The Bills over RI by 8

[almaman]

14 minutes ago, The Wiz said:

 

Here is an injury update just released....

Player		Status/Updated	Notes
Terrence Hargrove Jr.	F	Prob Wed - Undisclosed - 2/10/21	Hargrove Jr. has missed the last two games with an unknown injury, but is expected to be back in the lineup against Rhode Island on Wednesday.

interesting  

[Quality Is Job 1]

How easy it is to misspell Cory Remekun's name (I confess I forgot his first name doesn't have an "E").

[SLU_Nick]

His mom wasn’t aware he was injured? Seems so strange 

[The Wiz]

If you look at WWN2D2W...almost everything we needed to do was a miss....ALMOST.......everything but 1 stat ...and that made all the difference...TOs

I figured TOs would be important because a RI weakness is TOs...averaging nearly 16/gm.  And we are pretty good at applying pressure....so a difference of 4 would be good for 8 pts...the margin of the game.  Turns out RI has one of their best TO games of the season with a very good 12.   Coupled with our overall below average performance...it would seem like we would be in serious danger of losing this game.

And then something funny happened.....Usually around 10 TOs is good for an A+.....We had 4 TOs...not a difference 4 ....but 4 TOs for the entire game.  An amazing stat. TOs is one of the things I usually focus on....not only because it can be a big game changer....but it is something good teams...winning teams do well.  We have had over the years , those really good games where we will be down to  8 or 9 TOs /gm...but I can't remember anytime recently where we had 4.

This was a good win over a B team....a fading B team ...but none the less...a B team.

And we are still coming back from the pause (rust).  We are not there yet ...but we are close.  Check the Fordham spread thread when it appears  to see how close.

 

 

[AnkielBreakers]

7 hours ago, The Wiz said:

If you look at WWN2D2W...almost everything we needed to do was a miss....ALMOST.......everything but 1 stat ...and that made all the difference...TOs

I figured TOs would be important because a RI weakness is TOs...averaging nearly 16/gm.  And we are pretty good at applying pressure....so a difference of 4 would be good for 8 pts...the margin of the game.  Turns out RI has one of their best TO games of the season with a very good 12.   Coupled with our overall below average performance...it would seem like we would be in serious danger of losing this game.

And then something funny happened.....Usually around 10 TOs is good for an A+.....We had 4 TOs...not a difference 4 ....but 4 TOs for the entire game.  An amazing stat. TOs is one of the things I usually focus on....not only because it can be a big game changer....but it is something good teams...winning teams do well.  We have had over the years , those really good games where we will be down to  8 or 9 TOs /gm...but I can't remember anytime recently where we had 4.

This was a good win over a B team....a fading B team ...but none the less...a B team.

And we are still coming back from the pause (rust).  We are not there yet ...but we are close.  Check the Fordham spread thread when it appears  to see how close.

 

 

Low turnovers was a hallmark of the great Majerus/Crews teams. I feel like they would regularly have 6 TO’s. They had to have 4 or less more than once. They would get crushed on the boards though.

[HoosierPal]

We played out way out of the PIG.  No Pillow Fight.  Still six teams with only 2 losses in the A10.  Lots of fun still coming.

[The Wiz]

57 minutes ago, AnkielBreakers said:

Low turnovers was a hallmark of the great Majerus/Crews teams. I feel like they would regularly have 6 TO’s. They had to have 4 or less more than once. They would get crushed on the boards though.

You are correct ...The RM years were the best...with 2012 coming in with a season average of 11.2 TOs /gm which came out to a grade of A....followed closely behind by 2013  with an 11.5 (A-). This year so far the Bills are 11.8 (B+)...having a good TO year.  Generally, the best team of the year finishes around 9. ...A+ teams finish about mid 10s.  Variations are usually about 2....For example , the Bills at 11.8 have a normal range of about 10-14 TO/gm (about 2 on either side) ...outliers (another 2 TOs) would be as high as 16 and as low as 8.  So that is why I wrote about 4 TOs in the post above...Truly. an unusual event.  Lowest total in 5 years....The Bills all time record is 2....2016 against Geo Mason and 2004 against DePaul.

Here is the Bills TO report card over the last decade.

2021.......B+

2020.......C

2019........C

2018........C+

2017.........C-

2016.........D

2015.........D-

2014.........C-

2013..........A-

2012..........A

2011...........C+

 

[HoosierPal]

1 hour ago, AnkielBreakers said:

Low turnovers was a hallmark of the great Majerus/Crews teams. I feel like they would regularly have 6 TO’s. They had to have 4 or less more than once. They would get crushed on the boards though.

Our best TO/G team in the past three decades was Soderberg's first team in 2002-03 with a 10.7 TO/G average.  Majerus' '11-12 team ended at 11.2 TO/G.  Two teams ended at 11.4 TO/G, Spoon's '94-95 team and Crew's '12-13 team.  This season we are at 11.75 TO/G, so yes it could be among the best in recent history.

[RUBillsFan]

1 hour ago, AnkielBreakers said:

Low turnovers was a hallmark of the great Majerus/Crews teams. I feel like they would regularly have 6 TO’s. They had to have 4 or less more than once. They would get crushed on the boards though.

A few thoughts on Majerus' teams getting crushed on the boards:

1. It is kind of ironic because he used the now famous "To win: defend, rebound".  I suppose that "To win: defend (like one of the best teams in the nation), rebound (as a team on defense, but don't really worry about offensive boards)" is too much to say & not very catchy.

2. If you just look at overall rebounding margin for the Majerus teams, it is horribly skewed.  You have to separate out offensive & defensive rebounding and look at rebounding % to get a more accurate picture.  Majerus wasn't worried much about offensive rebounding because he wanted to limit opponents transition offense (Sodie & Crews (to the extreme) did the same thing).  Therefore, his teams were always pretty bad at offensive rebounding, but actually good at defensive rebounding.  Because his teams were so good at holding opponents to a low FG% with excellent D, there were a ton of defensive rebound to be had & opponents would end up with a high overall total for offensive rebounds even if the % of O boards they grabbed was low.

3. Majerus teams never really had great rebounding big men perhaps because Majerus stressed team rebounding where the bigs would block out and a guard might scoop up the board.  Loe, Ellis, Conklin, etc. weren't great rebounders.  Evans was great, but undersized.

[The Wiz]

23 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

Our best TO/G team in the past three decades was Soderberg's first team in 2002-03 with a 10.7 TO/G average.  Majerus' '11-12 team ended at 11.2 TO/G.  Two teams ended at 11.4 TO/G, Spoon's '94-95 team and Crew's '12-13 team.  This season we are at 11.75 TO/G, so yes it could be among the best in recent history.

That 2003 team was the best SLU  TO team....finished 6th In The Nation with a deserved A+