The Wiz Posted February 25, 2019 Share Posted February 25, 2019 What would happen if a game was played and nobody scored? While that is unlikely, we may see the next closest thing. This game has a chance to be around 120 total pts. Two of the best defensive teams in the nation will battle it out on Tues. As you can see by the spread it won't be easy for the Bills...the spread variable is 10-17 pts.....but I will show you a way we can win. First let's look at the report card to see what we are up against. ...............................SLU..............................VCU.............................................SLU...................................VCU ..................................................OFF......................................................................................DEF............... PPG.........................F+.................................D+..................................................A..................................A+....12th ITN FG%..........................F+................................C-....................................................B+.................................A+....5th ITN 3P%..........................F..................................F ....................................................A....................................A+...2nd ITN FT%...........................F-..2nd worst ITN.......C-......................................................................................... Reb............................A................................B.....................................................B....................................C Change in our grades from last game....Def FG%...A- to B+ Other grades....SLU...Offensive Reb....A+ (2nd ITN).........VCU ...Opp TOs...A+ (15th ITN) Top 100 ITN Stls....Goodwin ...48th Rebs....French.......68th Blks.....French.........85th FG%.....Santos-Silva...48th (60.3%) Stls......Evans....56th Blks......Douglas....76th Injuries....Welmer. is the only injury listed this week and will not play...still listed as OFTS...as of now everyone else should be available....VCU has no injuries at this time Depth.......In the last game....VCU had 10 players that played 12 or more mins and a total of 14 played in the game.......SLU had 6 players with more than 12 min (actually 21 min) and a total of 8 players in the game. ...The only way we could have had 14 players in the game would have been if SluSignGuy had brought his Poly Sci class to play in the game. WWN2D2W....Stop Evans....Hold him to 11 pts....hold everyone else to single digits....We have a choice on slashes..... make some extra FTs or not.....With FTs...46/ 33/ 70...or without FTs...50/ 33 /60 ...Out reb them by 3...OFF rebs 12....TOs 11 WCGW....We play sloppy and turn the ball over...TOs get to upper teens....we lose the Reb battle....we miss the slash...anything happens in this section and it can be a blowout. Bottom line....In the A-10 forecast on Jan 1 ...I had said the VCU game would be the key game in our conf schedule....at least to this point in the season that is true.... We are still in a position to control our own destiny for a 4th place finish (double bye)...ie we don't need anyone's help if we keep winning......with a pretty good chance to win the other 3 games...this becomes the key game. Again , this will not be an easy task ....but if we can make the slash and TOs we can win....both are doable. This would be a good time for the Bills to bring their "A" game. Go Bills Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taj79 Posted February 25, 2019 Share Posted February 25, 2019 Personnel ---- VCU is just too deep right now. They are somewhat non-descript on the interior, and lose some when the backcourt subs come in, but they do play at least ten guys for almost a half each so the troops are always fresh. The starting unit goes as Marcus Evans goes. The Rice transfer is the point guard and leader of the team. He was injured early with an Achilles injury but has bounced back to play all 27 games this year. He was slowed early by the injury and that was obvious but he continues to get better. I don't know if he's a subtle player or what because from what I've seen, he doesn't do it with much flash. He's also their leading assist man but he is not exactly seeting the league on fire there. Just solid if unspectacular at this point. In the front court you have Sean Mobley and Marcus Santos-Silva. Silva is nearly 10 ppg; Mobley is just the guy who fills the fifth spot it seems. Both are not stars night-in and night-out but each can hurt you if allowed to do so. Frankly I see a wash there with Foreman and French. The starting wings, Isaac Vann and De'Riante Jenkins are also streaky, Vann is in his second year after transferring in from Maine where he was an all-conference performer as a frosh. Jenkins is a former four-star recruit. Couple with Evans and a hovering Silva, that is four guys averaging almost 10 ppg. Santos-Silva is 6'7"; Mobley is 6'8" so there is no real height advantage there. Ditto for the backcourt comparison versus Bess, Isabell and Goodwin. Pretty much even. The bench is where VCU will have their advantage. After Silva and Mobley, VCU can throw 6'8" Cory Douglas, 6'10" Michale Gilmore and 6'6" Vince Williams at out beleaguered front court. At a minimum, that is 25 fouls to 10 (and I don't even bother to count Hankton). The backcourt is the same way ---- where you have juniors Mike'L Simms and Malik Crowfield, along with freshman PJ Byrd. All are streaky shooters and can go off, but the real advantage to me is depth and in-game rest. I expect ugly. The other key here will be our ability (or inability) to handle the pressure. Yes, they still play HAVOC but it's not Shaka's HAVOC. Rather than employ full-court, double-teaming pressure, , they wait now until the ball has crossed half court. The covering man guides the ball handler to the sideline and when he turns around, a VCU big has come out behind him and now waits for the turn-back double team trap. I expect aggressive, double-team hedging to also occur should we attempt to run our waste-time weave offense. The sellout crowd, in the close environs of Siegel, will make it hard everywhere we turn tomorrow night. VCU has won eight in a row now. They sit all alone in first atop the A10. After us, they have games left at Richmond, at Mason and home against the Joeys. The top spot is theirs for the taking. Their two A10 losses have been on the road, at Rhodey and at Davidson by a combined total of 13 points. Their non-conference losses have come to Charleston, Virginia, St. John's and Old Dominion. They beat Dayton at Dayton by one. I'll watch -- unless I can't stands no more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old guy Posted February 26, 2019 Share Posted February 26, 2019 Vegas spread is 10.4 in favor of VCU. Expected scores are: SLU 58.8, VCU 69.2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobillsgo Posted February 26, 2019 Share Posted February 26, 2019 Seems like this has to be a W to harbor any hope of getting 4th place woukd be a great game for JGood to go beast mode. Hopefully Bess is back to his normal self Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RamJAMTIME Posted February 26, 2019 Share Posted February 26, 2019 I'm really happy that this board has a nice mixture of sabermetrics and old school scout in @The Wiz and @Taj79. I love reading their previews before each game. Thank you both. Billiken Rich likes this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoosierPal Posted February 26, 2019 Share Posted February 26, 2019 51 minutes ago, gobillsgo said: Seems like this has to be a W to harbor any hope of getting 4th place woukd be a great game for JGood to go beast mode. Hopefully Bess is back to his normal self 4th place is still reachable even with a L. Refer to the A10...Down the Stretch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobillsgo Posted February 26, 2019 Share Posted February 26, 2019 12 hours ago, HoosierPal said: 4th place is still reachable even with a L. Refer to the A10...Down the Stretch. I’m sure it is, mathematically. But to have a good shot at it this seems like a must win. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoosierPal Posted February 26, 2019 Share Posted February 26, 2019 36 minutes ago, gobillsgo said: I’m sure it is, mathematically. But to have a good shot at it this seems like a must win. We go down the stretch 3-1, Duquesne has to finish at 1-3 (this is the biggest IF), the Bonnies and Patriots 2-2, we tie for 4th and have the tiebreaker. If you look at the opponents for each team, this more or less follows form with the higher rated team or home team winning. Still possible with a L. 100% agree, a win tonight certainly helps us out a lot. But then a loss to Duquesne, St. Bonaventure or George Mason could be deadly for our chances as we lose tie breakers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slu72 Posted February 26, 2019 Share Posted February 26, 2019 Olean=The Grim Reaper's house for SLU. Can't remember the last time we beat them there. Had to be one of Rick's teams. I think one year they sent a drunk bus driver to pick up the team. This may well be an urban myth, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoosierPal Posted February 26, 2019 Share Posted February 26, 2019 2 hours ago, slu72 said: Olean=The Grim Reaper's house for SLU. Can't remember the last time we beat them there. Had to be one of Rick's teams. I think one year they sent a drunk bus driver to pick up the team. This may well be an urban myth, though. Last away win was 1/26/2013, 67-57 Overall record v St. Bonaventure is 11-14. We are 0-8 in the last eight games v. St. Bonaventure. Yes, really. EDIT Note: the 11-14 overall record is in question and being researched. The 0-8 streak appears to be accurate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pistol Posted February 26, 2019 Share Posted February 26, 2019 30 minutes ago, slu72 said: Olean=The Grim Reaper's house for SLU. Can't remember the last time we beat them there. Had to be one of Rick's teams. I think one year they sent a drunk bus driver to pick up the team. This may well be an urban myth, though. 2013. We won 67-57. I was there. Evans had 18 and 8. This was Crews' first season, technically, although he basically just left Majerus' team on autopilot that year. We haven't won there since, but we haven't played there every season and we've mostly been bad since then and lost all over the league, not just Olean. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Wiz Posted February 27, 2019 Author Share Posted February 27, 2019 This one will be easy to analyze ....First let's look at the the original; post under the section ...What Can Go Wrong WCGW....We play sloppy and turn the ball over...TOs get to upper teens. In fact, we had 19 ....20 usually means automatic loss...The TO differential was 7 (19 vs 12)...That cost us about 15 pts....or if we match them in TOs ...we win by 9 pts. Yet another way to look at this is, we don't even need to match VCU ...just 4 less TOs (which still puts us at a not so great 15 TOs) and we have an even chance to win. The rest of the numbers look good or at least good enough to win....Slash was just one 3 pt shot from making the line....we out rebounded them ...both total and offensively.....nice balanced scoring ...4 players with double figures ...3 with 8 or more rebs...We didn't stop Evans or Vann......Evans had an extra 9 pts and Vann had an extra 7 pts....but again this relates back to the TOs....we give up 7 less TOs and these guys come in on target and we win. So overall we did pretty much what we were supposed to do EXCEPT for the TOs. Quick rant .......Everyone complains about how bad our offense is ( and it is very bad) however what people fail to realize is that as bad as it is...it is good enough to win. Our offense is what it is...it is not going to be any better...which means in addition to great defense....we can't make mistakes (TOs) . If you want to talk inconsistency look no further than TOs. ...where we have gone from single digit TO games (A+ ) to 20 + TO games ( automatic losses)...anything above 17 comes in at F-. Bottom line...We can be an F team in FG% and 3P% and the 2nd worst FT shooting team and still win games as long as we don't make mistakes.. When you shoot poorly there is no margin for error. When we don't make mistakes , we can beat anybody ...not just in the A-10...but anybody....remember Houston....we played them at their place (5.41 pt home field advantage) which means on a neutral court we win... and for those not following... Hou is currently ranked 8th ITN. OK ...rant over....Just focus and win. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoosierPal Posted February 27, 2019 Share Posted February 27, 2019 TO's were interesting in that they were spread out across the team. After a few trips against the press, Ford switched the primary ball handler from Goodwin to Isabell. Tramaine only had 1 TO which is highly commendable for the amount of time he was on the ball. The two (or was it three) 10 second violations certainly hurt but that is what the press does. On those two (or three) trips too many on the floor were spectators. Four or five (?) of our TO's were offensive fouls, [Foreman and Goodwin]. We all will be very interested next season to see how Collins handles similar high pressure situations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DirtyRican Posted February 27, 2019 Share Posted February 27, 2019 Some of those TO's could easily have been called fouls on VCU. The refs let them get away with a lot which doesn't help our cause. I can't say I watched the entire game (home alone with my 3 boys) but I didn't see any really careless bone-headed TOs which have seem to become our MO this season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David King Posted February 27, 2019 Share Posted February 27, 2019 13 minutes ago, DirtyRican said: Some of those TO's could easily have been called fouls on VCU. The refs let them get away with a lot which doesn't help our cause. I can't say I watched the entire game (home alone with my 3 boys) but I didn't see any really careless bone-headed TOs which have seem to become our MO this season. As much as I like Foreman, I'd have to say his TO's were bone-headed. I know he got two, maybe three charging fouls, and a travel. The last charge was especially outrageous. Foreman just zero's in on the basket and goes straight towards it like a running back going through the defensive line. I'm sure he knows the rules on charging, but I guess he figures that it is 50/50 whether the refs call a foul on him or the man guarding him. Of course, it's also 50/50 whether he'll hit the lay up if he makes it to the basket, and also 50/50 on hitting any foul shots. I agree, the offensive foul call that fouled out French was especially egregious, but there was a long stretch in the 1st half when pretty much every call went the Billikens way. Poor officiating goes both ways. DirtyRican likes this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billiken Rich Posted February 27, 2019 Share Posted February 27, 2019 47 minutes ago, DirtyRican said: I can't say I watched the entire game (home alone with my 3 boys) but I didn't see any really careless bone-headed TOs which have seem to become our MO this season. It's the first tIme I've ever been more looking forward to a 6th grade strings concert than a Billikens game, I missed it too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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