority of that season.

Just checked.  We didn't hit 60 in 19 of our first 23 games in the '04-'05 season. 

[slu72]

Copied from Sun Belt preview. They are picked 5th in conference.

The Trojans fell short of expectations in 2017-18, a year after reaching the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2003. Troy’s inconsistent play last year led to a middle of the pack finish in the conference despite being the only team to defeat Georgia State twice in the regular season.

Now the Trojans must replace their all-time leading scorer in Wesley Person, as well as his backcourt mate Kevin Baker. Troy’s strength will be in the frontcourt, where Jordan Varnado returns after earning second-team all-conference recognition a year ago. Varnado, along with Alex Hicks and junior college transfer Devante Foster, will form one of the more formidable frontcourts in the league this season.

The name of the game will be finding consistency and production in the backcourt. If the Trojans can do that, then they could crack into the top four and possibly even challenge for a conference championship.

 

This is their pre season write up in the Sun Belt preview. Now everyone seems to agree that the college game is a guards game and it appears Troy has a brand new backcourt. One would hope that Jordan, Bess, Isabell, Thatch, and Wiley would feast on these guys and create lot's of TO's. Their strength appears to be a front line that matches us in height but not big bodies like our guys. Varnado (makes me think of sharknado) is a returning all conference guy. Seems similar to French. As Taj Mahal 79 pointed out they handled Ft Valley St with ease. After the way we played SEMO, I wished we'd scheduled FVS rather than Troy. But that's just my hard to be a Billiken fan DNA kicking in. We should win this, but I fear it ain't going to be a cakewalk. C'mon, Bills/Team Blue, prove me wrong and puncture the Trojans.

[The Wiz]

11 hours ago, Compton said:

That wasn't an exhibition game. Fort Valley State was the first game of Troy's actual season. They're 1-0. 

Actually,  both you and Taj are correct...It was an exhibition and regular game. It was a regular game for Troy  and an exhibition for Fort Valley St.

As a point of information ,  I only use stats from games where both teams are D-1 and it is not an an exhibition or secret scrimmage.  So for me this game will be the season opener for Troy and the Bills 2nd game. 

[The Wiz]

17 minutes ago, slu72 said:

Copied from Sun Belt preview. They are picked 5th in conference.

The Trojans fell short of expectations in 2017-18, a year after reaching the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2003. Troy’s inconsistent play last year led to a middle of the pack finish in the conference despite being the only team to defeat Georgia State twice in the regular season.

Now the Trojans must replace their all-time leading scorer in Wesley Person, as well as his backcourt mate Kevin Baker. Troy’s strength will be in the frontcourt, where Jordan Varnado returns after earning second-team all-conference recognition a year ago. Varnado, along with Alex Hicks and junior college transfer Devante Foster, will form one of the more formidable frontcourts in the league this season.

The name of the game will be finding consistency and production in the backcourt. If the Trojans can do that, then they could crack into the top four and possibly even challenge for a conference championship.

 

This is their pre season write up in the Sun Belt preview. Now everyone seems to agree that the college game is a guards game and it appears Troy has a brand new backcourt. One would hope that Jordan, Bess, Isabell, Thatch, and Wiley would feast on these guys and create lot's of TO's. Their strength appears to be a front line that matches us in height but not big bodies like our guys. Varnado (makes me think of sharknado) is a returning all conference guy. Seems similar to French. As Taj Mahal 79 pointed out they handled Ft Valley St with ease. After the way we played SEMO, I wished we'd scheduled FVS rather than Troy. But that's just my hard to be a Billiken fan DNA kicking in. We should win this, but I fear it ain't going to be a cakewalk. C'mon, Bills/Team Blue, prove me wrong and puncture the Trojans.

Remember, Troy is a C- team....they are not a Dancing team. You don't want to be playing D2 teams...it doesn't prepare you for the season and hurts your strength of schedule ranking..  If we stay close to the projected slash line....47/33 / 70 (not a high bar) and within range of a dozen TOs we will win.

[slu72]

30 minutes ago, The Wiz said:

Remember, Troy is a C- team....they are not a Dancing team. You don't want to be playing D2 teams...it doesn't prepare you for the season and hurts your strength of schedule ranking..  If we stay close to the projected slash line....47/33 / 70 (not a high bar) and within range of a dozen TOs we will win.

Every season, even the good years, there always seems to be that one game that somehow ends up in the L column; Loyola Marymount, Santa Clara, Detroit Mercy as examples. Here's hoping/praying Troy isn't one of them. It would be a buzz kill at this point. 

[slu72]

Not to serve as consolation or misery loves company, but a lot of supposed good teams seem to be struggling in the early going. See UK and St Johns last night. Trying to find their chemistry I would guess is the reason.  We're all wringing our hands over the SEMO game. In truth we would have beat the spread if we'd managed to hit 25% of our 3s and gone 65% from the line. Granted we had too many TOs and had two key players run into foul trouble, but the real problem was missing open 3's and FTs. Yeah, we may not have looked like a well oiled machine, but not many teams in the process of developing chemistry have either. 

[gobillsgo]

Anyone know KCH’s status for tonight?  Tweeted at Stu but no response so far. 

[Glorydays2013]

https://www.a10talk.com/saint-louis-has-a-secret-weapon-in-d-j-foreman/

I predict Dj might get the start tonight

[gobillsgo]

20 minutes ago, Glorydays2013 said:

https://www.a10talk.com/saint-louis-has-a-secret-weapon-in-d-j-foreman/

I predict Dj might get the start tonight

Yeah that's exactly what we should do for Carte'are's confidence.

[slu72]

46 minutes ago, Glorydays2013 said:

https://www.a10talk.com/saint-louis-has-a-secret-weapon-in-d-j-foreman/

I predict Dj might get the start tonight

Foreman is more valuable to the team off the bench. Let Gordon learn while at the same time build his confidence. More likely than not he's going to experience foul trouble until he learns the D1 game. Foreman will get plenty of minutes. He could end up as A10 sixth man of the year.?

[slufan13]

It's gonna be a blowout win for SLU

[dlarry]

3 hours ago, Glorydays2013 said:

https://www.a10talk.com/saint-louis-has-a-secret-weapon-in-d-j-foreman/

I predict Dj might get the start tonight

You said repeatedly that Gordon has to start because he is a 4*. You said this over and over and over again. If people would say Foreman might begin the year starting your response was “Gordon is a 4* recruit he has to start.” 

So now, after 1 game, you change your opinion because someone wrote a blog piece about Foreman?

 

[dlarry]

1 hour ago, slufan13 said:

It's gonna be a blowout win for SLU

I like your enthusiasm.

Here’s hoping you are right!!

[Old guy]

It was not a blowout win for SLU tonight but a win is a win anyway it happens. 62 to 58 in favor of SLU is still a win for us.

[The Wiz]

 

The Bills again bent but did not break. Another weak shooting line....38 /31/48...which translates to F- across the board.

So how did we win....Troy shot worse.....39/ 24 / 73...How is that worse?....let's forget about the percentages for a moment and look at the baskets made....

Bills....21/ 8 /12

Troy.....21/5/  11

Even though we had bad percentages....we made 3 extra 3s and 1 extra FT and that was the difference in the game....we won on 3s  and FTs even though it was still bad shooting

Now let's see what happened to the spread.....Based on the projected spread.....we were missing 6 FTs ....one  3pt  and four  2pts shots....6 +3+8=15pts...Had we shot the projected slash line we should have made the projected 12 pt spread but we didn't ......so 12-15 = -3.....which brings us to the other part of the equation....from the original post above....The weaker the shooting the more important the TO number becomes.....I was looking for 12 TOs ...instead we had only 11....Troy had 15....the difference of 4 TOs was worth 8 pts to the Bills..... so-3 +8 = +5...so based on real numbers we should have won by 5....allowing for rounding the spread checks out.

Bottom line takeaways....#1...We still need to shoot better....these stat variations will not work when we play better teams....#2 The team is showing backbone....It is different than the last few years...past teams that had a lead and faded would wind up losing. ....Teams that fell behind would either fall short  or fall behind further....either way losing the game. So these strong finishes are good....But again when we are playing good teams we will need more than a strong finish.....we will need to play basketball for a full 40 mins. #3....The TO problem seems to be under control...if we can keep it under control...that bodes well for the remainder of the season...particularly against the better teams.

We have 1 more game to try and put the shooting together and then things will ramp up quickly. This team has the potential,  we just need to realize it.

[Old guy]

At the very least, as it has been discussed in other threads, there are some signs of improvement to be found in the game against Troy. Less TOs, more Assists, ability to not crumble once we lose the lead, a good second string backup. These are all things we need to build upon. At this time I would like to see better FT scoring as a primary goal.