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The Bills over UMass by 9


The Wiz

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Many think the Duq game was a bad loss....I would say disappointing but not bad. It was not bad because you had 2 B teams playing with an even spread.  We were B going in and we are still B coming out. If anything, it was the 14 pt deficit that hurt us more than the loss as our trend cooled off to a B also...so B & B.  A disappointing loss because had we played just an average game we would have won. See the Duq spread thread post game analysis for more details.

While some think the season is over ...we have lost only 1 game in conference to a team we were even with....In the A-10 outlook thread, I mention 4 games that are relatively close...Duq was one of them......we needed to win 2 of those  4....so now, we need  2 of those 3 remaining games and we should still be fine.

UMass...it looks like we are dealing with a C team that is drifting toward D +.  As you will see below in the injury report , they are a team that has been decimated by injuries.  I think without the injuries they would have been a very competitive team in the A-10.

Let's see what they look like now ....

 

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

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

PPG.........................C.............................C-................................................B......................................D+

FG%.........................C-.............................C-............................................ ..B+....................................F+

3Pt%........................C..............................B.................................................D-....................................B

FT%.........................F-...2nd worst ITN....D.............................................................................

Reb.........................A..................................F................................................C....................................D-

 OFF Rebs  = total rebs...DEF rebs = opp reb

 Bills  Offensive reb....A+....13th  ITN....down

Change from last game (UP means improvement ...Down means worse)....UP .....Nothing up............ DOWN.....FG%...3P%...FT%

Top 100 ITN

Stls....Goodwin ...34th.....up

Assts...Collins....39th...down

Rebs...Goodwin...9th.....French..25th...same and up

Blks.....French....23rd...down

Assts...East...56th

Injury report.....

SLU...Thatch...1/2/20...Questionable....Illness...Uncertain for Sunday as he is suffering from myalgia.

UMass...12/30/19...Boggs....Out for season...torn ACL

...............12/20/19....Weeks...Out indefinitely...abdominal injury

...............11/11/19...K Mitchell...Out indefinitely ...broken hand

Weeks and T Michell are their 2 best players....They not only are their 2 leading scorers but lead in many other categories too. Think Jimerson is a great shooter at 43% from the arc...try Weeks, a top 50 shooter with a 48.5% ave.  Pierre and East are picking up the slack.   This is a good time to play UMass.

WWN2D2W....UMass has a so-so offense and a bad defense EXCEPT at the perimeter...This is where the game will be decided. Even with the loss of Weeks they are still pretty good from the arc with Pierre and East ...both shoot around 40% from 3....They also are good at  defending the 3 ...we need to take less than 20  three pt shots and make sure we are contesting their 3s ...no open looks. We should be able to eat them up on the inside as they are one of the worst rebounding teams.....dominate by 10 rebs....Nothing fancy with the slash...44/33/57...Hold Pierre and East  and T Mitchell to a combined 30 pts....We are tied with UMass on TOs...we need to at least match them this game.

Bottom line....We need to get back on track and this is a good game to do it...This should be a winner....The only thing that can hurt us is bad shooting ...I have set a low bar on the slash ...yet it is good enough to win...also, if we get careless with the ball and TOs rise, that would be a bad sign.....This is our game to win...Let's take these Men in the first Minute.

Go Bills

 

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French had 3 blocks against Duquesne and still went down in the statistical ranking?

As for shooting percentages/slashes, teams tend to shoot better at home and worse on the road.  Role players are more likely to exceed their typical production at home and are less likely to do so on the road.  Those combinations should favor the Bills tomorrow.

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3 hours ago, Quality Is Job 1 said:

French had 3 blocks against Duquesne and still went down in the statistical ranking?

As for shooting percentages/slashes, teams tend to shoot better at home and worse on the road.  Role players are more likely to exceed their typical production at home and are less likely to do so on the road.  Those combinations should favor the Bills tomorrow.

Blks...Yes, French slipped a couple of slots from 21 to 23rd even though he had 3 blks....He is averaging  around 2.6 /gm.  It is tough to stay near the top where the competition is  intense.  A few people have a big night below you  in the standings(4 or 5 blks) and you can slip.  If he can continue at 3 / gm for the rest of the season he will stay on top as an elite blocker...it is all about consistency...and staying healthy.

Shooting...I agree ...teams shoot better at home...I set a minimum bar on the slash ...what I thought it would take to win by 9...if we have a good shooting night...above those  slash numbers.......then double digit win.

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9 hours ago, The Wiz said:

Many think the Duq game was a bad loss....I would say disappointing but not bad. It was not bad because you had 2 B teams playing with an even spread.  We were B going in and we are still B coming out. If anything, it was the 14 pt deficit that hurt us more than the loss as our trend cooled off to a B also...so B & B.  A disappointing loss because had we played just an average game we would have won. See the Duq spread thread post game analysis for more details.

While some think the season is over ...we have lost only 1 game in conference to a team we were even with....In the A-10 outlook thread, I mention 4 games that are relatively close...Duq was one of them......we needed to win 2 of those  4....so now, we need  2 of those 3 remaining games and we should still be fine.

UMass...it looks like we are dealing with a C team that is drifting toward D +.  As you will see below in the injury report , they are a team that has been decimated by injuries.  I think without the injuries they would have been a very competitive team in the A-10.

Let's see what they look like now ....

 

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

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

PPG.........................C.............................C-................................................B......................................D+

FG%.........................C-.............................C-............................................ ..B+....................................F+

3Pt%........................C..............................B.................................................D-....................................B

FT%.........................F-...2nd worst ITN....D.............................................................................

Reb.........................A..................................F................................................C....................................D-

 OFF Rebs  = total rebs...DEF rebs = opp reb

 Bills  Offensive reb....A+....13th  ITN....down

Change from last game (UP means improvement ...Down means worse)....UP .....Nothing up............ DOWN.....FG%...3P%...FT%

Top 100 ITN

Stls....Goodwin ...34th.....up

Assts...Collins....39th...down

Rebs...Goodwin...9th.....French..25th...same and up

Blks.....French....23rd...down

Assts...East...56th

Injury report.....

SLU...Thatch...1/2/20...Questionable....Illness...Uncertain for Sunday as he is suffering from myalgia.

UMass...12/30/19...Boggs....Out for season...torn ACL

...............12/20/19....Weeks...Out indefinitely...abdominal injury

...............11/11/19...Mitchell...Out indefinitely ...broken hand

Weeks and Michell are their 2 best players....They not only are their 2 leading scorers but lead in many other categories too. Think Jimerson is a great shooter at 43% from the arc...try Weeks, a top 50 shooter with a 48.5% ave.  Pierre and East are picking up the slack.   This is a good time to play UMass.

WWN2D2W....UMass has a so-so offense and a bad defense EXCEPT at the perimeter...This is where the game will be decided. Even with the loss of Weeks they are still pretty good from the arc with Pierre and East ...both shoot around 40% from 3....They also are good at  defending the 3 ...we need to take less than 20  three pt shots and make sure we are contesting their 3s ...no open looks. We should be able to eat them up on the inside as they are one of the worst rebounding teams.....dominate by 10 rebs....Nothing fancy with the slash...44/33/57...Hold Pierre and East to a combined 20 pts....We are tied with UMass on TOs...we need to at least match them this game.

Bottom line....We need to get back on track and this is a good game to do it...This should be a winner....The only thing that can hurt us is bad shooting ...I have set a low bar on the slash ...yet it is good enough to win...also, if we get careless with the ball and TOs rise, that would be a bad sign.....This is our game to win...Let's take these Men in the first Minute.

Go Bills

 

The injured Mitchell is Kolton Mitchell, a guard.  Tre Mitchell played in their last game against Akron.  Weeks did not.  As you stated, Weeks is a 48.5% 3FG shooter (32 of 66), so if he is unavailable, that is huge.  This will be an interesting matchup of two freshmen point guards, Collins and 6'3" Sean East.  East is a scorer, 11.6 ppg, as well as a solid distributor at 5.2 apg.  They do have another player out for the season, John Buggs, a freshman guard. 

And just found this concerning Weeks.  Dibaji Walker is a 6'9" transfer from Cleveland State.  He likely could supply some depth.  He played 17 minutes in his first game back and launched 6 three's, hitting one.

 

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3 hours ago, HoosierPal said:

The injured Mitchell is Kolton Mitchell, a guard.  Tre Mitchell played in their last game against Akron.  Weeks did not.  As you stated, Weeks is a 48.5% 3FG shooter (32 of 66), so if he is unavailable, that is huge.  This will be an interesting matchup of two freshmen point guards, Collins and 6'3" Sean East.  East is a scorer, 11.6 ppg, as well as a solid distributor at 5.2 apg.  They do have another player out for the season, John Buggs, a freshman guard. 

And just found this concerning Weeks.  Dibaji Walker is a 6'9" transfer from Cleveland State.  He likely could supply some depth.  He played 17 minutes in his first game back and launched 6 three's, hitting one.

 

Forgot to put the first initial in on the Mitchell boys....corrected in the original post.

As for Weeks...The official report states...."A timetable is yet to be established for his return"....A major loss for UMass

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OK guys the prior game against Duquesne is a done deal, we have another chance of winning against them at home this time. Let's concentrate on the near future, UMass. Team rankings Vegas inspired scores are: SLU 75, UMass 64.5. They give us a 10.5 point estimated advantage, and 4 stars of confidence we will win this one.

As far as Duquesne goes, we could have won but we did not, this is past tense, nothing to be done about it. UMass on the other hand is there to be beaten by us tomorrow. Go Bills!

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This would be my headline for an amazing game.........Bills win in OT with FTs...........  We shot right on target with FTs ...our usual crappy 58%...but in the final seconds of OT when it counted we we sunk 3  ...the game difference...including 1 (his only 1 )by French. The 2nd worst FT throw shooting team in D1 beat UMass (a D-   FT shooting team) that shot A+ tonight from the charity stripe (79% )

Star of the game was Jacobs who on a night when 3s were scarce (17%...only two 3PM for the whole team  )  sunk a big one in the waning moments with the Bills down 5....then sunk 2 go ahead FTs in the closing seconds. But in the end it was a team effort...with 4 players in double figures and French with a double double...19-13.  Collins chipped in with an amazing 9 assts.

However, it wasn't all rainbows and sunshine. The Bills violated the #1 Wiz rule...never turn the ball over more than 20 times (23) as 20 times or more usually  guarantees a loss....Fortunately, The Bills met the exception to the rule....EXCEPT when the other team turns it over more than you (UMass  25)

Lets look at a few of the numbers....Rebs...we are the best ...they are the worst...we were supposed to dominate...we didn't ...lost 43-42...fail.........Hold their Big 3 to 30 pts....they scored 54 pts...although a minor victory ...their two 3 pt shooters  (40%ers) shot only 21%....pomt containment....fail...

So how did we win....

TO differential by 2 ....though as mentioned above...ugly....This was a pass....

Slash... This was the difference maker...even though this too had an ugly spot ...this too, was a pass...49/17/58 ...original post projection...44/33/57....FT were even...we were missing two  3pt  shots ( -6 ) but had 4 extra FGM ( +8 )...-6 +8 = +2...Bills win...the 3rd pt was French's FT....Also fortunate was that after the 1st half the Bills only took five 3P shots in the 2nd half and OT

It wasn't pretty...but as I have said a number of times....good teams find a way to win....tonight we found many ways to win....and we needed every one of them.

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