The Wiz Posted January 20, 2023 Share Posted January 20, 2023 General Outlook Let's start this thread with a post I made last night in the Loy spread thread after the game was over. This is the first time since after the Evansville game (game 2) that we will have a "clean" report card....no Ds or Fs. The one glaring weakness all season has been... giving up too many points per game. If you want to do well in the A-10...if you want to Dance...if you want to win...you need to have a balanced report card...i.e. no weaknesses. We have turned a major corner....we haven't arrived yet but if we can stay at this level ...things will be looking good. The stat that has been weak all season that has now changed is opponent PPG. We need to make a conscious effort to keep the opponent pts below 70 the rest of the way. This LaS game will be a good test. They are not very good and if we get a big lead there may be a tendency to let up. We need to keep playing defense. You can't just turn it on and off. Can you imagine if we got a big lead and decided we could miss a few shots. We may not have to play defense this game but we should. As mentioned above, we are getting back on track. We have 5 games left in the crucial 17...at the 12 game mark, we are now 8-4 overall and 5-1 in conf. We need to be at A- (currently at B+ ) or at least a chance to Dance (50%) by the end of the next 5 games. If we are , we will be in a good position to finish the season out. The computer has us favored to win in these next 5. There will be some very difficult games coming up but if we play like we have recently we can win them all. Game Outlook LaS comes in as a D+ team. I know some of you have been ragging on Loy about how bad they are...and they are bad...trending right now as the worst team in the A-10. However let me introduce you to LaS, the A-10 bottom feeder in terms of overall data and upside potential. However as I mentioned above, this is no reason to let up. It will be difficult to move up in the rankings with this game. We would have to win by about 26 pts to make even a little difference. This game needs to be used as a tune up for the upcoming schedule which will get tougher as we move toward the end of the season. Depth isn't a problem for LaS. When you aren't that good , you can put anyone out there. This does not mean that LaS is devoid of players. They have players that can jump up and bite us if we slack off. One of these is Brickus... a great shooter from anywhere on the floor. At 44% from the arc he is just outside of the top 100. Their high scorer is Brantley. Leave him alone and he too can do some damage. As I always say, we need to bother them. It is interesting to me that before the Loy game, Ford said in an interview in regards to the Loy shooters..."we need to make them uncomfortable"... Uncomfortable and bother...Ford and I think alike. LaS views this game as playing a 1st place team. We need to play like it matters...they will be. LaS can't win this game...but we can lose it if we don't take it seriously. Report Card.... 5 categories up ...3 down. The Card is looking much more balanced for the Bills. No Ds or Fs....Pretty dismal for LaS Let's look at the report card... ...................SLU......................LaS........................SLU.............................LaS .................................OFF..........................................................DEF............. PPG...............B+.....................D............................C-..................................D FG%...............B.......................F+..........................A-.................................D 3P%...............C.......................D............................C.................................F+ FT%...............B........................D.................................................................. Reb...............A.......................D............................C+.....................................F+ OFF Rebs = total rebs...DEF Rebs = opp reb UP...............Off....FG%.....3P%...Def.....PPG...FG%...Rebs Down.........Off.......FT%...Rebs....Def....3P% Top 100 In The Nation SLU Assts...Collins... 1st...unch......57th all time D1 list Assists/TO ratio...Collins...32nd...dn Reb...Okoro...72nd...up Blks...Okoro ...62nd...dn Off Reb...Okoro...45th ...up Dou Dou...Collins...64th...dn LaS none Injury /Illness report and misc The Bills....Thames....Questionable...undisclosed......unspecified issue makes it uncertain if he will be able to play on Sat Loy...none Keys to the game ....Bench and rebounding again..Keep the hot shooting going from the field...get that FT% back up. WWN2D2W...Make the slash...46/35/75...Hold Brantley, Brickus , Nickelberry and F Drame (there are 2 of them) to a combined 39pts which should allow us to keep them under 70 pts....Match them on TOs...Beat them on the boards by double digits....beat them on the bench by double digits. Bottom line....I would like to see us have a good game...continue to work on D and shooting in the process and go for 26 pts...might as well help the numbers a little. The Bills need to EXPLORE new ways to win. BrettJollyComedyHour and thunderdan like this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billikenbill Posted January 20, 2023 Share Posted January 20, 2023 1-11-23 - La Salle 78 UMass 77. The spread seems a bit optimistic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Wiz Posted January 20, 2023 Author Share Posted January 20, 2023 2 hours ago, billikenbill said: 1-11-23 - La Salle 78 UMass 77. The spread seems a bit optimistic. I am not sure where you are going with this? It looks to me like you are saying ...we lost to UMass and UMass lost to LaS ....and with 4 more degrees of separation...UMass is related to Kevin Bacon. Here are the facts...Brickus from LaS, single handedly beat UMass...Here is my quote from the Game Outlook in the opening post of this thread....They (LaS) have players that can jump up and bite us if we slack off. One of these is Brickus... a great shooter from anywhere on the floor. At 44% from the arc he is just outside of the top 100. Now as good of a shooter as he is, he had a career night against UMass and beat them by 1 pt. Here is what his slash looked like that night...64/ 60/100...good for 25pts...not bad for a guy who is averaging less than 10pts /gm. So what does that slash mean?......It means he made an extra two 3s and an extra 2....8pts...you subtract the extra 8 pts from LaS score and you are pretty close to the UMass winning forecasted spread. As for the other part of the equation...UMass beating us. Let's grade that slash line UMass had against us in that game...B+/ A+ (48%)/ B+....now let's look at their season slash line...F+ / C- / D ...hmmm.. what's wrong with this picture? UMass has a career night against us for a 9 pt win...and I won't even go into the 10 FTs we missed that game. Bottom line...I will stand by my spread of Bills by 16. Oops...I just got a text from Kevin Bacon ...he says I owe him NIL money. CenHudDude and willie like this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Elrond Posted January 20, 2023 Share Posted January 20, 2023 5 hours ago, The Wiz said: Oops...I just got a text from Kevin Bacon ...he says I owe him NIL money. I think you are in the clear on this because you fell 4 degrees short of Kevin Bacon…. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soderball Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 People are still in denial about just how miserable and bad the A-10 is this year. It's horrible. 1 bid. We are fortunate that this disappointing SLU year is coming alongside the A10 being so horrible. SLU will be in the top 3 in this conference. Jim crews could score victories in the conference's current state. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taj79 Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 Not with guys like Jolley and Gilman. You need players to win and [dead] couldn’t get talent, develop talent, or evaluate talent. Fordham wiped him back then and would do so now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matty Light Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 TJ with all the points. Finally completed an alley oop dunk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrettJollyComedyHour Posted January 21, 2023 Share Posted January 21, 2023 3 hours ago, Taj79 said: Jolley and Gilman The bane of my existence as a fan lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Wiz Posted January 22, 2023 Author Share Posted January 22, 2023 Lot to like in this game from the team and the players. ...Best conf start for Ford since he has been here (6-1)...2 Dou Dou...Collins and Okoro including 20 rebs for Okoro ...most in the A-10 this season and 2nd only to French in the 2019-20 season against Belmont. Tied with VCU for 1st...Career high for Parker (20pts) 88/67/67... Hargrove season high 11pts......Was it a perfect game ...nope....but a good game nonetheless . No offense the 1st half and no defensive rebounding but it didn't matter because the other numbers were so strong. Let's see what happened... Bolded type from original post. Make the slash...46/35/75....almost but the 3pt shooting carried the day...48/41/63...Obviously, the FT shooting was not good...we were 3 short of making the projected 75%...make those and we have a 16 pt spread. The computer seems to be dialed in not just on this stat but a few as we shall soon see. Before we move on we need to dig a little deeper into the slash to understand what happened in this game....1st half...40/13/50...dismal... and that's why we struggled...2nd half...59/67/ 69...this is when the real Bills team showed up...as soon as the 3s turned around, so did the Bills...give me this team every game...for 2 halves. Hold Brantley, Brickus , Nickelberry and F Drame (there are 2 of them) to a combined 39pts which should allow us to keep them under 70 pts....40 pts for the 4...another hit for the computer...plus 71 pts allowed...should be good enough to hang onto our C-. Match them on TOs...Bills 9 vs LaS 10...1 better Beat them on the boards by double digits...47 Bills ...42 LaS...We fell short on this by 5 ...I am going to give a pass on this stat because we chalked up an A+ amount of Rebs... and we did win the stat but we gave up too many rebs on the defensive end. This has been an issue all season...but I think we will be able to hold our C on def rebs...a few less opp rebs will make it easier to keep the opp score below 70. beat them on the bench by double digits...we lost this category 32-25pts.... this was a miss because we essentially played 6 men....we had a Sincere bench...i.e. Parker was the bench and a good bench he was(20pts)...we had 3 players off the bench not named Parker who played a combined 23min. LaS had 3 players off the bench who played 68 min. In the end it didn't matter ...you stop the key players or the bench...today we stopped the key players which is always a good thing. Keep the hot shooting going from the field...we did...get that FT% back up... we didn't The Bills need to EXPLORE new ways to win.... We certainly did ...Only 1 half of great offensive basketball and rebounding only on 1 side of the court....not what I had in mind ...The watch word for the next game will be balance. Bottom line...this game won't help us in the rankings but it won't hurt either and it keeps the train moving forward toward post season play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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