The Bills over App St by 12

[The Wiz]

Last one for the year and OOC.

We stay at grade B...over the last 6 games a B team would go 3-3 on our schedule....we are doing what a B team does. We need to get to at least B+ to have a chance at the Dance (33%) which the computer says we can do. We can do even better if we become consistent. How will you know we are becoming consistent?  If we start to meet or exceed the spreads at least  3 games in a row. 

First let's do the simple 3 game analysis where we have a common foe. In this case it is NCC....we both beat NCC at home by 9...so theoretically this game should be even. But the computer didn't like that idea because we only played 1 half during the NCC game.  So we will go with the 12pts.

Let's look at the report card and see what we are dealing with here....

................................SLU..............................App.............................................SLU.............................App

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

PPG.........................F....................................A+.....12th ITN............................A-..................................F+

FG%..........................D-..................................B+.................................................B.................................D

3P%..........................D..................................B+..................................................B+................................C-...

FT%...........................F-....4th worst ITN......C.........................................................................................

Reb............................B+................................B..................................................B-...................................D-

 

Top 100 ITN

Stls....Goodwin....21st

Blks...Gordon.......74th

PPG....Shabazz....42nd  ...20.2 pts

Reb......I Johnson...48th

 

We went down in all categories... Off & Def... except rebounding where we stayed the same...and we did climb from 3rd worst to 4th worst in FT shooting...yes, that's an improvement.

So on the surface it looks like we are dealing with a high power scoring machine....well, yes and no....They are averaging over 85pts /gm  (FSU was ave 81)....but when you look at the good teams they have played ... B- or better  (Gtown, Purdue, AL, Wich St} ...they only score 73.and they lost all those games.  Look at the right side of the report card you can see why...No defense. We don't need to have a great game to win but we should use this game as a tune up to get ready for a  tough RI team. We need to play above the competition for this game.

WWN2D2W...Stop Shabazz and Forrest....hold them to 15 and 12pts. Keep I Johnson rebs to 6.....slash 44/48/33/ 70...Keep TOs down to 14 or less. Out rebound them by at least 5 

Bottom line....What would happen if the Bills played a team that loved to play offense...and was going to try and beat us by out scoring us....even if it meant skipping the defense. That is what we may see.  App St won't score 85pts against us...hopefully we keep them under 70. Will we score against them if they leave us alone?....We should...A good slash and we can blow them out.

 

[Old guy]

The Vegas spread is 12 pts in favor of SLU. Expected scores are SLU 79.2, App St. 67.2.

[The Wiz]

Posted December 23

"WWN2D2W...Stop Shabazz and Forrest....hold them to 15 and 12pts. Keep I Johnson rebs to 6.....slash 44/48/33/ 70...Keep TOs down to 14 or less. Out rebound them by at least 5 

Bottom line....What would happen if the Bills played a team that loved to play offense...and was going to try and beat us by out scoring us....even if it meant skipping the defense. That is what we may see.  App St won't score 85pts against us...hopefully we keep them under 70. Will we score against them if they leave us alone?....We should...A good slash and we can blow them out."

 

 

What a great game.....also had a chance to spend some time with CBFan and Billikenbooster today...both live up to their names.

So let's review today's game.....Some good things happened....First ...we had 5 TOs (less than the 14 target)...Fabulous....If we could do that the rest of the year we could run the table...with a TO differential of 6  (5 was the target)....that was worth 12 pts. The other thing I have been harping on this year was 2 pt shooting...enough so that I added it to the slash line....we made an extra 5 two  pointers...good for an extra 10 pts.....keeping TOs down and making 2s are the stuff that blowouts are made from. (worth 22pts in this game). Also looking good was Rebs ...out rebounding them by 13 and pulling down a total of 49....very important.  I. Johnson had 13 rebs for App...I was hoping we could hold him to 6...this was the only downer in the game and it didn't matter because of our Reb dominance.    

Player stats....Bess had 20pts  and missed the double-double by 1 coming up with 9 rebs.  French did make the double-double ...11pts &12 rebs and Isabell added 13pts, 6 assts & 5 rebs....A good effort all around.

In the WWN2D2W category   ...Hold Shabazz and Forrest to 15 and 12 ...they had 13 and 9....Shabazz (who is 42nd ITN ..over 20ppg)   was shut down in the 2nd half...scoring NO pts...Nice job by Bess....after the game Ford said Bess was the best defensive player he has had in his 23 years of coaching. ...Actual Slash was 47/ 57/ 27/62....while the back half of the slash was weak the front half (2pters) more than made up for it. And of course we kept them under 70...They average 73pts /gm against good teams (B-  or better) ...we chopped 18pts off of that. 

This was a good tune up for conference play....exactly what we needed.

I am putting together the A-10 review for New Year's Day to assess our chances in the League this year. There are some interesting numbers that are surfacing.....Stay tuned