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The Wiz's 2019 A-10 Forecast


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A-10 report card....1/1/19

VCU......B

SLU.......B

Dav ......B

Day.......B

RI..........B

St J.......B

GM.......C+

UMass..C+

Duq........C

Rich.......C

St. B........C

Ford.......C-

LaS.......D+

GW.........D

One trend stands out...the A-10 is bunched together...11 of the 14 teams are 1 letter apart (B to C). There are  no really good teams and no really bad teams....Parity.

In my preseason review , I had the same 6 teams at the top. Now that we have enough real data, we can start to sort things out. While any of these top 6 can take the title  by going on a run....there are some trends.....RI and St. J are trending down....Day and Dav are treading water....and SLU and VCU are trending up.   So at this point , I would have to make VCU and The Bills the favs to win the conf.

This then makes the Feb 27 game at VCU the key game of the season. 

Now let me digress for a moment....SLU is the 3rd most inconsistent team in the A-10....inconsistent = harder to predict...the other 2 are LaS and St. B...The difference is LaS and St. B are inconsistent on the downside ...when they miss, they under perform and  SLU is inconsistent on the upside....when they miss, they tend to exceed or over perform ...which can be a good thing.   On the other end of the spectrum are the consistent teams....Dav and VCU....they do what they are supposed to do on a regular basis and are easier to forecast.

At the beginning of the season I had us going 23-8....9-4 OOC and 14-4  A-10....doing the analysis now ...nothing has changed....undefeated in Jan followed by a tough Feb...3-4 and finishing the reg season with an undefeated March.....14-4.  There will be no easy games....only 1 game is being projected as a double digit win (LaS  at the Fetz) ...all the rest will be close (parity)...and many will be nail biters. Given that the games are close and that we tend to play up to the competition there could be 2 more wins away...St. J and RI...both away and both of them  trending down.  Dayton away will be  close  and if we we exceed, could pull that one out too.

Which brings us back to Feb 27 and VCU away....Given that they are tough at home and they are consistent....this will be our most difficult game ....it could decide the conf championship. The edge will be to VCU ...If we can come in to this game with a chance to win it all, hopefully the momentum and our ability to rise to the occasion will take over.

A 1 or 2 loss conf record should put us in play.

It should be a great season...hopefully we stay healthy,  have no more surprises and make a few foul shots .

We will see what they are made of......Go Bills

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The Wiz uses data .... I use the eye test.  And yet I see similar analyses.  The unknown is always injuries and dismissals.  Teams and players indispensable are these:  Davidson (Grady and/or Gudmundsson). VCU (Evans).  Duquesne (Williams).  Mason (Livingstone).  St. Joe's (Brown and/or Kimble).  Rhodey (Dowtin).  And Saint Louis (Bess or one big man).  A poke in Gordon's eye.  Or a chronic back issue with French.  

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Going solely on pre season writeups it seemed the Bills had the potential to dominate the A10. As Taj Mahal has said about Davidson they were basically a 2 man team. But they've shown they may be deeper. Mason was supposed to be a contender but haven't shown much. Traditional power houses UD and VCU were supposedly in decline. 

Now at the end of OOC games, it would seem Wiz is right on target. Our biggest concern is can we play like we did against App St. Our offense thru most of our games to date is not what we expected. It's been our D and rebounding that have got us to 9-4. Which is about where a lot of us expected. I predicted 10-3. What we didn't expect was the closeness of games against the likes of SEMO and N. Alabama. 

So who are we going to see now? Don't know. But the fact that we do play tough D and can rebound we should be in every game. We're just not going to be as dominant as we expected in October. I think it's totally reasonable to think we can go 14-4, but would not be surprised if we end up at 11-5. We're not as good as we thought and the A10's not as weak as we expected. Notably VCU, UD, and RI. A lot of nail biting in front of us I fear. 

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Trying to get a read on RI. They are 7-5. Best win was a beat down of WVU, won by 13. They also beat Holy Cross, who is picked to win their conference. Wiz has them as a B same as us. 

Roster doesn't show a big team couple of 6'8" guys and a 6'10" SO. So, we matchup well from that point. 

They have scored in the 80s a few games. From this very sketchy and cursory review, I'd anticipate a very close nail biter of a game. Hoping Taj Mahal 79 comes back with a much more professional preview, as he really studies A10 teams. 

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1 hour ago, slu72 said:

Trying to get a read on RI. They are 7-5. Best win was a beat down of WVU, won by 13. They also beat Holy Cross, who is picked to win their conference. Wiz has them as a B same as us. 

Roster doesn't show a big team couple of 6'8" guys and a 6'10" SO. So, we matchup well from that point. 

They have scored in the 80s a few games. From this very sketchy and cursory review, I'd anticipate a very close nail biter of a game. Hoping Taj Mahal 79 comes back with a much more professional preview, as he really studies A10 teams. 

Rhody is pretty much a three headed monster with Dowtin, Langevine and Russell their top players, all scoring in double figures.  Yes, the matchup looks good (for both sides).  My guess is that Bess gets the Dowtin assignment, French on Langevine, and then Goodwin/Thatch on Russell.  French needs to keep Langevine off of the boards.  We may see our four guard lineup more often than our conventional 3 out 2 in tomorrow.

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38 minutes ago, aj_arete said:

Excellent analysis and here's my question.  Do you see this league as a 1- or 2-bid league?

I believe we are a 2 bid league...The 1 thing that could change that is if the conference champ also wins the A-10 tourney....then the A-10 could be a 1 bid league.

Since I did my original analysis above ....here is an update....

In the original analysis , it was a 6 team race...It is now down to 5....St. J has faded.   It is The Bills and VCU battling it out with VCU having the edge with home field advantage on the Feb 27 game against SLU.     Dayton and Davidson are right on our heels....RI is still hanging on in a shaky 5th spot....another loss in the next few games for them and it will become  a 4 team race.

The A-10 has slipped a lot in the last few years. However we remain a B- conference.   The raw numbers are down but so are a lot of other team's numbers.  Grading on the curve, we are still within the norm for the A-10. Since the Bills have been in the league, the A-10 has had a range of A- to B- so even using the curve we are at the lower end of normal. Five years ago the A-10 was an A- league  and the Bills were an A+/ A- team. One could argue that as the Bills go , so goes the A-10.

A long way to go in the conference battles...good start for The Bills...should be an interesting season.

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7 hours ago, aj_arete said:

Excellent analysis and here's my question.  Do you see this league as a 1- or 2-bid league?

 

6 hours ago, The Wiz said:

I believe we are a 2 bid league...The 1 thing that could change that is if the conference champ also wins the A-10 tourney....then the A-10 could be a 1 bid league.

Since I did my original analysis above ....here is an update....

In the original analysis , it was a 6 team race...It is now down to 5....St. J has faded.   It is The Bills and VCU battling it out with VCU having the edge with home field advantage on the Feb 27 game against SLU.     Dayton and Davidson are right on our heels....RI is still hanging on in a shaky 5th spot....another loss in the next few games for them and it will become  a 4 team race.

The A-10 has slipped a lot in the last few years. However we remain a B- conference.   The raw numbers are down but so are a lot of other team's numbers.  Grading on the curve, we are still within the norm for the A-10. Since the Bills have been in the league, the A-10 has had a range of A- to B- so even using the curve we are at the lower end of normal. Five years ago the A-10 was an A- league  and the Bills were an A+/ A- team. One could argue that as the Bills go , so goes the A-10.

A long way to go in the conference battles...good start for The Bills...should be an interesting season.

Today, the A10 has VCU ranked 46th in the NCAA NET.  SLU is the next A10 team, sitting at 59.  Dayton is 68th. These rankings change daily and sometimes quite a bit.  

No one knows how the NET works, or exactly how it will be used.  But if you use the past RPI history, mid 40's is normally in the dance*.  So if for example, VCU holds steady, but doesn't win the A10 tourney, we could get in 2.  59th place would be a stretch for an At Large bid, unless you are Syracuse.*

*mid-40's does not pertain to Syracuse, who seems to get in the tourney no matter where they are ranked.

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26 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

 

Today, the A10 has VCU ranked 46th in the NCAA NET.  SLU is the next A10 team, sitting at 59.  Dayton is 68th. These rankings change daily and sometimes quite a bit.  

No one knows how the NET works, or exactly how it will be used.  But if you use the past RPI history, mid 40's is normally in the dance*.  So if for example, VCU holds steady, but doesn't win the A10 tourney, we could get in 2.  59th place would be a stretch for an At Large bid, unless you are Syracuse.*

*mid-40's does not pertain to Syracuse, who seems to get in the tourney no matter where they are ranked.

I don't believe our NET ranking takes into account the URI game. 

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34 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

Yes it does, "Games through January 6".  Shows 10-4 record.  But it will change by tomorrow, again.

-do you have a link to NET where it gives a numerical ranking? I have not found such a site but am told it exists 

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4 hours ago, GBL_Bills said:

Only 7 back from the highest ranked Pac12 team!

I’ve read at least one national pundit throw out the notion that the Pac-12 is a one bid league this season.  

I don’t believe it for a second and it will be an interesting test of the NET ratings if they still suggest the Pac-12 is that weak come March. I can’t imagine the committee would allow that.

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3 minutes ago, ARon said:

I’ve read at least one national pundit throw out the notion that the Pac-12 is a one bid league this season.  

I don’t believe it for a second and it will be an interesting test of the NET ratings if they still suggest the Pac-12 is that weak come March. I can’t imagine the committee would allow that.

I heard the same thing on the FS Beast pregame on Sat. Also they think only 4 teams from the Beast get in. Big discussion that Seton Hall v St John's to win the league. Be good for us if the Hall wins it. 

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9 minutes ago, ARon said:

I’ve read at least one national pundit throw out the notion that the Pac-12 is a one bid league this season.  

I don’t believe it for a second and it will be an interesting test of the NET ratings if they still suggest the Pac-12 is that weak come March. I can’t imagine the committee would allow that.

I agree that Pac 12 will get more than 1 bid ....They are an A- conference. They have 2 teams that are A- and 3 teams that are borderline A-.....so probably 2-5 teams make it....at this point ....projecting 4 teams.

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