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The Bills over UMass by 13


The Wiz

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We come into this game as a B team....UMass is a C+ team with a pretty  good offense and some star players.  So what's with the 13 pt spread. How can that be?  Because UMass has a bad defense.  This game will be about a bad offense (ours) playing a bad defense (theirs) In addition, the other battle will be a good offense against a great defense. SLU has been trending at a B+ level and UMass in the  D+  area. UMass is 7-7 playing a D- schedule. The Bills are 10-4 playing a C+ schedule.  The M Men just came off a bad loss to a weak LaS team.  But a warning sign is...they beat SIU-C on neutral ground by 12 pts. The spread variable is 5 pts...so Bills should win somewhere between 10-15 pts...  5 pts is a large variable this late in the season...it shows 2 inconsistent teams.

Let's look at the report card.....

...............................SLU.............................UMass.............................................SLU.........................UMass

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

PPG.........................F+.................................B..................................................A..................................D

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

3P%..........................D..................................B-.................................................A-.................................D

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

Reb............................A-................................D+..................................................C+...................................B-

 

Top 100 ITN

PPG....Pipkins....19.6...54th

Asst....Pipkins..............36th

FG%.....Holloway.....74.7%....5th

............Laurent.........59%.......87th

3P%....Laurent..........50%......36th

FT%....Laurent............86%.....104th

Stls....Goodwin..........26th 

 

WWN2D2W.....Pipkins is their star but we need to stop both him and Holloway...hold them to 15pts and 6pts...Not receiving as much attention but just as dangerous...Laurent...a Majerus 180 type player who is slashing at a staggering 195....59/50/86...the kid can flat out shoot....hold him to 8pts.....We should out rebound them....and at least match them in TOs  staying to around 12.

Bottom line....This is a game we should win....What could go wrong?...They could get hot....If we play our A defense than that shouldn't happen...if we let up or tire their could be problems. I am betting our defense will contain their offense and that if they leave us alone on offense we will be able to score some points.....If we play a good game low TOs and make some shots we could turn it into a blowout. Why the wide range in statements? ...2 inconsistent teams playing one another....This game is a tough one to pick the spread.....easy one to pick the winner.

As Elvis would say....TCOB....Take Care of Business....and we will win.

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50 minutes ago, Billiken Rich said:

Thatch is so solid on defense that it's easy to forget he's a freshman.  Last game he looked a little lost on offense and I was wondering what was up until I remembered that......

-he has to understand, I guess through coaching, what is a good shot or drive for him at this point, I hope he sees what Javon Bess has done to make himself an offensive threat and mimics that, if so he could become very, very special

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3 hours ago, Billiken Rich said:

Thatch is so solid on defense that it's easy to forget he's a freshman.  Last game he looked a little lost on offense and I was wondering what was up until I remembered that......

I would bet that by the end of the year he will have a put back dunk that we are taking about for years.

 

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Who would have ever thought we would win a close game on FT shooting...the 3rd worst FT team  in D1 ....Actually we didn't even have a good night in FTs either shooting 63%....so it should read ...win a game with clutch FT shooting. Tip o' the cap to French who had a career high 25 pts...and Isabell who had 17pts ...plus both he and Goodwin  together made 4 straight FTs in the final seconds....did I mention that that French doubled his FT average tonight ... shooting 70% (7-10 )

Unfortunately,  it wasn't all rainbows and sunshine.  There was the dismal 3pt shooting...we came into the game with a D in 3P shooting ..so the bar is set low....but 12% (2-17) was really bad ...even for us...in a normal game we would have had 4 more 3s....12pts more....nearly the entire spread.....Let's see what we were supposed to do.....

"WWN2D2W.....Pipkins is their star but we need to stop both him and Holloway...hold them to 15pts and 6pts...Not receiving as much attention but just as dangerous...Laurent...a Majerus 180 type player who is slashing at a staggering 195....59/50/86...the kid can flat out shoot....hold him to 8pts.....We should out rebound them....and at least match them in TOs  staying to around 12."

Pipkins and Holloway...fail...they scored 18 and 12pts...actually I am going to give us a pass on Pipkin..while he got his pts...we held him to 31% shooting (5-16) and 0-4 from the arc...we did keep him under his scoring average (19.6) and while he shot 80% from the FT line (ave 86%) one of his misses was at the end for a game tie.  And Holloway was 5-5 from the field....no easy job to contain him...I thought we did as well as could be expected on him....Fortunately,  Laurent didn't play (2nd leading scorer and best shooter)....Rebound...pass...beat them on the boards ....35-31...As far as their shooting,  they had a normal good night...we had a mixed night poor 3P shooting ...good 2P shooting...51.3%...FT average night...but even a bad 63% will raise our season average....maybe we should approach every foul shot as though we are winning by 1 with less than 10 seconds left.

So if our defense wasn't able to slow their shooting down ....50/33/67...how did we win?....TOs....First we had an outstanding 8 TOs (A+) ...but just as important we forced a lot of TOs....the TO differential was 10 (18-8)....worth 20 pts to the Bills.  We may have made some mistakes in the game ...and maybe we can't shoot 3s....but when you keep TOs down you can make up a lot of ground. Low TOs coupled with a defense that forces TOs means you are always in the game.

It wasn't pretty  but I will take it....Best conference start since 2014.

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5 hours ago, The Wiz said:

Who would have ever thought we would win a close game on FT shooting...the 3rd worst FT team  in D1 ....Actually we didn't even have a good night in FTs either shooting 63%....so it should read ...win a game with clutch FT shooting. Tip o' the cap to French who had a career high 25 pts...and Isabell who had 17pts ...plus both he and Goodwin  together made 4 straight FTs in the final seconds....did I mention that that French doubled his FT average tonight ... shooting 70% (7-10 )

Unfortunately,  it wasn't all rainbows and sunshine.  There was the dismal 3pt shooting...we came into the game with a D in 3P shooting ..so the bar is set low....but 12% (2-17) was really bad ...even for us...in a normal game we would have had 4 more 3s....12pts more....nearly the entire spread.....Let's see what we were supposed to do.....

"WWN2D2W.....Pipkins is their star but we need to stop both him and Holloway...hold them to 15pts and 6pts...Not receiving as much attention but just as dangerous...Laurent...a Majerus 180 type player who is slashing at a staggering 195....59/50/86...the kid can flat out shoot....hold him to 8pts.....We should out rebound them....and at least match them in TOs  staying to around 12."

Pipkins and Holloway...fail...they scored 18 and 12pts...actually I am going to give us a pass on Pipkin..while he got his pts...we held him to 31% shooting (5-16) and 0-4 from the arc...we did keep him under his scoring average (19.6) and while he shot 80% from the FT line (ave 86%) one of his misses was at the end for a game tie.  And Holloway was 5-5 from the field....no easy job to contain him...I thought we did as well as could be expected on him....Fortunately,  Laurent didn't play (2nd leading scorer and best shooter)....Rebound...pass...beat them on the boards ....35-31...As far as their shooting,  they had a normal good night...we had a mixed night poor 3P shooting ...good 2P shooting...51.3%...FT average night...but even a bad 63% will raise our season average....maybe we should approach every foul shot as though we are winning by 1 with less than 10 seconds left.

So if our defense wasn't able to slow their shooting down ....50/33/67...how did we win?....TOs....First we had an outstanding 8 TOs (A+) ...but just as important we forced a lot of TOs....the TO differential was 10 (18-8)....worth 20 pts to the Bills.  We may have made some mistakes in the game ...and maybe we can't shoot 3s....but when you keep TOs down you can make up a lot of ground. Low TOs coupled with a defense that forces TOs means you are always in the game.

It wasn't pretty  but I will take it....Best conference start since 2014.

I've noticed you assign 2 points per TO in TO differential. Seems a bit generous, no? Just curious as to the reason behind this metric.

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41 minutes ago, Pistol said:

I've noticed you assign 2 points per TO in TO differential. Seems a bit generous, no? Just curious as to the reason behind this metric.

My guess it is a points lost by the team turning it over and gained by the other team

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49 minutes ago, Pistol said:

I've noticed you assign 2 points per TO in TO differential. Seems a bit generous, no? Just curious as to the reason behind this metric.

besides the lost opportunity to score, TO's usually result in a higher percentage for the opposition to score. Not sure if I explained that very well.

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1 hour ago, Pistol said:

I've noticed you assign 2 points per TO in TO differential. Seems a bit generous, no? Just curious as to the reason behind this metric.

Brian and Big Bill are both correct.  Most stat reporting takes the TO and determines   whether  any points were scored. In my system if figures lost and gained opportunity. On average, the losing team gives up 3/4 of a point on each TO and the stealing team gains about 1 1/4 pts ....thus 2pts per TO....lost and gained opportunity....which is why on many, many threads I harp on TOs. Usually when you have more than 18 TOs in a game or on the losing end of a 6 TO differential you lose the game. It is like in baseball ...when you give up 10 walks you lose the game....not always but usually. There was a game earlier this year where we had around 20 TOs but it didn't matter because the losing team had 24....but that is the exception. 

Also the 2 pts can vary ...if you get 2 good offensive teams...say Gonz & Tenn...who average 53 and 51% per game and shoot over 75% from the line the TO differential becomes about 2,7.  But for most teams it is around 2 pts   Last night UMass TO scoring (because of good Off stats)  was about 2.1  and we were around 1.9...so the average was pretty close to 2pts. There are other factors that feed the stat too but in the end ....2 pts /TO is pretty close.

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17 minutes ago, The Wiz said:

Brian and Big Bill are both correct.  Most stat reporting takes the TO and determines   whether  any points were scored. In my system if figures lost and gained opportunity. On average, the losing team gives up 3/4 of a point on each TO and the stealing team gains about 1 1/4 pts ....thus 2pts per TO....lost and gained opportunity....which is why on many, many threads I harp on TOs. Usually when you have more than 18 TOs in a game or on the losing end of a 6 TO differential you lose the game. It is like in baseball ...when you give up 10 walks you lose the game....not always but usually. There was a game earlier this year where we had around 20 TOs but it didn't matter because the losing team had 24....but that is the exception. 

Also the 2 pts can vary ...if you get 2 good offensive teams...say Gonz & Tenn...who average 53 and 51% per game and shoot over 75% from the line the TO differential becomes about 2,7.  But for most teams it is around 2 pts   Last night UMass TO scoring (because of good Off stats)  was about 2.1  and we were around 1.9...so the average was pretty close to 2pts. There are other factors that feed the stat too but in the end ....2 pts /TO is pretty close.

Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for - whether you had numbers on what TO differential is actually worth for the losing team and stealing team. Good insight on where it might vary, too. Good teams really punish you for turning it over.

We've gotten the TOs down lately, which is huge. We also need to keep winning the glass. The way this team shoots, we can't have all those things go against us.

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4 minutes ago, Pistol said:

Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for - whether you had numbers on what TO differential is actually worth for the losing team and stealing team. Good insight on where it might vary, too. Good teams really punish you for turning it over.

We've gotten the TOs down lately, which is huge. We also need to keep winning the glass. The way this team shoots, we can't have all those things go against us.

-no doubt, just let your imagination go for a moment as to what this team would be if we made shots just at an average clip

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