The Bills over Lwood by 22

[The Wiz]

We win.... again.

Lwood is an F team. Their claim to fame so far is that they beat St. Louis Pharmacy by 65 points.  They are working on their scoring margin. They also lost to #10 Tex  Tech by 28.  What is this info worth?  If the Bills score 80 and you are at the game, it is worth  a Shack burger. The Bills remain a B+ team. The numbers haven't moved much from my preseason forecast. In other words we are doing about what is expected so far.

Here are some random stats as on how we are doing now...

Team...............Grade...........

Def Rebs...........A+...9th  ITN

PPG...................A+....16th 

FT%..................A+.....19th 

2P%...................A+.....21st

Rebs..................A......28th

TOs ..................C-

Fouls................ D

Players.............................Category ....................................Rank

Thames, Jones, Otieno......FT% (you need 3 to qualify)....1st ITN....many tied

Sharma................................2P% 1st ITN....many tied

Thames ..............................Stls....52nd ITN

Bottom line....

After the Lwood game, things will start to pickup. Of the 9 remaining OOC D1 games, only 3 will be cupcakes (below C-) We need to cut down on fouls and TOs so that we are ready for primetime.

Think that Lwood will beat the Bills??...Don't bet The Pharm on it.

Go Bills

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Aquinas]

I suspect the biggest  reason for the lower grades in turnovers and fouls is the push to play faster. They are sometimes trying to go too fast. Other times they are just  not comfortable  with the faster pace. In other words they are thinking about going fast instead of just playing.

[The Wiz]

We've got this game...How do I know?

Because (E)Lwood told me ..."We're on a mission from God"...

 

 

 

[Old guy]

1 hour ago, The Wiz said:

We've got this game...How do I know?

Because (E)Lwood told me ..."We're on a mission from God"...

 

 

 

Loved Blues Brothers, particularly Belushi's character. Unfortunately the a--hole offed himself by overdose in a few years. 

Team Rankings has us winning by 24, with 5 stars of confidence. 

[Lord Elrond]

Does a 43 point win impress the computer?

[CenHudDude]

5 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:

Does a 43 point win impress the computer?

One would think.

[RyGuyBilliken]

13 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:

Does a 43 point win impress the computer?

Shooting 67% from the field, over 52% from 3 and 71% from the stripe should boost our efficiency numbers as well, especially cutting down on turnovers in the 2nd half 

[Old guy]

I was thinking that since I started following the Bills seriously, during the Majerus final years that the team has been much more tuned to defense than to offense. This was the way it stayed until Schertz came in as a HC. I think we are becoming primarily an aggressive team with an emphasis on offensive. I am glad to see this change and the improvements are becoming visible as we play more games this year. Looking forward to an exciting year. Go Bills!

[The Wiz]

I think I will start the wrap up of the Lwood game  with a couple of quotes I made on the Chi St wrap up  talking about the future Lwood game....

"So what does all that mean?  It means poor old Lindenwood will run into a buzz saw on Monday...an unrelenting one."

"The last 7 min of the Lindenwood game will look a lot different than  the last 7 min of the Chi St game."

True and true. These quotes were a better indicator than the spread was. I knew this was going to happen but the computer didn't understand.  The advantage I have over the computer is....You gotta see the kids play....and Schertz coach. I saw ...the computer didn't .  Another 5 games and the computer will be better with the extra data.   Again there was no way a computer could quantify the wrath of Schertz. For the team...lesson learned...don't take your foot off the gas.

Let's take a look at the game....

Let's start with the records....So you think 6...7 is a big deal...Well the Bills topped that with a 66.7% FG%...the highest ever recorded at Chaifetz...keeping the 66 theme going theme going...how about 66 pts in the 2nd half,  another Chaifetz record. But wait there's more...the 109 pts was the most ever recorded in a game against a D1 team at Chaifetz.  Not done yet...this is the 1st time in Bills history (going back 110 years ...before @Old guy was born) that the Bills ever had back to back 100 pt games.  Truly a game for the ages.

We could stop here...but we won't...next let's see what the slash looks like ...66.7/ 52.4 / 71...Majerus always said...winning teams and players have slashes of 180+. This slash totals at 190 +...a winning team...Now let's add some 2P shooting to the slash...............66.7 / 75 / 52.4/ 71 ...grades out at A+ / A+/ A+/ C-  and finally for context let's take a look at a straight A+ slash  and I will line it up under the Lwood slash...........47.9/55.4/37.8/ 78......As you can see except for the FTs,  in this game we far exceeded in the 1st 3 categories and in the previous 2 games we far exceeded in FTs.

Areas of concern...

TOs still too high but a strange yet hopeful pattern. This game started with a woeful TO rate ..17 in the 1st half...this is about 35% higher than a normal full game of TOs. But here is the hopeful part... we had only 3  TOs in the 2nd half...F- 1st half ...A+ 2nd half...same pattern in the 1st 2 games... a dramatic drop off in TOs in the 2nd half.  The 20 TOs didn't matter in this game because Lw had 24 TOs.  But we will come upon a team that protects the ball and if we don't do the same there could be a problem.

The other area is fouls.....The 1st game we had 24 fouls ...a high amount...the next 2 game we had 18 and 19..A nice improvement. 19+ in fouls is generally an F...18= D  17=C  16 = B and 15 or less =A.  So if we can take off a couple of fouls we should be in good shape.

Over all we are treading water...we blew out another weak team and far exceeded but we are still at B+. The underlying numbers improved about 3%. It is hard at this stage playing cream puffs  to improve your standings.  It isn't just the Q4s that make it tough but it is also about the other teams. If they are doing the same or better than you then you aren't moving up the ladder. This will change in the next game. Grand Canyon will be a big jump up in quality. Tougher competition is how we can really move up.  Next game is the first real test of season 2 under Schertz.

Are we up to the challenge?...the computer says ...yes.

 

[Aquinas]

2 hours ago, The Wiz said:

I think I will start the wrap up of the Lwood game  with a couple of quotes I made on the Chi St wrap up  talking about the future Lwood game....

"So what does all that mean?  It means poor old Lindenwood will run into a buzz saw on Monday...an unrelenting one."

"The last 7 min of the Lindenwood game will look a lot different than  the last 7 min of the Chi St game."

True and true. These quotes were a better indicator than the spread was. I knew this was going to happen but the computer didn't understand.  The advantage I have over the computer is....You gotta see the kids play....and Schertz coach. I saw ...the computer didn't .  Another 5 games and the computer will be better with the extra data.   Again there was no way a computer could quantify the wrath of Schertz. For the team...lesson learned...don't take your foot off the gas.

Let's take a look at the game....

Let's start with the records....So you think 6...7 is a big deal...Well the Bills topped that with a 66.7% FG%...the highest ever recorded at Chaifetz...keeping the 66 theme going theme going...how about 66 pts in the 2nd half,  another Chaifetz record. But wait there's more...the 109 pts was the most ever recorded in a game against a D1 team at Chaifetz.  Not done yet...this is the 1st time in Bills history (going back 110 years ...before @Old guy was born) that the Bills ever had back to back 100 pt games.  Truly a game for the ages.

We could stop here...but we won't...next let's see what the slash looks like ...66.7/ 52.4 / 71...Majerus always said...winning teams and players have slashes of 180+. This slash totals at 190 +...a winning team...Now let's add some 2P shooting to the slash...............66.7 / 75 / 52.4/ 71 ...grades out at A+ / A+/ A+/ C-  and finally for context let's take a look at a straight A+ slash  and I will line it up under the Lwood slash...........47.9/55.4/37.8/ 78......As you can see except for the FTs,  in this game we far exceeded in the 1st 3 categories and in the previous 2 games we far exceeded in FTs.

Areas of concern...

TOs still too high but a strange yet hopeful pattern. This game started with a woeful TO rate ..17 in the 1st half...this is about 35% higher than a normal full game of TOs. But here is the hopeful part... we had only 3  TOs in the 2nd half...F- 1st half ...A+ 2nd half...same pattern in the 1st 2 games... a dramatic drop off in TOs in the 2nd half.  The 20 TOs didn't matter in this game because Lw had 24 TOs.  But we will come upon a team that protects the ball and if we don't do the same there could be a problem.

The other area is fouls.....The 1st game we had 24 fouls ...a high amount...the next 2 game we had 18 and 19..A nice improvement. 19+ in fouls is generally an F...18= D  17=C  16 = B and 15 or less =A.  So if we can take off a couple of fouls we should be in good shape.

Over all we are treading water...we blew out another weak team and far exceeded but we are still at B+. The underlying numbers improved about 3%. It is hard at this stage playing cream puffs  to improve your standings.  It isn't just the Q4s that make it tough but it is also about the other teams. If they are doing the same or better than you then you aren't moving up the ladder. This will change in the next game. Grand Canyon will be a big jump up in quality. Tougher competition is how we can really move up.  Next game is the first real test of season 2 under Schertz.

Are we up to the challenge?...the computer says ...yes.

 

Wow!

[gobillsgo]

8 hours ago, Lord Elrond said:

Does a 43 point win impress the computer?

Not KenPom’s apparently.  Feel like his ratings have always had us lower than we should be.  

[wgstl]

2 hours ago, gobillsgo said:

Not KenPom’s apparently.  Feel like his ratings have always had us lower than we should be.  

T-rank bumped is a few more than KP, but they also had us way lower than KP.  Really surprised we only moved two. 

[SLU_Nick]

2 hours ago, gobillsgo said:

Not KenPom’s apparently.  Feel like his ratings have always had us lower than we should be.  

@The Wiz -- I am just glancing at the Kenpom.  Grand Canyon in the 90s....Dayton/VCU remain around 60ish and will go down when they inevitably lose to GW or whoever.  

Does the computer project out the entire season? 

Feels like 2 losses puts us on the bubble, 3 and we are out.  

What a zero bid league.  ugh

[cheeseman]

On 101 the TMS guys were talking about how week our OCC was.  A listener text in and said it is week because MO is too chicken to play us.  Then the biggest MO honk - Jackson, said well SLU use to have teams like Auburn on the schedule why not now.  So my question is why does Auburn have to cover for MO.  Auburn has other schools in AL they should be playing.  The reason MO won't play us is the same reason most non P4 can't get games with P 4.  Why don't they just say the quiet part out loud - the P4 teams long term plan is to ice out the non P4 schools from everything.

[The Wiz]

18 minutes ago, SLU_Nick said:

@The Wiz -- I am just glancing at the Kenpom.  Grand Canyon in the 90s....Dayton/VCU remain around 60ish and will go down when they inevitably lose to GW or whoever.  

Does the computer project out the entire season? 

Feels like 2 losses puts us on the bubble, 3 and we are out.  

What a zero bid league.  ugh

From my Preseason forecast.....

Let's take a look at the projected record....

Scenarios

Best case.....29-2

Most probable ...25-6

Worst case...21-10

Chance to Dance... 31%

NIT Chance ...73%

And also from that same thread

 

 Right now we are 1 bid conference.   The chances for a 2 bid conference would be 50%...3 bid conference 20%.

For the Bills it shakes out like this....

Scenarios...

Best case 16-2...1st pl

Most probable 13-5...1st pl

Worst case...10-8...5th pl

 

[SLUfan_42]

Just keep winning

[billiken_roy]

1 hour ago, cheeseman said:

On 101 the TMS guys were talking about how week our OCC was.  A listener text in and said it is week because MO is too chicken to play us.  Then the biggest MO honk - Jackson, said well SLU use to have teams like Auburn on the schedule why not now.  So my question is why does Auburn have to cover for MO.  Auburn has other schools in AL they should be playing.  The reason MO won't play us is the same reason most non P4 can't get games with P 4.  Why don't they just say the quiet part out loud - the P4 teams long term plan is to ice out the non P4 schools from everything.

this was all before the change in landscape the last 3 years or so.   it is now very apparent that the power conferences want it all and they are just flat out refusing to play anyone that could challenge them.   if thes tms guys cant admit that they arent worthy of your time.   go watch reruns of law and order or grit TV instead of wasting times on these arrogant idiots that are only cheering for the power conferences.  

[Old guy]

@The Wiz Thank you very much for your review of Bill's records back to the very beginning, even older than my age. Now I want to do something similar but encompassing a smaller time frame, simply the 3 games we have played all of which we won. 

In the first game against  SEMO we won by 25 pts, 6.5 points over the spread. Prior to this first game of the season we were ranked 81 by Team Rankings. VCU, Dayton, and GW were ranked higher than SLU. After this game SLU's ranking went up to 75, a gain of 6 levels. After this game we were ranked above GW.

The second game against Chi State we won by 20 points, 9 points below the spread. Even though we won this game below the spread we won with a score of 108, which is very high. Our ranking in the Team Rankings system went up to 73, a very low 2 level gain. Our ranking level remained below VCU and Dayton and above GW. 

The third game against Lindenwood we won by 43 points, 18 points over the spread. We won by 109 pts, the second win over 100 in a row. In the Team Rankings system we went up to  62, a gain of 11 levels. After this gain VCU was still ranked above us but we had gone over Dayton's, to the second highest overall  ranking in A10. 

It appears undeniable that winning by beating the other team over the spread, results in a larger movement up in ranking that winning below the spread. 

I thought this was interesting enough to post here.

[The Wiz]

38 minutes ago, Old guy said:

@The Wiz Thank you very much for your review of Bill's records back to the very beginning, even older than my age. Now I want to do something similar but encompassing a smaller time frame, simply the 3 games we have played all of which we won. 

In the first game against  SEMO we won by 25 pts, 6.5 points over the spread. Prior to this first game of the season we were ranked 81 by Team Rankings. VCU, Dayton, and GW were ranked higher than SLU. After this game SLU's ranking went up to 75, a gain of 6 levels. After this game we were ranked above GW.

The second game against Chi State we won by 20 points, 9 points below the spread. Even though we won this game below the spread we won with a score of 108, which is very high. Our ranking in the Team Rankings system went up to 73, a very low 2 level gain. Our ranking level remained below VCU and Dayton and above GW. 

The third game against Lindenwood we won by 43 points, 18 points over the spread. We won by 109 pts, the second win over 100 in a row. In the Team Rankings system we went up to  62, a gain of 11 levels. After this gain VCU was still ranked above us but we had gone over Dayton's, to the second highest overall  ranking in A10. 

It appears undeniable that winning by beating the other team over the spread, results in a larger movement up in ranking that winning below the spread. 

I thought this was interesting enough to post here.

One of the things I have hammered away at this season is the importance of winning big/scoring margin/ offense efficiency. What ever you would like to call it ...it is an  important calculation in determining the NET.

Keep winning big and we will be there at the end.

[deltalucas]

3 hours ago, wgstl said:

T-rank bumped is a few more than KP, but they also had us way lower than KP.  Really surprised we only moved two. 

Evan Miya's website bumped us up a lot (14 spots!) up to 65th in his model.

[cheeseman]

1 hour ago, billiken_roy said:

this was all before the change in landscape the last 3 years or so.   it is now very apparent that the power conferences want it all and they are just flat out refusing to play anyone that could challenge them.   if thes tms guys cant admit that they arent worthy of your time.   go watch reruns of law and order or grit TV instead of wasting times on these arrogant idiots that are only cheering for the power conferences.  

Hard to watch reruns when I am driving.  They are all MO honks to varying degrees

[CenHudDude]

3 hours ago, Old guy said:

@The Wiz Thank you very much for your review of Bill's records back to the very beginning, even older than my age. Now I want to do something similar but encompassing a smaller time frame, simply the 3 games we have played all of which we won. 

In the first game against  SEMO we won by 25 pts, 6.5 points over the spread. Prior to this first game of the season we were ranked 81 by Team Rankings. VCU, Dayton, and GW were ranked higher than SLU. After this game SLU's ranking went up to 75, a gain of 6 levels. After this game we were ranked above GW.

The second game against Chi State we won by 20 points, 9 points below the spread. Even though we won this game below the spread we won with a score of 108, which is very high. Our ranking in the Team Rankings system went up to 73, a very low 2 level gain. Our ranking level remained below VCU and Dayton and above GW. 

The third game against Lindenwood we won by 43 points, 18 points over the spread. We won by 109 pts, the second win over 100 in a row. In the Team Rankings system we went up to  62, a gain of 11 levels. After this gain VCU was still ranked above us but we had gone over Dayton's, to the second highest overall  ranking in A10. 

It appears undeniable that winning by beating the other team over the spread, results in a larger movement up in ranking that winning below the spread. 

I thought this was interesting enough to post here.

Thanks.  Very interesting O.G.

[brianstl]

3 hours ago, deltalucas said:

Evan Miya's website bumped us up a lot (14 spots!) up to 65th in his model.

ESPN’s BPI has us at 55. VCU is at 54. Dayton at 59.