The Bills over Day by 1

[wgstl]

I think the target line for 3% will need to be 35%

[Glorydayzedandconfused]

Thatch could play like Bess' old role and just guard Crutcher

[Basketbill]

14 minutes ago, Glorydayzedandconfused said:

Thatch could play like Bess' old role and just guard Crutcher

Crutcher had a nasty fall last night at the end of the game.  He was fouled on a driving layup,  and lad hard directly on his right hip.  Dayton was down by two with 3.9 seconds left, the then made the first FT and missed the 2nd.  Suspect his hip is sore this am.

[AnkielBreakers]

I respect the Wiz’s thought on this matter, but they are wrong. Bills by 11.

[brianstl]

4 hours ago, Pistol said:

We lost to Dayton to end the 2014 regular season, kicking off a 7-game losing streak to them that was snapped in 2018. We're 3-5 since then. The all-time series is 37-28 in UD's favor.

We lost there by 1 in 2009 and proceeded to win 7 of the next 9 against them, including ruining their Senior Day in 2010 and 2011.

This will be weird for me because I've seen every SLU game at Dayton since 2008.

Spoiling those Senior Day with wins were sweet.  Dayton should always play here on Mardi Gras Parade day and we should always play there on Senior Day.

[The Wiz]

2 hours ago, AnkielBreakers said:

How long have we been trending to B+? We have been beating spreads, haven’t we?

After the pause , we pulled back to a B- on the trend line...and popped up to a B+ around the RI game...after the pause ....we have had 2 losses (missed spreads).... ..2 games   finished on target ( 1&3 pts off ) and 2 games where we beat the spread big.... enough of a comeback to pop us from B- to B+...So B+ is about right...Overall,  is still A-.    I think if we can exceed the spread by more than a few points, we can move up to A & A-....almost back to the KC game.

[almaman]

1 hour ago, Basketbill said:

Crutcher had a nasty fall last night at the end of the game.  He was fouled on a driving layup,  and lad hard directly on his right hip.  Dayton was down by two with 3.9 seconds left, the then made the first FT and missed the 2nd.  Suspect his hip is sore this am.

hurt2watch

[AnkielBreakers]

1 hour ago, The Wiz said:

After the pause , we pulled back to a B- on the trend line...and popped up to a B+ around the RI game...after the pause ....we have had 2 losses (missed spreads).... ..2 games   finished on target ( 1&3 pts off ) and 2 games where we beat the spread big.... enough of a comeback to pop us from B- to B+...So B+ is about right...Overall,  is still A-.    I think if we can exceed the spread by more than a few points, we can move up to A & A-....almost back to the KC game.

Well, my thinking, without relying on any analytics, is that our defense has taken off, while our offense hasn’t dropped off too much from its high point. I think we are as good right now as we have been this year. I even think that Yuri should come off the bench for 2 games when he comes back. Just to slowly transition back into the starting role. We could lose on Friday and my opinion would change, but right now, I am impressed with Goodwin’s low turnovers, and I am impressed with the teams focus on D. Also note, Defense travels in the tournament.

[Dr. Holly Hills]

6 hours ago, The Wiz said:

And that's just it....Home field advantage  as it relates to crowds is not the major factor....Difficulty of travel for the visitors   has made up for any lost advantage  of missing home  crowds.  The most difficult factor this year has been the actual covid factor itself...the effect it has on players  after they come back and for how long.

Are you saying home field advantage is still the same level a factor as in regular years because of the higher travel difficulty?   Road team Winning %, shooting/FT %? What if you eliminate “covid return” games from the equation for all teams?

[Dr. Holly Hills]

6 hours ago, The Wiz said:

 

[The Wiz]

1 hour ago, Dr. Holly Hills said:

Are you saying home field advantage is still the same level a factor as in regular years because of the higher travel difficulty?   Road team Winning %, shooting/FT %? What if you eliminate “covid return” games from the equation for all teams?

I am saying that is a possibility...a possible explanation.  Many teams are showing the same home field advantage with little or no fans....A small percentage have  actually shown an increase while another small percentage have shown a decrease. Two things here.... 1.  It is a small sample size to make generalizations....Less than 1 full season.....  Even the season that exists is missing 100s of games as a result of teams sitting out or playing a partial season....2.. Every venue has a normal home field advantage that changes very little from year to year....This year is an exception.   There are variations from the normal home field advantage.  We could argue about the why but what I have done instead is to make an adjustment using an algorithm to adjust homefield advantage as the data comes in.  It isn't perfect but it seems to be working. The more home games a team plays the better it will work.  It works best when the teams has played at least 8 home games.

The speculation of the missing home crowd vs the extra difficulty traveling was a hypothesis to explain the variations.  Truth be told , there are too many different variables over a short, disruptive season to know the exact causes in every venue situation.  However that doesn't mean those variations can't be quantified and again it seems to be working so far.

[Schasz]

This one of the scary games left on the schedule. We can win it but someone needs to guard Crutcher as he has been a real thorn in our side. While the game is winnable stout D is a must.

[SLU_Nick]

Vegas opens this spread at Bills -6.  

That is the biggest difference in betting spread and Wiz spread that I have maybe ever seen

[Fraz]

36 minutes ago, SLU_Nick said:

Vegas opens this spread at Bills -6.  

That is the biggest difference in betting spread and Wiz spread that I have maybe ever seen

Vegas has loved us all year

[Littlebill]

39 minutes ago, Fraz said:

Vegas has loved us all year

Agreed. Our ATS numbers aren’t great

[majerus mojo]

22 minutes ago, Littlebill said:

Agreed. Our ATS numbers aren’t great

We started out like 6-0 ATS before losing to Minnesota 

[David King]

1 hour ago, SLU_Nick said:

Vegas opens this spread at Bills -6.  

That is the biggest difference in betting spread and Wiz spread that I have maybe ever seen

Unlike the Wiz, many Vegas oddsmakers still take into account Jimmy the Greek's "intangibles" when analyzing  match ups. Clearly, the Billikens get the check mark in the Intangibles column. Although unmeasurable, the Billikens are superior to Dayton in attitude, effort, communication, and overall team chemistry.

[VeniceMenace]

16 minutes ago, David King said:

Unlike the Wiz, many Vegas oddsmakers still take into account Jimmy the Greek's "intangibles" when analyzing  match ups. Clearly, the Billikens get the check mark in the Intangibles column. Although unmeasurable, the Billikens are superior to Dayton in attitude, effort, communication, and overall team chemistry.

Either that or the oddsmakers are really impressed with all the ferocious slam dunks.

[Littlebill]

50 minutes ago, majerus mojo said:

We started out like 6-0 ATS before losing to Minnesota 

Yep. We're 9-5. That's on me

[Old guy]

41 minutes ago, David King said:

Unlike the Wiz, many Vegas oddsmakers still take into account Jimmy the Greek's "intangibles" when analyzing  match ups. Clearly, the Billikens get the check mark in the Intangibles column. Although unmeasurable, the Billikens are superior to Dayton in attitude, effort, communication, and overall team chemistry.

Betting spreads are essentially predictions, there is only a portion of these predictions that can be based strictly upon measurable statistics, the rest of these predictions are less tangible and depend upon the accumulated experience of the person making the prediction. This is the way it works in sports, but this is also the way it works with market trading. Some people are extremely good at this "art", others less so. Vegas spreads can be taken as an average of these predictions made by professional bettors. By the way, you must understand that the accuracy for the predictions made by  any one person will vary with time (which is the reason Vegas uses averages) sometimes these people have a hot streak, sometimes a cold streak.

Extending this thinking to the market. For those of you considering using platforms like Robinhood as a way to get rich buying and selling stocks, please remember that EXPERIENCE accounts for a good portion of the process in the prediction business. If you do not have experience don't bet the farm.

[The Wiz]

2 hours ago, SLU_Nick said:

Vegas opens this spread at Bills -6.  

That is the biggest difference in betting spread and Wiz spread that I have maybe ever seen

This is a big difference ....I redid the numbers this morning....and they still come up with Bills winning by 1.

I think there are 2 factors here at work.

1...Injuries....I rechecked this too today.....no change.. ...Yuri and Sissoko are still  both questionable for tonight.  I think the Vegas thinking is that Yuri will play some minutes tonight and Sissoko won't.

2....Trend line....here is a line from my original post in this thread....The trending model shows we have a chance to win by 7-10 pts with a good shooting game (a prepause slash) and continued excellent defense.   I don't usually put a trend line spread in my forecasts....usually I will just list a trend grade to give you some idea which way we and the opponent  are headed. In this case I did list a trend spread because their was a striking distance between the trend data and the overall numbers.  Let me reiterate...this is an optimistic view. and the momentum factor may carry us tonight but I wouldn't use an optimistic momentum /trend line as my main forecasting tool.

Generally, the spreads work even when they don't come out right. For instance in this game, I would expect it to be close... back and forth  for most of the game....Even if we win by 7-10 ...it could be a close game for 35 minutes and then open up in the final few minutes.  Many missed spreads are a result of the final few minutes...sometimes a lucky break,  sometimes something else. In the Bills case that something else could be depth....the ability to have someone come in with fresh energy and "spark" the team.

A win by 6  to 10 pts would be great for our numbers...our grades and chances would go up more ....the spread matters in this game.

Here is hoping Vegas is right.

 

[Old guy]

By the way Wiz, your system, as well as some of the others provide adjustments, they are not rigid. This is a reasonable way to make up the difference between "experience" and stats. You are fine, and I do hope we beat Dayton to the ground.

[The Wiz]

Every team usually has 2 outliers every season...A good one ...where you play unbelievably fantastic and another game  that is so bad it is also not believable.... Tonight was the bad one.  Do you think Dayton looked like a champion tonight? This was a team that lost to Fordham....an F- team.  That was their outlier.  And yet they were able to come back and beat us.    It happens. 
To simplify tonight's wrap up...let's say we lost almost every stat (except rebounding).  Without prolonging the pain, let's look at just 1 stat...The slash...27/23/62...a triple F-...the sad thing was none of those numbers was close to F.

For those that have given up and think all is lost, all I can tell you is this...if we were to face Dayton  tomorrow in the A-10 tourney in Richmond....I would again pick The Bills to win....not because I am a diehard Bills fan ....but because the numbers say we are the better team.

Keep the faith ...there is  still a lot of basketball to play.

[brianstl]

9 minutes ago, The Wiz said:

Every team usually has 2 outliers every season...A good one ...where you play unbelievably fantastic and another game  that is so bad it is also not believable.... Tonight was the bad one.  Do you think Dayton looked like a champion tonight? This was a team that lost to Fordham....an F- team.  That was their outlier.  And yet they were able to come back and beat us.    It happens. 
To simplify tonight's wrap up...let's say we lost almost every stat (except rebounding).  Without prolonging the pain, let's look at just 1 stat...The slash...27/23/62...a triple F-...the sad thing was none of those numbers was close to F.

For those that have given up and think all is lost, all I can tell you is this...if we were to face Dayton  tomorrow in the A-10 tourney in Richmond....I would again pick The Bills to win....not because I am a diehard Bills fan ....but because the numbers say we are the better team.

Keep the faith ...there is  still a lot of basketball to play.

There really isn’t.  We have zero margin for error when it comes to getting an at large bid.