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The Bills over UNI by 8


The Wiz

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Welcome to post season.....The NIT...where we have a chance to recreate the A10 tourney part 2.  If things work out right , we have the chance to face VCU  and Dayton or St. B ...St B , the bad penny that keeps coming back. In any case , a lot of good high quality teams in the tourney.  It should be a good one.

First up, UNI, the pride of Cedar Falls.  This team won the Mo Valley and got an auto bid to the NIT...the rule is if you win your conference but lose your league tourney then you get an NIT auto bid.  So they checked out early to rest up for us.  In reality , even though they won the MVC conf title,  they are only the 4th best team in the conference and grade out as B overall. They have a good offense but not as good as ours and a bad defense.  We need to open a lead early and avoid foul trouble as they are an A+ team in FT shooting....7th ITN

Let's look at the report card and see what we are dealing with.

 
...................SLU.....................UNI..........................SLU.........................UNI

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

PPG...............A-......................B.............................B-.............................D+

FG%...............B+.....................B+...........................B-.............................D

3P%..............A........................B-............................B...............................D

FT%...............A.......................A+  7th ITN................................................

Reb...............A........................D-............................A-.............................B

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

UP....Off.....3P%.....Def......none.....................

Down....Off....none.....Def...FG%...3P%.........

Top 100 ITN (In The Nation)/ gm

SLU

Assts...Collins... 1st... unch ..If he averages 7.6 assists /gm  the rest of the season he wins the Asst crown for D1. (currently he has 7.9)

Stls......Collins....50th....dn

Dou-Dou....Collins...91st...dn......Okoro...71st... dn

FG%....Okoro....48th...dn

Reb...Okoro...78th...dn

Off Reb...Okoro...88th...dn

FTA/FGA....Linssen...48th...dn

UNI

PPG...Green....51st

FT%...Green...14th

 

Injury/ Illness

None

Keys to the game.....Can we stop them with our defense?...the answer is yes...but here is the catch ...can we do it without fouling them?...their worst starter is shooting 75% from the FT line...They have 2 guys shooting over 90% from the charity stripe.  ...This should be the strategy... we have a strong offense, they have a weak defense...build a lead  so that FTs don't matter.  Their 2 main guys are Green and Carter...stop them and we win...Key match ups...Collins vs Green...Green is a top PPG and FT guy and one of their key 3P guys...With that said, Yuri should win the numbers battle as he will be playing on the better defensive team....Okoro vs Carter...Carter is a good player but Okoro should take him down in all categories ... They have 3 good 3P guys BUT they are not Davidson...team 3P grade = B- .  Stop them without fouling them. 

 

WWN2D2W....Bills target slash...48/38/79 ....UNI will TO the ball 11 times,  we need to match them....out Reb them by 8+ (no second chances)...Hold Green & Carter to 27 pts   We need to score 72+ pts ....UNI target slash  45/35/ under 15 FTA

Bottom line...The line says Bills by 8... we should be able to win by double digits...there is even a hint of blowout in the air.  If we can unleash our strong offense against their weak defense we could have the Panthers panting.

Go Bills

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Some nuggets from KenPom:

  • UNI allows the 2nd MOST 3 pt attempts in the nation (357th overall).  48.7% of the FG attempts against them are 3 pointers. 
  • They allow teams to shoot 35.4% on 3s which is 277th in the nation
  • They allow teams to shoot 54.5% on 2s which is 351st in the nation (8th worst)
  • They don't block shots (348th in the nation

You'd think given the above their defense overall would be god awful, but it's average (148th overall).  Here is why:

  • They don't allow 2nd chances.  #3 in the nation in defensive rebounding.
  • They don't foul.  #26 in the nation in giving up free throw attempts per opponent FG attempt.
  • Overall they are average at getting teams to turn the ball over - not so much on steals (269th), but non-steal TOs (83rd)

Bottom line, SLU needs to make their 1st shot because UNI should allow some good looks, but likely won't allow 2nd chances.

cgeldmacher likes this
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I see this as a trap game for SLU, frankly would rather not have a Valley opponent.  But this is not whining like a Bonnie, more fear, knowing too much having grown up in the Valley footprint and attending SLU 7 years.

The good Billikens need to show up with high energy Wed. night and take the game to UNI.  The NIT can go either way, the good being a team wanting to play ball, the bad being a team ready to shut her down, ready for Spring Break.

SLU is more athletic, has more talent.  I see UNI as a poor man's Davidson, similar but a bit worse than Belmont. 

All the metrics say SLU in this one.  Now just do it, win the game and move on.

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5 hours ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

Sagarin has SLU by 6.5, rounded off to 7 in his overall Rating and SLU by 3.73, rounded off to 4 in his Recent Ratings.

cbssports.com line is SLU by 4, over/under 146.5;  ESPN concurs, SLU by 4, Odds courtesy of Caesars Sportsbook.

If I can make it over to Illinois before Wednesday evening, I’m hammering that -4. I think our guys will be up for this one and I think we’re a matchup nightmare for these guys

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5 minutes ago, Box and Won said:

This is one team that I don't ever remember us playing.  Maybe it was before they joined the MVC?

Date Season Location Score Media
2/5/1992 1991-92
AwayCedar Falls, Iowa
L 66 - 76
2/27/1991 1990-91
HomeSt. Louis, Mo.
W 83 - 72
2/16/1988 1987-88
AwayCedar Falls, Iowa
W 91 - 70
12/6/1986 1986-87
HomeSt. Louis, Mo.
W 72 - 62
2/19/1979 1978-79
HomeSt. Louis, Mo.
L 62 - 73
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3 minutes ago, Pistol said:

It's kind of unreal we haven't played them in 30 years. I figured we'd had every Valley team at least a couple times since then.

For a long time we played MO State & SIUC almost annually in our non-conference schedule which left very little room / desire to schedule home & homes with additional MVC teams, right?

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4 minutes ago, RUBillsFan said:

For a long time we played MO State & SIUC almost annually in our non-conference schedule which left very little room / desire to schedule home & homes with additional MVC teams, right?

Not necessarily. I remembered fairly recent games with Bradley, Indiana State, and Valpo off the top of my head, so I looked up the last year we played every Valley team, including departing and entering teams:

UNI - 1991-1992
Loyola - 2007-2008
Drake - 1986-1987 (2021-2022 game cancelled)
Missouri State - 2010-2011
Bradley - 2014-2015
SIUC - 2019-2020 (More recently agreed upon game pushed to 2022-2023)
Valpo - 2019-2020
Illinois State - 2021-2022
Indiana State - 2020-2021
Evansville - 1998-1999
UIC - 2000-2001
Murray State - 2017-2018
Belmont - 2021-2022

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Some things stood out to me going through that list:

-We've been a lot worse than I realized against Missouri State - 7-15 all-time, including 2-9 in our last 11 meetings, and that includes the lucky call we got on the Vouyoukas tip-in at the buzzer.
-We talked about this before the game that got cancelled, but we've played Drake more than any other team in our history except Oklahoma State (formerly Oklahoma A&M) and somehow they're the Valley team we've gone the longest without playing.
-The all-time record vs. Bradley (27-43) is also a lot worse than I expected because we've only played them once this century and it was a win in Corpus Christi in 2014.
-The all-time record vs. SIUC is 32-27 and I'm looking forward to getting that series restarted. I like that one more than Missouri State for whatever reason, although we need to even out the MSU series.
-We're 13-5 all-time vs. Indiana State but 11-2 since Larry Bird graduated. We've lost to them once since 1983.
-Not as much history with the newcomers. We're 1-0 vs. UIC (2000) and 2-1 against Belmont after the loss this season, with all three games in the past 13 years. We're undefeated (8-0) vs. Murray State, though.
-We're 5-5 against Valpo. Valpo won the first 5 and SLU won the last 5. Of Valpo's 5 wins, 4 of them came in 1920 and 1921, including 3 games played over 2 days. Then we didn't play again until 1982.

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