The Bills over NCC by 20

[The Wiz]

We got this one....unless something terrible happens...if the usual bad happens we should still win. It should not come as a surprise to anyone after viewing the spread that NCC is an F team. This team is on par with N Alabama.  Since we pretty much did what we were supposed to do with Hou (within 3 pts of the spread.... margin of error) we stay at grade level B.

While this game will not generate the excitement of a Hou or Fl St. game, there will be some important trends  that will give us a clue as to what will be happening in the coming weeks.

First, is the trend of playing to the competition...ie playing only as good as our competition.  Besides hurting our numbers, it is a dangerous way to play against weak teams....By letting them stay close , you energize them by letting them think  they have a chance to win...if something goes wrong , you lose. In addition, good teams play consistent ....They beat their share of good teams and whup the bad teams. I had mentioned that NCC was similar to N AL.   We beat N Al by 11...not a great game...but early in the season.  Here is the first trend to look for....If we win by 11 or less ...then we are playing to the competition....if we win by 20+ then we are playing like a good consistent team.

Second , is a disturbing trend that has been going on all season...bubbling just below the surface. It is not as visible as poor FT shooting. It is bad 2 Pt shooting....Part of this low visibility stat has to do with the way stats are reported....a typical slash looks like this....FG%/ 3P%/ FT%....the 2P% is rarely reported. You could break it out of the slash but most people don't. I spoke about this issue in the Hou spread thread post game analysis.  I thought this was a major contributing factor in this loss ...as well as the other 2 losses.  We are a D- team in 2P% shooting  at  46.4%. To give you some perspective, 50.2 % gets you to C and 42.3% lifts you above F-....Against Hou we shot 39% from inside the arc. This stat is a game killer especially since many are  blown 2 footers and fast break shots.

A third more positive trend was  the 8 TOs....again for some perspective....8.2 TOs gets you #1 in the nation....btw that stat of 8.2 belongs to St. Joe. ( hold that thought for later in the season).... coupled with a  differential of 6 in the Bills favor made up for some poor shooting.  We did this against one of the top defenses in the nation......shows we can do it if we try.  Do we slip back here to 15 to 20 or do we keep the good trend going?

OK ...enough chit chat....let's look at the report card.

.................................SLU..............................NCC.............................................SLU.............................NCC

..................................................OFF......................................................................................DEF...............

PPG.........................F...................................D+.................................................A...................................C.. 

FG%..........................D-...................................B-.................................................A..................................F

3P%..........................D....................................C-................................................A+....18th ITN..............D+...

FT%...........................F-....3rd worst ITN......B.........................................................................................

Reb............................A-..................................D-.................................................C...................................A+...17th ITN

 

Top 100 ITN

Blks....Gordon...72nd

Stls.....Goodwin...85th 

FG%...Davis.........49th...62.9%

Reb....Davis..........59th ....8.8

 

WWN2D2W....Show up....also stop Davis...hold him to 12 pts and 6 reb.....Reb...we have great O Reb they have bad O Reb ...We have OK D Reb  they have great D Reb...we need to out rebound them for the night.

Bottom line....Going back to the above 2P% trend mentioned above....one of the most interesting match ups will be....What happens when a bad offensive 2P% team (SLU ..D- ) takes on a terrible 2P% defense .....(NCC...F )  For a game whose outcome has pretty much been decided there are many interesting sidelights for Bills fans to follow.

 

 

 

[HoosierPal]

NC Central's NCAA NET rating is 335.  Even with a max win of 10 points, our NET will take a hit, at least it won't raise much if at all. 

LaSalle is down at 339, so there are two more NET hits coming.

[Pistol]

I thought this might be a sneaky-decent buy team, given that they came out of the MEAC for an NCAA Tournament bid last season.

But it's not the case. NET of 335, as HoosierPal points out. They're 4-8, but 2 of those wins were against non-Division I teams, and their two wins are against Southern (also terrible) and McNeese, with whom they've split their non-conference season series. They're 0-7 away from home.

They lost 78-63 to George Mason, arguably the A10's biggest disappointment so far this season.

They've only had 2 close games, the loss to Coastal Carolina and the win over McNeese. Everything else has been double-digits.

They're sloppy, one of the few teams that turns it over more than SLU: 188 turnovers in 12 games, or 15.7 per game. SLU has 145 in 10 games, for an average of 14.5. So don't go in to this one expecting beautiful basketball.

On paper, they should be a much better team because they're all seniors. The top 3 scorers and 6 of the top 8 are seniors. Raasean Davis averages 15 points (on 62% shooting) and 8.8 rebounds. At 6-8 and 270 lbs., he's a load inside.

Ty Graves is redshirting this season after transferring from SLU.

Anyway, all I've wanted all season is a true blowout and we haven't really seen one yet. I'd love to bury NCC by about 40 and get our players clicking and confident.

[slu72]

Players I'd like to see on the court w/ about 7 minutes left and the Bills holding a 30+ lead: Hankton, Jacobs, Thatch, a walk on, and one of our bigs.  

[BillsBeliever!!!]

Defense up to 11th in the country in KenPom

[White Pelican]

1 hour ago, slu72 said:

Players I'd like to see on the court w/ about 7 minutes left and the Bills holding a 30+ lead: Hankton, Jacobs, Thatch, a walk on, and one of our bigs.  

I want to be so far ahead that Welmer goes in and gets 10 and 5 on cast and crutches.

[johnbj14]

So because there is a tendency to play down to opponents, Bills by 7. 

[Cowboy]

4 hours ago, Pistol said:

I thought this might be a sneaky-decent buy team, given that they came out of the MEAC for an NCAA Tournament bid last season.

But it's not the case. NET of 335, as HoosierPal points out. They're 4-8, but 2 of those wins were against non-Division I teams, and their two wins are against Southern (also terrible) and McNeese, with whom they've split their non-conference season series. They're 0-7 away from home.

They lost 78-63 to George Mason, arguably the A10's biggest disappointment so far this season.

They've only had 2 close games, the loss to Coastal Carolina and the win over McNeese. Everything else has been double-digits.

They're sloppy, one of the few teams that turns it over more than SLU: 188 turnovers in 12 games, or 15.7 per game. SLU has 145 in 10 games, for an average of 14.5. So don't go in to this one expecting beautiful basketball.

On paper, they should be a much better team because they're all seniors. The top 3 scorers and 6 of the top 8 are seniors. Raasean Davis averages 15 points (on 62% shooting) and 8.8 rebounds. At 6-8 and 270 lbs., he's a load inside.

Ty Graves is redshirting this season after transferring from SLU.

Anyway, all I've wanted all season is a true blowout and we haven't really seen one yet. I'd love to bury NCC by about 40 and get our players clicking and confident.

-let's keep them from figuring it out for at least one more game and drill them as Pistol comments

[Aquinas]

A problem we have is that it isn't hard to play a pack it in defense.  If they have a gaurd that can protect the ball, it makes it tough to make a 20 point spread.  I hope the guys maintain the intensity it takes to generate turnovers and make rebounds. Hopefully it is the kind of game where we can improve our team chemestry and get some guys going.

[slu72]

Hopefully, we can get our fast break going against these guys and start racking up some points off it. Since, we are not what you'd call a good shooting team, we can use our advantage in rebounding and D to become more of a running team that generates points off the break and TO's. Too many times this year we've blown what should have been easy baskets off a break or off a TO.

[RiseOfTheBillikens]

49 minutes ago, slu72 said:

Hopefully, we can get our fast break going against these guys and start racking up some points off it. Since, we are not what you'd call a good shooting team, we can use our advantage in rebounding and D to become more of a running team that generates points off the break and TO's. Too many times this year we've blown what should have been easy baskets off a break or off a TO.

This was my hope from the get go. But from what I've seen I don't know if we will get out and run that much. Maybe next year. 

[billikenfan05]

57 minutes ago, slu72 said:

Hopefully, we can get our fast break going against these guys and start racking up some points off it. Since, we are not what you'd call a good shooting team, we can use our advantage in rebounding and D to become more of a running team that generates points off the break and TO's. Too many times this year we've blown what should have been easy baskets off a break or off a TO.

I really liked what I saw from JG against Houston in this area. He took the ball to the hoop slowed down and stepped around the defender 

[Old guy]

Vegas spread for tonight's game against NCC is 21 pts with SLU expected to win. Expected scores are SLU 75, NCC 54.

[Littlebill]

I think this is definitely one of those games where our computer rankings go down, regardless of result. Am I reading into that the right way Wiz?

[StlBills]

2 hours ago, Old guy said:

Vegas spread for tonight's game against NCC is 21 pts with SLU expected to win. Expected scores are SLU 75, NCC 54.

Seems like the easy money would be taking NCC with the points because SLU has played down to their lesser competition all season.

[HoosierPal]

https://www.stltoday.com/sports/college/slu/point-guard-isabell-realizes-billikens-might-be-better-served-if/article_0b2ed555-9842-5453-9806-ab24367b0541.html

For those that don't visit the PD website nor the home page of billikens.com,

[cgeldmacher]

On 12/18/2018 at 8:32 AM, Pistol said:

I thought this might be a sneaky-decent buy team, given that they came out of the MEAC for an NCAA Tournament bid last season.

But it's not the case. NET of 335, as HoosierPal points out. They're 4-8, but 2 of those wins were against non-Division I teams, and their two wins are against Southern (also terrible) and McNeese, with whom they've split their non-conference season series. They're 0-7 away from home.

They lost 78-63 to George Mason, arguably the A10's biggest disappointment so far this season.

They've only had 2 close games, the loss to Coastal Carolina and the win over McNeese. Everything else has been double-digits.

They're sloppy, one of the few teams that turns it over more than SLU: 188 turnovers in 12 games, or 15.7 per game. SLU has 145 in 10 games, for an average of 14.5. So don't go in to this one expecting beautiful basketball.

On paper, they should be a much better team because they're all seniors. The top 3 scorers and 6 of the top 8 are seniors. Raasean Davis averages 15 points (on 62% shooting) and 8.8 rebounds. At 6-8 and 270 lbs., he's a load inside.

Ty Graves is redshirting this season after transferring from SLU.

Anyway, all I've wanted all season is a true blowout and we haven't really seen one yet. I'd love to bury NCC by about 40 and get our players clicking and confident.

Wonder if he's going to be on the bench.  If he is, I further wonder if that's causing drama for the Athletic Department given Situation II.

[Quality Is Job 1]

28 minutes ago, cgeldmacher said:

Wonder if he's going to be on the bench.  If he is, I further wonder if that's causing drama for the Athletic Department given Situation II.

I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be allowed to travel with the team.

 

[The Wiz]

2 hours ago, Littlebill said:

I think this is definitely one of those games where our computer rankings go down, regardless of result. Am I reading into that the right way Wiz?

If we win by 20 or more.... No damage... No change.... Damage would occur if this was a close game

[The Wiz]

What a crazy game....Hope nobody left at halftime.

Bills out scored NCC by 14 pts in the 2nd half....we do that in the 1st half and we win by 28.  But that was the issue ...we only played 1 half....fortunately that was good enough to win.Let's look at the 3 trends from the original post above that  I said would be important this game.

Trend 1...Playing to the competition.....and we did...in the original post I said a win by 20+ would indicate we have raised our game....and a win by 11 or less meant we were playing to the competition...I explained why this was bad and how it can lead to losses  vs weak teams.  This wasn't a loss but anytime you keep it close bad things can happen.

Trend 2....2 pt shooting ....We have been shooting a dismal 46.4% ( D- ) and tonight we came in at an excellent 52.4% ( B+ ) I asked the question in the original post....What happens when bad 2P shooting (us) meets terrible 2P defense (them)....The answer is good things.

Trend 3....TOs....we went from an outstanding 8 TOs (A+ ) in Hou to 18 tonight ( F- )...This ties back to Trend 1 ...playing to the competition. The only reason it didn't cost us tonight was that NCC turned it over 24 times...and now you know why they are a bad team.

WWN2D2W...I had talked about stopping Davis....Holding him  to 12 pts and 6 Reb...he had 12 pts and 3 reb...excellent......important factor in the win.......Reb ..I mentioned our great O Reb vs their excellent D reb....Winner ...The Bills on Off Reb...16-3...probably the key to the game....overall 32-23......actual slash line...49.2 FG%/52.4  2P%/40 3P% / 42 FT% ...it is sad when I have to label the slash line so that people will know which stat is our FT stat....Here is what the slash line grades look like....A / B+ / A / F- -  overall very good...the FTs cost us 5 pts which we didn't need ...but at some point this will come back and bite us...again.

Bottom line....We win because we did what we were supposed to do...at least for 1 half....A lot of good things happened this game...In the upcoming FSU game...Trend 1 won't matter  (we will be playing up)...Trend 2...hopefully this is the start of a good 2P trend...Trend 3....TOs...This needs to be fixed ....again....I guarantee you Fla St will not have 24 TOs 

Bring on the Seminoles.