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The Bills over St. B by 1


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Well for the Nervous Nellies...where  each and EVERY game has you on edge...your feelings are justified today. This will be a nail biter.  Not only because it will be close but because of the importance of the game. Let's review the Dance Chance.

Dance Chance

We go into this game with a 59% chance to Dance.

If we win....69%

If we lose...52%

Assuming we win this game and move onto the Championship game, we will go into that game with a 69% chance to Dance

If we win....100% chance

If we lose 63% chance

Now you see why this is a big game...even with a loss next week we still have a decent chance to make it....which means we have to win today.

The Bonnies are in the same situation , a must win game for them too.

We go into this game as A- overall and trending at A-...St. B is the same....A- & A-.   St. B will be the best defensive team we face as you will see in the report card below.. This will be a low scoring defensive struggle.  Our big advantage this game will be depth....St. B has no depth ...4 guards and a forward...Their starters are averaging 32-36  min/gm.... in a close  or big game,  they play more like yesterday....here are the playing times for yesterday's game....40, 40, 38, 38 and 30...plus 12 & 2.  That is a lot of minutes for the starters.  We need to wear them out.  AND playing A+ defense,  in and of it self,  is tiring.  I hope the Bills can exploit this advantage. 

 

Let's look at the report card.

 
..........................SLU.........................St. B...............................SLU.....................................St. B

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

PPG......................B+...............................C-................................A-........................................A+...7th ITN

FG%......................A-...............................B-.................................B+........................................A+...9th ITN

3Pt%.....................B................................B..................................C-........................................A-

FT%......................C-....... ........................B-..............................................................................A+...5th ITN

Reb......................A...................................B.................................A+...11th ITN........................B

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

UP....Offense...FG%.....3P%.....FT% ..........Defense .......Reb

Down...Offense....none.........Defense......none

Top 100 ITN (In The Nation)

PPG.....Perkins....96th....up

Assts...Collins...14th ...dn

Rebs...Goodwin....11th....up

Stls......Goodwin...98th....dn

FT%....Perkins...52nd......up

Double Double....Goodwin...6th ....unch

St. B  

Assts...Lofton....37th

Reb......Osunniyi...29th

Blks....Osunniyi...14th

No reported  injuries for either team.....Strickland out...Covid protocol.......For St. B ...Roberts out since 1/20/21...personal reasons

A few notes on the grades....Goodwin's is not up to date on the double double...That is the only stat I get from the NCAA and they are always slow to pull the stat trigger. It will be up to date for the next game.  Also we see the return of Perkins to the Top 100 scoring  list with his big day yesterday. He also  returns on the FT list...he disappeared not because of poor shooting but because of a lack of FTs....UMass fixed  that this week for him.

WWN2D2W....As mentioned above they have 5 players...keep their top 3 scorers to 35pts combined. A low scoring defensive battle....we need to get to at least 72 pts.   Hold Holmes & Welch to to five 3PA each.....Ossunniyi...no more than 7 rebs and 1 blk....Out rebound them....hold them to 32.....Don't get careless,  no more than  12 TOs....Slash...48/36/ 73

Bottom line....We are a better team now than when we faced them on Feb 6...We were still shaking off some Covid rust then. We are the better team slightly....If we can avoid careless mistakes  and shoot decent , we can win this game  ....by as much as 7-10 pts...that margin would also help our NET.  Wear them down ...big 2nd half....and then win.

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Looking back at the box score from the 1st game vs Bonnies- Goodwin with neither double digits in points or rebounds and French with zero points. Bills won by 11. What makes this so different by the numbers? Goodwin will get his and French playing much better. Other than SLU making 11 3’s the first time out, doesn’t that bode well for our chances here? Most books have SLU by 2 - so Wiz is a bit less optimistic.

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1 hour ago, The Wiz said:

 

Well for the Nervous Nellies...where  each and EVERY game has you on edge...your feelings are justified today. This will be a nail biter.  Not only because it will be close but because of the importance of the game. Let's review the Dance Chance.

Dance Chance

We go into this game with a 59% chance to Dance.

If we win....69%

If we lose...52%

Assuming we win this game and move onto the Championship game, we will go into that game with a 69% chance to Dance

If we win....100% chance

If we lose 63% chance

Now you see why this is a big game...even with a loss next week we still have a decent chance to make it....which means we have to win today.

The Bonnies are in the same situation , a must win game for them too.

We go into this game as A- overall and trending at A-...St. B is the same....A- & A-.   St. B will be the best defensive team we face as you will see in the report card below.. This will be a low scoring defensive struggle.  Our big advantage this game will be depth....St. B has no depth ...4 guards and a forward...Their starters are averaging 32-36  min/gm.... in a close  or big game,  they play more like yesterday....here are the playing times for yesterday's game....40, 40, 38, 38 and 30...plus 12 & 2.  That is a lot of minutes for the starters.  We need to wear them out.  AND playing A+ defense,  in and of it self,  is tiring.  I hope the Bills can exploit this advantage. 

 

Let's look at the report card.

 
..........................SLU.........................St. B...............................SLU.....................................St. B

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

PPG......................B+...............................C-................................A-........................................A+...7th ITN

FG%......................A-...............................B-.................................B+........................................A+...9th ITN

3Pt%.....................B................................B..................................C-........................................A-

FT%......................C-....... ........................B-..............................................................................A+...5th ITN

Reb......................A...................................B.................................A+...11th ITN........................B

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

UP....Offense...FG%.....3P%.....FT% ..........Defense .......Reb

Down...Offense....none.........Defense......none

Top 100 ITN (In The Nation)

PPG.....Perkins....96th....up

Assts...Collins...14th ...dn

Rebs...Goodwin....11th....up

Stls......Goodwin...98th....dn

FT%....Perkins...52nd......up

Double Double....Goodwin...6th ....unch

St. B  

Assts...Lofton....37th

Reb......Osunniyi...29th

Blks....Osunniyi...14th

No reported  injuries for either team.....Strickland out...Covid protocol.......For St. B ...Roberts out since 1/20/21...personal reasons

A few notes on the grades....Goodwin's is not up to date on the double double...That is the only stat I get from the NCAA and they are always slow to pull the stat trigger. It will be up to date for the next game.  Also we see the return of Perkins to the Top 100 scoring  list with his big day yesterday. He also  returns on the FT list...he disappeared not because of poor shooting but because of a lack of FTs....UMass fixed  that this week for him.

WWN2D2W....As mentioned above they have 5 players...keep their top 3 scorers to 35pts combined. A low scoring defensive battle....we need to get to at least 72 pts.   Hold Holmes & Welch to to five 3PA each.....Ossunniyi...no more than 7 rebs and 1 blk....Out rebound them....hold them to 32.....Don't get careless,  no more than  12 TOs....Slash...48/36/ 73

Bottom line....We are a better team now than when we faced them on Feb 6...We were still shaking off some Covid rust then. We are the better team slightly....If we can avoid careless mistakes  and shoot decent , we can win this game  ....by as much as 7-10 pts...that margin would also help our NET.  Wear them down ...big 2nd half....and then win.

Going to be a good one for sure.  Thanks again for the details, The Wiz!

Question on if/when the Bills make it to the final: Does the percentage to get an at large increase if we lose to VCU instead of losing to Davidson?  I think we can beat both, but just curious if your 63% chance to make the dance was an average between losing to either VCU or Davidson.

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31 minutes ago, mjhawkinsmd said:

Looking back at the box score from the 1st game vs Bonnies- Goodwin with neither double digits in points or rebounds and French with zero points. Bills won by 11. What makes this so different by the numbers? Goodwin will get his and French playing much better. Other than SLU making 11 3’s the first time out, doesn’t that bode well for our chances here? Most books have SLU by 2 - so Wiz is a bit less optimistic.

French did have 0 points in the first matchup, but that's because their defense focused on him. A lot of the 3's we made came as a result of French getting doubled and kicking the ball out for Jacobs, Jimerson, and Perkins. They'll either change their strategy and French goes for 20, or they stick with it and Javonte drops 30. And of course Goodwin probably plays better too. 

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21 minutes ago, mjhawkinsmd said:

Looking back at the box score from the 1st game vs Bonnies- Goodwin with neither double digits in points or rebounds and French with zero points. Bills won by 11. What makes this so different by the numbers? Goodwin will get his and French playing much better. Other than SLU making 11 3’s the first time out, doesn’t that bode well for our chances here? Most books have SLU by 2 - so Wiz is a bit less optimistic.

I agree,  which is why I said in the bottom line there is the potential for a 7-10 pt. win. Unfortunately,  potential can't be quantified as exacting as the data.  Here is what we know.  While grade wise,  St. B and The Bills match up ...there is that one difference....potential..... St. B is what it is...They are playing at their potential....there is no more upside ...this is their best.  How can we know this ? There isn't that much variance  ...they have been playing at this level for a while.  And with 5 players playing nearly all the minutes,  it makes it even more locked in.  For The Bills it has been a roller coaster ride..... Up , down up with bumps along the way.  We have still not returned to peak form (Xmas eve)...we still have more potential....this is not wishful potential ...we were there...A rated  and ranked.  The last few games the shooting has been much better which is usually the last thing to fall into place.  When we reach A level again, that will be a sign that we have arrived again.

From here on out , we will only play good competition. The longer we can continue to play the better we will become. If we can just avoid a letdown, we could make a run.

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35 minutes ago, joe_davola said:

Going to be a good one for sure.  Thanks again for the details, The Wiz!

Question on if/when the Bills make it to the final: Does the percentage to get an at large increase if we lose to VCU instead of losing to Davidson?  I think we can beat both, but just curious if your 63% chance to make the dance was an average between losing to either VCU or Davidson.

Good question....The model uses a blended form of the 2 games....however it is assuming we would face VCU rather than Davidson so it is weighted more toward VCU. If VCU actually wins the % may go up a little and vice versa if Dav wins maybe down a little. There are other things that could affect percentages  too even with the same outcomes.  If we beat St. B by 10 ...if we lose to VCU by 1 or 10....If all our past opponents start to get hot and go on runs...these are all keys that feed into not only my model but the NET model too. 

And let us not forget the subjective...a voter looking at the wins and losses sees us beat St. B by 20  then pauses and goes hmmmm.

Let's just win 2 games and start packing for Indy.

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A bad night to have a bad night.

We could talk about being out rebounded 35-27...dismal shooting numbers...37/ 29 /71...though,  believe it or not we beat them at the arc ...so it was all 2pt shooting. But the killer stat was 9 blocks....in fact if you add the 9 blocks back ...that equals 18pts or the margin of victory. ...also it changes the slash from 37% to 54%.

As for the Dance Chance ...it is still there but shaky...In the original post , I mentioned a loss tonight would take us down to a 52% chance....the fact that we lost by 10+ pts means it is around 50% chance at this point...a coin flip....a lot of things would have to break our way to get a bid...Conference winners would have to win their tourneys to open up some additional spots, teams we have played will have to keep on winning,  maybe another game scheduled....it is iffy but still possible.

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