Aub over The Bills by 2

[almaman]

14 minutes ago, The Wiz said:

Well, based on the title of this thread , I can't say I was surprised either by the outcome or the spread....BUT...it was still soooo disappointing.  Why?... because we had this game within our grasp and let it slip away....13pt lead with 8min 14 sec to go.  Got to win these type of games.

Like always let's look back at the highlights of the original post (in bold)...

This game may be decided on 1 play....a TO ...a reb... a layup,  made or missed.. or even a FT or two...Sadly this statement was true. Many will think that 1 play was the FT missed at the end of the game...Please read the next paragraph.

First we need to shoot well...48/39/76...mimimum...50/40/80 would be nice... Close ??? Well it depends on how you look at it...How about 50/40/ 65  That is almost a bingo...with 1 small problem...that was the slash for the 2nd half only...Unfortunately, we had to play 2 halves and the 1st half was.... 35/ 0 /75...Yes, the zero is not a typo ...in a normal Bills game we would have had 3 more 3s in the 1st half and 3 more FTM in the 2nd half.......we would have finished with a slash of 47/41/79 . We were missing 12 pts...should have won by 8...BUT...we didn't need 12 more points...if we had sunk 1 more 3 in the 1st half  and finished  with a 3P% of 14% instead of zero... we win.  

No mistakes...TOs 11...worst case match them in TOs... We had 17 TOs.... they had 11 TOs so the match wasn't going to work . Results...Aub...15pts on TOs...Bills 11pts...4 pt difference...Hmmm...4 pts...where have I seen this before?  

 Rebs ...match them...And did we ...46-27 for The Bills...This what allowed us to stay in the game...allowed to come back in the 2nd half...allowed us to almost win....2nd chance pts Aub 12...Bills 11

Smith, Johnson and Green...hold them to 32 pts ...39pts...7 too many...we did a good job on Jabari and Johnson ...we let Green slip away.

Smith and Kessler ...hold them to 11 rebs. ...13...close enough in light of the fact that we crushed them overall on the boards.

Don't shoot into the trees...2 blks or less....We did shoot into the trees...6 blks...probably a few less blks would have made a diff.

And  last but not least, we need to play  a full 40 min of basketball....You could look at this a few ways....Here is how I would look at it...We played 39 min 57.4 sec of good basketball....had we made 2 FTs at the end, we could have still won this game. To expound on this further ...We played the 13th best team ITN even,  except for the final 2.6 sec of the game. There is nobody left on our schedule that is anywhere near Aub in terms of difficulty....and yet  we just played Aub even.    Nobody can beat us the rest of the way....Only we can beat us.

 

 

I needed that

[billiken_roy]

7 hours ago, The Wiz said:

  Nobody can beat us the rest of the way....Only we can beat us.

 

 

this should be ford's mantra the rest of the season

[Bay Area Billiken]

https://twitter.com/jb_snkrs1/status/1471961895519277061?s=21

SLU is the best team in the A10, should win the A10. A regular season A10 championship may well not be good enough. Even Jon Rothstein on CBS Sports Network said the A10 may be a one bid league this season.

So at this point, have a strong, no blip A10 regular season, protect the home court as in no conference home losses, get a good seed and win the A10 Tournament in March in D.C. This team has the talent to do it. 

[billiken_roy]

cant just win the conference.   with the conference apparently being down this year a good conference record and first place isnt enough.   we need to think win out.   i know that isnt going to happen.   there is a memphis game (or two or three) in there somewhere likely.  but we need to think "win out.  nobody can beat us" from this point forward.   ford got us in this mess.   

now it's time for the team to take their mental attitude up a notch.   no more "well we tried hard"  or "nobody expected us" or "in the past" excuses.  let's foucking win.   let's expect to win.   let's be pissed off when we piss away games like last night.   it's time to take our attitude to a higher level.   the days of the little train that could need to end.

[Billikenbooster]

Will depend somewhat on the status of ML ankles, though. He was limping  pretty badly at the end of the game.

[Bay Area Billiken]

It is going to be dog eat dog, a free for all, at that A10 Tournament in March in D.C.  

One of the prime reasons SLU enrolled in the A10 was the A10 has always been a multi-bid league.  Whether it's regression of the league, the diabolical pro-Power 5 + 1 output of the NCAA NET, or a combination, as the Tweeter said, Juan Bid has taken up residence in Bernadette (McGlade's) spare bedroom. 

[Old guy]

I hope his cousins Deu Bid, and Trois Bid join Juan before the end of the season. And yes, it will be a dog eats dog in the conference play.

[Taj79]

I don't know how the NET works and don't really care but here's who the A10 has left before the doge-eat-dog conference schedule begins .... (all ratings from current KenPom):

Davidson (#59): #6 Alabama (#17) at neutral Birmingham while losing a matchup with Loyola of Chicago (#25). 

Dayton (#99) hosting Southern (#285). 

Duquesne (#225) hosting UC Irvine (#84) in Akron and hosting Wofford (#95). 

Fordham (#204) hosting Georgia Southern (#209). 

Mason (#132) hosting American (#319) and Coppin State (#313). 

Geedubya (#250) hosting MD-Eastern Shore (#342). 

La Salle (#248) hosting Drexel (#180). 

Rhode Island (#71) hosting Charleston  (#197) in Washington, DC. 

The Bonnies (#66) at Northeastern (#158). 

St. Joe's(#185)  hosting Holy Cross (#349). 

Saint Louis (#80) vs. Drake  (#90) in Vegas. 

Richmond (#60) hosting Old Dominion (#187) and Bucknell (#302). 

Umass (#130) hosting Fairfield (#163)and New Jersey Institute of Technology (#280).  

And VCU (#82) hosting New Hampshire (#207) while looking to replace a cancelled game against Penn State (#88).

The only games worth a nickel seem to be Davidson vs. Alabama and us against Drake.  Only the Alabama game would seem to push an A10 team upward in the ratings. 

So the A10 did itself no favors in the OOC.  It will be a dog-eat-dog world when the A10 starts cannibalizing itself in January.  The only way Juan Bid stays away from this conference is to have someone run the regular season table and then score a surprise come DC tournament time.  Not a good look for the conference.

 

 

[Bay Area Billiken]

https://twitter.com/n1a2v3y4/status/1472588571768930306?s=21

Juan Bid has already taken unwanted residence, squatter’s rights on the way to adverse possession, in Newport News, Virginia.

[RUBillsFan]

On 12/19/2021 at 10:51 AM, Taj79 said:

I don't know how the NET works and don't really care but here's who the A10 has left before the doge-eat-dog conference schedule begins .... (all ratings from current KenPom):

Davidson (#59): #6 Alabama (#17) at neutral Birmingham while losing a matchup with Loyola of Chicago (#25). 

Dayton (#99) hosting Southern (#285). 

Duquesne (#225) hosting UC Irvine (#84) in Akron and hosting Wofford (#95). 

Fordham (#204) hosting Georgia Southern (#209). 

Mason (#132) hosting American (#319) and Coppin State (#313). 

Geedubya (#250) hosting MD-Eastern Shore (#342). 

La Salle (#248) hosting Drexel (#180). 

Rhode Island (#71) hosting Charleston  (#197) in Washington, DC. 

The Bonnies (#66) at Northeastern (#158). 

St. Joe's(#185)  hosting Holy Cross (#349). 

Saint Louis (#80) vs. Drake  (#90) in Vegas. 

Richmond (#60) hosting Old Dominion (#187) and Bucknell (#302). 

Umass (#130) hosting Fairfield (#163)and New Jersey Institute of Technology (#280).  

And VCU (#82) hosting New Hampshire (#207) while looking to replace a cancelled game against Penn State (#88).

The only games worth a nickel seem to be Davidson vs. Alabama and us against Drake.  Only the Alabama game would seem to push an A10 team upward in the ratings. 

So the A10 did itself no favors in the OOC.  It will be a dog-eat-dog world when the A10 starts cannibalizing itself in January.  The only way Juan Bid stays away from this conference is to have someone run the regular season table and then score a surprise come DC tournament time.  Not a good look for the conference.

 

 

No one in the A10 is getting an at-large at this point.  Even if we beat Drake pretty soundly, we will won't be in position for at an at-large.  Davidson beating Alabama is the A-10's only hope for a team having at at-large worthy resume heading into conference play.  A Davidson W would be huge for avoiding the dreaded one bid league.

There are several teams that could play their way up to an at-large with very good or excellent showing in A10 play: Davidson, Dayton, Rhody, Bona, SLU, Richmond, VCU.   The trouble is that in order to avoid a one bid league we would either need one of those teams to really separate themselves and then not win the conference tournament or have two teams separate themselves. 

I'm doubtful Davidson can beat Alabama and I'm not seeing much separation between 1-7 in the A10, so I suspect it will be a worst case scenario for the A10 with about 7 NIT-ish quality resumes and only one of those 7 winning the NCAA auto-bid.  No reason the auto-bid winner can't be SLU.  Key will be a top 4 finish to get the double-bye.

[willie]

Whoever wins the regular season title will get a bid even if they don't win the tournament. 

[billiken_roy]

6 minutes ago, willie said:

Whoever wins the regular season title will get a bid even if they don't win the tournament. 

i think the regular season champ needs to be a stellar conference record.   undefeated would be nice.   no more than 3 losses likely.   the conference isnt good and we all know the ncaa doesnt  want anyone but the acc, big east, sec, big ten and big 12 in the tourney if they can help it.   i'm one of the few that hates the setup of the ncaa D1 basketball tourney.   it should be greatly expanded imo.   at the very least 256 teams.  

[NH]

When was the last time the A10 was a one bid league? The A10 has gotten multiple bids in years when it was weaker than this season. 

[Cowboy II]

2 hours ago, NH said:

When was the last time the A10 was a one bid league? The A10 has gotten multiple bids in years when it was weaker than this season. 

-when was this?

[HoosierPal]

3 hours ago, willie said:

Whoever wins the regular season title will get a bid even if they don't win the tournament. 

I hope your dream comes true.

[NH]

1 hour ago, Cowboy II said:

-when was this?

2016-2017

2017-2018

2018-2019

[HoosierPal]

5 minutes ago, NH said:

2016-2017

2017-2018

2018-2019

How can you compare a season that hasn't taken place with seasons that happened.

[RUBillsFan]

18 hours ago, HoosierPal said:

How can you compare a season that hasn't taken place with seasons that happened.

Overall strength of the league will be pretty much static once non-conference play is over.  It may shift slightly because of how well opponents of A10 teams do during their conference play or how well A10 teams do in NCAA, NIT, or other postseason tournaments (Are CBI & CIT still a thing?), but those shifts won't be very much.  SLU beating Bona or Fordham beating UMass doesn't shift the overall strength of the league, it just shifts those teams.

KenPom rating for the A10

2016-17 +3.95

2017-18 +1.28

2018-19 +0.56

2021-22 (so far) +4.39

I'm not yet ready to say 2021-22 will for sure be better than 2016-17, but the others two are low enough that I'm fairly certain 2021-22 won't fall behind.

Issue is that most of the at-large bids from those 3 "down" years were more highly rated by KenPom going into the NCAA tournament than any current A10 teams.  

Year: #NCAA seed (KenPom rank going into NCAAs)

2016-17: #7 Dayton (36), #10 VCU (50) #11 auto-bid Rhody (37)

2017-18: #7 Rhody (48), #11 Bona (69), #12 auto-bid Davidson (43)

2018-19: #8 VCU (38), #13 auto-bid SLU (103).  If VCU wins the conference tournament, I'm almost certain A10 is a one bid league this season.  Davidson was a 4 seed in the NIT and Dayton was a 5 seed, so no one else was really that close to the bubble.

Current highest Kenpom is Davidson at 59.  I hope that prior years show that a top finisher in the A10 will be given an at large based on the overall strength of the league.

[Billiken Rich]

Hey don't forget about the all important Super Delegates.  They'll get us over the top......

[Bills By 40]

On 12/20/2021 at 12:06 PM, billiken_roy said:

i think the regular season champ needs to be a stellar conference record.   undefeated would be nice.   no more than 3 losses likely.   the conference isnt good and we all know the ncaa doesnt  want anyone but the acc, big east, sec, big ten and big 12 in the tourney if they can help it.   i'm one of the few that hates the setup of the ncaa D1 basketball tourney.   it should be greatly expanded imo.   at the very least 256 teams.  

3 month long tournament lol

[Cowboy II]

22 hours ago, NH said:

2016-2017

2017-2018

2018-2019

-the KenPom ranking of the A10 in these years was:

2017-8

2018-10

2019-11

and this year A10 sits at 10 

-at this point there are no A10 teams in his top 50, in 2018 there were 3 top 50, 2018 there were 0 top 50 and in 2019 there was 1 in top 50 - for this year there are 7 ranked from 51-100

-we'll see where this is on SS and hope you are correct (or that we have won the tourney and don't have to sweat)

 

[billiken_roy]

42 minutes ago, Bills By 40 said:

3 month long tournament lol

state high school tourney's are that big and are over in less than a month.  

[Old guy]

Hate to say this Roy, but the NCAA is interested in making a profit with the basketball tournament as they do with football. They make a big to do by distributing money to the schools that play in their tournament at a $1 M per game played to the schools in the tournament, payable over a number of years (not sure if it is the league or the NCAA that actually pays). With 64 teams or so playing, the cost of payments to schools is $126+ million per tournament, whatever is left over is kept to finance sports that few people are interested in or watch.

If they played 256 basketball teams they would have to cut down the money paid to the schools per game played to come up with a total not much higher than what they pay now. Since the tournament would be much longer with many more games between teams most people do not know (like the Campbell Fighting Camels), they would not be getting the  amounts they currently get from TV rights per game, and some games might not be carried nationally. Finally, if they increased the number of teams in the basketball tournament they would probably have to follow suit with all other college sports. I just don't see this happening.