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The Bills over St. J by 6


The Wiz

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We played just hard enough to win at LaS...but it is another W.

On to St. J...a bad team as you will see in the report card...D+ rated ...trending at D.  Unfortunately, after a brief moment at B+ , we have slipped back to B , not just because of our squeaker at LaS  but it seems some of our past opponents are starting to slip down....We just gotta keep winning.

Let's see  what the report card looks like....

..............................SLU...........................St J...............................................................SLU................................St J

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

PPG.........................C...............................C-.................................................................B+....................................F-....8th WITN

FG%.........................C-..............................F-...9th WITN............................................ ..A-...................................F

3Pt%........................C-..............................F+................................................................C.....................................F

FT%.........................F-....WITN...................D+... .......................................................................................................

Reb.........................A+..10th ITN...............B...............................................................C.......................................F

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

 Bills  Offensive reb....A+....8th  ITN....up

Change from last game (UP means improvement ...Down means worse....UP ....3P%......... DOWN......FG%.....FT%.....Reb

Top 100 ITN

Stls....Goodwin ...35th.....up

Assts...Y Collins....34th.....unchanged

Rebs...Goodwin..7th.....French...11th.....up and unchanged

Off Reb....French ...10th...Goodwin...39th...up  and up

Def reb...Goodwin ...12th...French...35th...up & down

Blks.....French....15th...up

PPG....Daly...45th

FT%...Douglas...82nd (86.8%)

Injury report......

Thatch...out indefinitely...no change

Funk....F...1/29/20...out for season with right hand injury.

 

WWN2D2W...This game will be The Daly Show....This guy leads the team in pts, assts, reb and stls....Stop him to win...hold him to 15pts....Moore is their 3 pt guy...hold him to one 3PM....Dismal  St. J report card...Hmmm,  I have to say something nice about their team...they can rebound...beat them by 3 on the boards...win the TO battle by any amount...slash at the Bills slash rate...44/33/58....

Bottom line...We could win this by a lot if we can control the tempo of the game....why only 6pts??...because the computer thinks we will play to their level...this would be a good time to prove the computer wrong and win big.

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The Joeys have a bad record but present a difficult matchup for us. The problem is similar to playing Davidson in that they have tall guards in the '6'3 - 6'5 range capable of taking our small guards off the dribble.

Also, would love to see Has' get going again making better decisions with shot selection. We have enough trouble getting him shots and he seems to want to take the more difficult shot as if he's getting style points added. Travis was really upset with him at the start of the second half when he passed up the easy shot for one that was blocked but then he did the same thing again later. With all the film study they do it seems like a correctable problem and we've got to get him scoring again in the high teens to make the post-season.

SLU_Nick likes this
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Face it, there are no gimme games for this team. That said, I think LaSalle is better than their record. Not sure about the Flapping Hawks. I haven't seen them play. I did see LaSalle v VCU and thought they'll give us all we want, which they did.

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31 minutes ago, ACE said:

This is another game it would be really nice to have Thatch to make Daly's life a living hell and coast to victory. Without Thatch, I fear another nail biter.

Good post I think about the defensive hell Thatch would apply on players like Daly.

I also think about Thatch guarding Crutcher’s buzzer beater shot.

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1 minute ago, CBFan said:

Good post I think about the defensive hell Thatch would apply on players like Daly.

I also think about Thatch guarding Crutcher’s buzzer beater shot.

I have that same thought, Crutcher is an outstanding player, but Thatch would have made his like more difficult that night and we win the game. I also find myself thinking about what this team would be like if it had both Fred and Gibson.

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2 minutes ago, ACE said:

I have that same thought, Crutcher is an outstanding player, but Thatch would have made his like more difficult that night and we win the game. I also find myself thinking about what this team would be like if it had both Fred and Gibson.

*Fingers crossed/knock on wood* we are going to find out next year. 

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Personnel report:  La Salle scared me more than the Joey's.  La Salle at least had some decent athletic types in my book.  Croswell.  Spencer.  Phiri.  Deas.  I don't really see that with the Joeys but as the Wiz and others say, playing to our competition.

Overall, the Joey's are a dismal 4 and 17, 0 and 8 in the A10, and 14th in the standings.  Their lone impressive win came at UConn but UConn today is not UConn of the recent past.  Still, pretty amazing given the other 20 games.  St. Jo'es closest game in the A10 has been losing by 6 in OT at Davidson after Daly made that improabable 30-foot redirection of a three at the buzzer to send it to OT.

St. Joe's plays five out ---- the only time they dive to the rim is on solo drives for the most part.  Daly is their leader in just about everything but he is no point guard.  As a matter of fact, I don't think they have one on their entire roster.  Bynum transferred to Providence and Nelson decommitted and went to Geedubya.  It's Daly by default.  Almost a third of Daly's shots are threes but Cameron Brown and Lorenzo Edwards have also launched over 100 threes this year.  Anthony Longpre has been starting at center and he's no threat inside.  They start three guards with Freeman joining Daly and Brown and also add Myles Douglas to go alongside Longpre.  Raheem Moore and Edwards usually come off the bench.  Overall they go 8 or 9 deep.

Defensively, because of the lack of real talented depth, they can tend more to a zone than man-to-man.  Daly also leads them in rebounding because he is one of back guys on the zone.  Edwards is their lone rim protector although Douglas can step in.  There are times when Edwards can go unconscious and just make everything but I feel he has been misused for the better part of his time there ala Isiaih Miles five years ago.

Because of the zone, defensive rebounding is one of their glaring weaknesses.  That and a dearth of talent and basketball skills on the roster.  But we'll play to the level I am aure.  

I thought La Salle would be the more tougher game and now I'm really hoping I was right and we sweep Philly.  Would be nice … AND NEEDED.

Will be in section 203 for the Jebbie battle.

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12 minutes ago, ACE said:

I have that same thought, Crutcher is an outstanding player, but Thatch would have made his like more difficult that night and we win the game. I also find myself thinking about what this team would be like if it had both Fred and Gibson.

I think SLU is undefeated in conference play with Thatch and Jimerson playing in the conference games.

When the offense got bogged down with the road losses Jimerson would make a big 3.  Jimerson was starting to blossom the Tulane game is a good example.  How many baskets would Thatch have prevented at a critical part of those games.

Jimerson could have negated the barrage of 3’s in the Dayton game that got Dayton in the game.

When I calm down after games and look that SLU lost its best defender and best shooter why do I get so frustrated with the team when they struggle?  It’s crazy that I do that because in spite of the injuries the body of work is 16-5 and on the bubble.

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1 hour ago, ACE said:

This is another game it would be really nice to have Thatch to make Daly's life a living hell and coast to victory. Without Thatch, I fear another nail biter.

i think goodwin can make daly's life difficult.   i do not want to see collins guarding daly.   daly is too physically strong for collins and will take him inside.   

 

daly might be my favorite non billiken player in the conference.   

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St. Joes shoots a ton of 3s and plays pretty fast.  49.3% of their field goal attempts are from 3 point range which is 4th in the nation.  KenPom also has the 32nd in the nation in adjusted tempo.

The good news for us is that they aren't very good from 3 - 30.4% or 303rd in the nation.  For reference, SLU shoots 33% as a team (185th ITN), but only 29.3% of their FGs are 3s (333rd ITN).

As long as St Joes doesn't have a crazy hot shooting night from long distance, we should win.

It worries me though that if they do have a crazy hot night, we won't stand a chance (see last year's game at St. Joes).

More crazy stat contrasts:

Perkins leads SLU in 3pt attempts with 74.  St. Joes has 3 guys who have taken over 100 already and none of them have made more than 1/3 of those attempts.

*All of these numbers are from KenPom who (I think) excludes games vs DII opponents.

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39 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

6'10" Longpre is shooting 3 to 4 three pointers per game for the Hawks.  Bell is going to have to drift out to the arc and guard him.  That didn't go too well with Bell on Toppin.

I think Bell did a good job on Toppin. 

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42 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

6'10" Longpre is shooting 3 to 4 three pointers per game for the Hawks.  Bell is going to have to drift out to the arc and guard him.  That didn't go too well with Bell on Toppin.

I'm not sure where 3 to 4 is coming from.  Longpre has 47 3pt attempts in 17 games or 2.8 per game.  Still I agree that he is an outside threat and Bell will need to do a better job of preventing him from taking open 3s than he did against Toppin*.

*The major difference is that Toppin is also an athletic freak so Bell had to stay back or Toppin could have beaten him off the dribble or on a backdoor cut.  Longpre has only 28 pt attempts this year at 54% (by far the highest of his career) compared to Toppins 211 at 70%.  

Generally, I agree with @willie that Bell did an admirable job on Toppin.  If you have to choose 70% on 2 pts (1.4 pts per attempt) vs 34% on 3s (1.02 per attempt), you choose to let Toppin take a 3 over a 2.  Toppin was 4-10 from inside the arc and 40% was easily his lowest mark of the season.  He made 3 (of 6) three pointers which matched his season high.  

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Official injury update....

Weaver...1/31/20...Shoulder...Probable....Weaver is expected to play Sat despite shoulder injury.

As for 3pt shooting....as I mentioned in the opening post ...St. J is an F+ shooting 3P team....of the 6 regular players   (20+min /gm) only 1 is shooting over 34% (Moore...41%)  ..if we bother him he shouldn't  have more than one 3PM.  Remember this is the Daly show....stop him and we win.

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1 hour ago, willie said:

I think Bell did a good job on Toppin. 

Good job inside, very good job indeed.  Best defensive stand for Bell this year.

But not when Toppin went outside the arc. Bell left him unguarded on 2 of his 3 three pointers that Toppin took when he was on him. Bell went out on the final attempt.  Toppin took three other three's when Bell was not in the game. 

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1 hour ago, RUBillsFan said:

I'm not sure where 3 to 4 is coming from.  Longpre has 47 3pt attempts in 17 games or 2.8 per game.  Still I agree that he is an outside threat and Bell will need to do a better job of preventing him from taking open 3s than he did against Toppin*.

3.3 in conference games, 12 attempts in his last three games.   Hence, 3 to 4.  

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Coachspeak ..... playing five out ..... means an exterior based offensive attack.  All five prefer to launch threes over banging inside.  Longpre is a soft,  Euro-4 from Canada, no less.  It would be the same even if Taylor Funk were available as he preferred the three over the inside game and he was a stout 6'8", 230#.

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