2020-21 Season

[White Pelican]

6 minutes ago, Old guy said:

Because I fear this season may be a horror show in terms of testing and scheduling games. In other words, we have a top winning team, but they can win and make it count only if they play the correct opponents. I trust Ford, but I think this season may be really difficult to schedule and play out.

Fair enough I guess. But I think everyone (well, maybe NOT everyone) is hopeful that what we anticipate being the best Bills team in years will allow the team to get to show their stuff, even if the season isn't what we usually experience. Perhaps it won't go down well, but why be a downer right now? Pro sports is at least having some success with getting seasons played.

I guess I just don't like someone peeing in my cornflakes for no good reason.

[Old guy]

White Pelican if you choose to see things through rose colored glasses now, that is OK with me. I agree this is the very best team we have had in many years, my real concern is whether or not we will manage to be able to show it given the issues unique to this particular season. This is not going to be a normal season with a set schedule, I think everybody agrees with this.

 

[RUBillsFan]

5 hours ago, Taj79 said:

I'm going to take a 'wait-n-see' attitude with Lorentsson.  I'd love for the guy to be the next Dirk Nowitzki, Goran Dragic, Marco Bellinelli Euro-shooter but I heard that Tanner Lancona, KC Hankton, Dion Wiley, Eliott Welmer, Drew Deiner, Ingvi Gudmundsson and a slew of others could shoot too.  I'm trusting this one more than those others because it's Ford and his recruitment of Jimmmerson has broken the old mold.  

But history is not his side.  Prove me wrong, Andre.

Elliott Welmer shot 37% from 3 for his (admittedly brief) career and Drew Deiner shot 40% from 3 for his career.  You can knock those guys for many other things like staying healthy (Welmer) or defense (Deiner).  Saying they didn't live up to their billing as shooters doesn't make any sense.

[DeSmetBilliken]

Tough break for Richmond.

[bauman]

14 minutes ago, DeSmetBilliken said:

Tough break for Richmond.

Here's where a lack of depth kills a team.  Sherod led the team in 3 pointers last year and hit just under 44% from beyond the arc, so he's a big loss. As I recall they don't have much behind their starting 5 seniors.  A bad break for the A-10, but helps clear a path for the Bills to win the league.

[3star_recruit]

24 minutes ago, DeSmetBilliken said:

Tough break for Richmond.

Brutal is right.  Jeopardizes their NCAA chances and weakens our strength of schedule.

[slu72]

Calling Taj Mahal ‘79 for Richmond’s options. Big hit for Spiders. How quickly the worm can turn on a season.  Please, Lord, keep our players safe. 

[bauman]

5 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

Brutal is right.  Jeopardizes their NCAA chances and weakens our strength of schedule.

Let's just win the A-10 championship and not worry about strength of schedule in a year when no one knows what to expect from the NCAA Selection Committee.  The only safe route is win the A-10.

[HoosierPal]

2 hours ago, DeSmetBilliken said:

Tough break for Richmond.

Tough break for Mr. Sherod.  Two ACL tears in his college career.  Trey Burton will get more minutes as will Connor Crabtree.  Burton would give them a more conventional C-2F-2G lineup, while Crabtree will provide some relief outside the arc (36.7%).  Touted freshman Dji Bailey will need to step up quickly. 

[Cowboy]

1 hour ago, DeSmetBilliken said:

Tough break for Richmond.

-wow, that sucks for them and the A10

[wgstl]

On 10/18/2020 at 2:43 PM, wgstl said:

that looks like okoro, but didnt he had shoulder surgery recently?

hes retired from basketball 

[RiseOfTheBillikens]

33 minutes ago, wgstl said:

hes retired from basketball 

What?

[SLURadioBoy]

7 minutes ago, RiseOfTheBillikens said:

What?

I think he’s talking about Nick Sherod from Richmond. He announced tonight that his basketball career is over.

[Taj79]

All I'm saying on Lorentsson is I have heard this before and am reserving judgement, that is all.  I am okay being proven wrong.  We tend to lean towards the overzealous side when it come to being parochial on our players.  We want the next Kristas Porzingas but I'll settle for a close Cody Ellis clone.  Let's remember too that Ellis was a career 33% shooter from three.  Not that colossal by any standards.

[wgstl]

57 minutes ago, SLURadioBoy said:

I think he’s talking about Nick Sherod from Richmond. He announced tonight that his basketball career is over.

Yep not sure why I quoted that, ha.

[slu72]

50 minutes ago, Taj79 said:

All I'm saying on Lorentsson is I have heard this before and am reserving judgement, that is all.  I am okay being proven wrong.  We tend to lean towards the overzealous side when it come to being parochial on our players.  We want the next Kristas Porzingas but I'll settle for a close Cody Ellis clone.  Let's remember too that Ellis was a career 33% shooter from three.  Not that colossal by any standards.

You played the same tune with me last year on the Yurimania train, and got stuck in the cattle car. Now, I’m tempted to fire up the Swede Special, but will wait for further reports. Hopefully, Billikenswin will continue with more inside the ropes reports. I need some Viking videos before I make my call. 

[HoosierPal]

1 hour ago, SLURadioBoy said:

I think he’s talking about Nick Sherod from Richmond. He announced tonight that his basketball career is over.

Curious, where did you pick that up?  I wouldn't blame him at all for hanging it up. Two ACL tears in three years is really rough.  He is a grad student, and perhaps he feels his future is something outside of competitive hoops.

[SLURadioBoy]

20 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

Curious, where did you pick that up?  I wouldn't blame him at all for hanging it up. Two ACL tears in three years is really rough.  He is a grad student, and perhaps he feels his future is something outside of competitive hoops.

 

[slu72]

8 hours ago, SLURadioBoy said:

 

Feel bad for him sounds like a great kid. Good luck, Mr Sherod. 

[kshoe]

15 hours ago, bauman said:

Let's just win the A-10 championship and not worry about strength of schedule in a year when no one knows what to expect from the NCAA Selection Committee.  The only safe route is win the A-10.

I guess I don't understand this line of thinking before the season even begins. I'd be very surprised if the Billikens don't make the NCAA tourney if they are 22-5 or better given what we reasonably believe about the non-con and A-10 schedules.

Winning the A-10 tourney should be a last resort concept for getting to the NCAA tourney.

[Taj79]

I don't have anything to add over and above what HP said on Richmond.  Mooney had expressed high hopes for rising sophomore Tyler Burton and there were times he looked pretty decent out there.  Kind of like Maceo Austin at Duquesne.  I think both have high ceilings.  Burton was the sixth leading scorer on  Richmond last year behind the rising seniors.  It was about 5 ppg and he disappeared against the bigger stronger foes (like us - 3pts, 5 rebounds, 4 fouls).  The answer is not Gustavson but Crabtree, transfer from Tulane, might work.  

Burton would make them look more traditional with C/PF/SF/2G/PG.  Crabtree could step in and keep it a three guard lineup.  I thought Sherrod was their best player and replacing that and fifth year leadership will be tough.  I think Gilyard will now have to look to score more often and not just be the pass-first PG.

Maybe Koureissi can come on some.  He was a higher rated recruit than Bailey but was behind Burton at the small forward rotation last year.  

I said Richmond has the most to lose if a starter went down and I stand by that.  If I were a Rixhmondfan,I wouldn't throw the towel in atall.  I'd hope and pray the answer is somewhere in Crabtree/Burton/Koureissi/Bailey and go from there.  But it's a huge hit .... it would be us losing Goodwin, French or Perkins IMHO.

[slu72]

Let’s not even mention the possibility of losing one of our SRs. It’s like a broadcaster saying, “Jones hasn’t thrown an Int in his last 5 games.” And BANG Jones’ next pass is a pick six. 

[bauman]

2 hours ago, kshoe said:

I guess I don't understand this line of thinking before the season even begins. I'd be very surprised if the Billikens don't make the NCAA tourney if they are 22-5 or better given what we reasonably believe about the non-con and A-10 schedules.

Winning the A-10 tourney should be a last resort concept for getting to the NCAA tourney.

I'm not sure if we just have a semantics issue here about "last resort", but here's the way I view our NCAA chances this year:

 

Win the A-10            -         100%

Not winning the A-10          -          50-75 %       

 

This less than 100% option means we lost our last game before the Sel. Comt. (SC) meets, and just taking your regular season guesstimate of 22-5  and then tacking on losing our last game (in the A-10 tournament) would mean, an overall record of 24-6 , at best, or 23-6 or 22-6.

I know we are dealing with a different number of game this year, but we need to keep in mind that we won 23 regular season games last year, were on a roll at the end of the year, yet according to ESPN/Lunardi were NOT even considered a bubble team!  I think that was a crock of sht, but that's shows the hurdle we need to overcome when we leave our destiny up to a biased SC which is more inclined to include sub-.500 P6 teams than 2nd or 3rd place A-10 teams.

I'm not sure what's wrong with my "line of thinking", when I prefer a 100% chance of making the NCAA as opposed to a less than 100% chance.  To use your words, I don't want to be "very surprised" at not being selected-I want the SC to have no chance to screw us over. 

I think you are picking a nit.  We both want the same thing-the Bills in the NCAA, and I go along with you in thinking we will be good enough this year to be an at-large selection.  My preference, however, is to win the A-10,  What's wrong with that?

[kshoe]

1 hour ago, bauman said:

I'm not sure if we just have a semantics issue here about "last resort", but here's the way I view our NCAA chances this year:

 

Win the A-10            -         100%

Not winning the A-10          -          50-75 %       

 

This less than 100% option means we lost our last game before the Sel. Comt. (SC) meets, and just taking your regular season guesstimate of 22-5  and then tacking on losing our last game (in the A-10 tournament) would mean, an overall record of 24-6 , at best, or 23-6 or 22-6.

I know we are dealing with a different number of game this year, but we need to keep in mind that we won 23 regular season games last year, were on a roll at the end of the year, yet according to ESPN/Lunardi were NOT even considered a bubble team!  I think that was a crock of sht, but that's shows the hurdle we need to overcome when we leave our destiny up to a biased SC which is more inclined to include sub-.500 P6 teams than 2nd or 3rd place A-10 teams.

I'm not sure what's wrong with my "line of thinking", when I prefer a 100% chance of making the NCAA as opposed to a less than 100% chance.  To use your words, I don't want to be "very surprised" at not being selected-I want the SC to have no chance to screw us over. 

I think you are picking a nit.  We both want the same thing-the Bills in the NCAA, and I go along with you in thinking we will be good enough this year to be an at-large selection.  My preference, however, is to win the A-10,  What's wrong with that?

I think everyone understands that winning the A-10 tourney guarantees an NCAA appearance. But if that is what is required for us to make the dance, it'll be a disappointing year, plain and simple. We'd be looking at a 13 seed or so and will have a bunch of regular season losses. The goal for this team should be an at-large caliber resume, not one that is dependent on winning 3-4 games over a weekend. Even talking about the A-10 tourney as a path to the NCAA tourney before the season starts implies that is the preferred or likely approach. It's an approach I'd expect low majors to be talking about. I doubt anybody in the Big East is talking about winning the conference tourney as a path to the NCAA.

Here's another way to think about it:

A-10 tourney champs (needed to get in the dance): Seed = 12-14

At large caliber (regardless of whether we win the A-10 tourney): Seed = 1 - 12

 

If you want a real nit, I wouldn't put a 100% probability on there even being an A-10 tourney this year. Who knows how the season will play out and what people will be comfortable with. The NCAA desperately needs the tv revenue from an NCAA tourney so a bubble could be done for that, but it wouldn't shock me if some conferences just let the regular season winner go instead of having a tourney.

[SLU_Nick]

1 hour ago, bauman said:

I'm not sure if we just have a semantics issue here about "last resort", but here's the way I view our NCAA chances this year:

 

Win the A-10            -         100%

Not winning the A-10          -          50-75 %       

 

This less than 100% option means we lost our last game before the Sel. Comt. (SC) meets, and just taking your regular season guesstimate of 22-5  and then tacking on losing our last game (in the A-10 tournament) would mean, an overall record of 24-6 , at best, or 23-6 or 22-6.

I know we are dealing with a different number of game this year, but we need to keep in mind that we won 23 regular season games last year, were on a roll at the end of the year, yet according to ESPN/Lunardi were NOT even considered a bubble team!  I think that was a crock of sht, but that's shows the hurdle we need to overcome when we leave our destiny up to a biased SC which is more inclined to include sub-.500 P6 teams than 2nd or 3rd place A-10 teams.

I'm not sure what's wrong with my "line of thinking", when I prefer a 100% chance of making the NCAA as opposed to a less than 100% chance.  To use your words, I don't want to be "very surprised" at not being selected-I want the SC to have no chance to screw us over. 

I think you are picking a nit.  We both want the same thing-the Bills in the NCAA, and I go along with you in thinking we will be good enough this year to be an at-large selection.  My preference, however, is to win the A-10,  What's wrong with that?

The difference was we were not even top 3 in the A-10 last year, we finished 4th.  The fact that we blew Rhode Island and Richmond out did not matter as much as we think with the committee because they value the entire body of work.  Losing to Duquense twice and UMass just cannot happen for an A-10 team to clinch an at large.  

The expectations for this season are incredibly high and I think we will be a good team.  Are we going to be the kind of team that can play a D+ game and beat a team like Umass?  That is the point that remains to be seen.  Being a bills fan, I will always secretly dread the inexplicable Santa Clara-like loss no matter how much talent we put on the floor.  

I genuinely think we will be able to play with anyone in the country, it's gonna be the Bonaventure road game that we need to win....otherwise national pundits will just find a way to push us to the side.  Literally one of those losses to middling A-10 teams is too much.  Dayton was literally undefeated (and SDSU for a while) and I still felt like ESPN and the national media just wanted to talk about a 7 loss "Louisville type" teams.