Hail to the Billikens!

[WH]

Congratulations to the St. Louis Billikens and their fans for a fine season.

As some of you know, I picked the Bills to finish 11th in the A-10, with a record of 13-15 (6-10 in league play). To my surprise, St. Lo finished third in the league and should get a postseason bid of some sort.

I admit to having some doubts about a school so far away joining the A-10, but St. Louis was nothing but a credit to the league. It was the performance of some our traditional standard bearers that let the A-10 down. Certainly it was not the Billikens. A job well done.

Having said that, I do not regret my prediction. I evaluate all 14 teams and it’s quite a juggling act to figure out where they will all end up. If I were unusually smart – and I am not – I would mostly end up right. Yet sports (and life) being impossible to predict, I am bound to get a few teams drastically wrong each year. St. Louis and Dayton were my two biggest misses this season.

Generally speaking, I think I’ve done a pretty good job if I come within two games of a team’s finish. Three games and beyond is below average or even poor. In the Bills’ case, I was only off by three games overall (four in A-10 play), but I was off 8 spots in terms of the finish. Pretty glaring.

Why was I off so much? I’d say four reasons, all of which are interconnected.

First, Ian Vouyoukas was much more improved than I expected. I suggested he was capable of averaging 12 points and 6-7 boards a game, which turned out to be close to his average. Yet his impact on games was much greater than that (see my post on the A-10 on the league’s top bigmen for further explanation). He got in the best shape of his life and was the most imposing post player in the A-10, bar none. He was the anchor of the Bills’ attack.

Second, the stellar play of freshman wing players Tommie Liddell and Kevin Lisch. They played above and beyond most freshmen.

I would disagree a bit with B-Roy’s assessment that I underplayed their potential. I picked Liddell as my ROY and listed Lisch as a key frosh to watch in my preseason all-rookie predictions. I did so based in part on what I read here as well as elsewhere. I also knew they would get plenty of minutes.

What you have to keep in mind, though, is that I hear every year from the fans of various teams why their top frosh recruit or two will be an impact player. Seldom is that the case, and I have to weigh that accordingly.

Indeed, I would argue that only three, maybe four A-10 rookies were true impact players in 2005-06. Liddel, Lisch, Chris Lowe of UMass and perhaps Jim Baron Jr. of URI. That’s it.

Liddell pretty much played as I expected. I knew he was a great athlete who could handle the ball well and get to the rack. I also knew he wouldn’t shoot particularly well from outside. He might have surprised me with his rebounding and his ability to disrupt games defensively from time to time. He wasn’t as consistent as Lisch in that regard, but he could pose a big problem.

Lisch was the bigger surprise. I wasn’t sure how he’d perform coming off knee surgery as a high school senior. It’s also my experience that freshman guards rarely shoot all that well or perform as consistently on defense in their inaugural campaigns. Finally, rookies often suffer late-season meltdowns owing to the longer season.

In Lisch’s case, none of those things happened. He shot very well, was quite advanced defensively for his age and got better as the season wore on. In addition, Lisch arguably hit more clutch shots in the closing minutes of games than any other A-10 player. The only one who comes close is Mo Rice of GW.

If not for a slower start, Lisch and not Liddell would have been rookie of the year. He was tremendous, plain and simple.

When previewing St. Louis, I still don’t think it would have been realistic of me to expect as much from Lisch and Liddell as they delivered. I’ve been watching A-10 ball a long time, and I can only thing of one group of wingmen who had such a big impact in their freshmen seasons. That was Lenny Brown, Gary Lumpkin and Darnell Williams at Xavier in 1996. Even with that trio, the young Muskies only finished 13-15.

It’s rare for two freshmen in the A-10 on the same team to have such an impact. When I do my previews, I have to play the odds to some extent in evaluating teams. And the odds told me that it was unlikely Lisch and Liddell would both be THAT good this soon. I see why Bobby Lutz referred to the pair as the best duo of guards he’s seen in several years.

Of course, it helped that they had Vouyoukas covering their ass on defense and sucking away defenders on offense. It’s a credit to them, though, that they took advantage.

Third, the improved play and shooting of Anthony Drejaj. After two miserable years of shooting, AD finally got his act together. Again, IV figures into this as well. Drejaj got a lot of good looks when defenders collapsed on Vouyoukas. And AD played his normally tough defense. The Bills will miss him next year.

Finally, the coaching of Brad Soderberg. Even now, when I look back to the start of the season, I don’t think the Bills had one of the best rosters in the league. I would argue that as many as 8-9 teams had superior talent or numbers. And yet, the Bills put many of those teams to shame in terms of cohesion and toughness. Doing it all with just four key performers, really, is quite a feat.

That’s a tribute to Soderberg. He did a fine job this year. I am surprised that the Bills’ defense was as good as it was with all the youngsters on the roster. I figured the defense would take a small step back this season. Clearly, Soderberg is a very good coach. All the fans blasting Brad after the Richmond loss – I still remember some of Davidnark’s biting posts – ought to recognize that.

If he gets better players, the Bills will be something to watch. But let’s not go there just yet. The two L’s are a great step in that direction. (-:

[billiken_roy]

wh, you are a gentleman above all! thank you for coming back and giving the billikens that credit.

[NashvilleBilliken]

Thanks, WH. You're never gonna make everybody happy with your previews(namely teams after the top 4), but you do as good a job as I've seen out there. Looking forward to next years previews.

[Billikan]

I was one of those that was really steamed to see your preseason rankings. I was wondering whether you would come back.

The one thing that you do not mention, and it was a key flaw in your analysis, is that you and many others kept emphasizing that the Bills only won 9 games last year without any real analysis of the fact that our key players were out or injured. You ignored the two seasons just prior to last year. Also, although Ian played better this year, if you watched his last 10 games or so last year it was obvious that he would be a force this year but you and the other "insiders" in the A10 just wrote off the Bills.

I am curious to hear your take on the officiating in the A10. I watch a lot of basketball and I believe that hands down, the worst refs in all of D1 basketball are those who call the games in the A10.

I would assume that next year you will put our Billikens higher than 11th!!!!!!!!

[billiken_nate]

Thanks WH, I was not particularly mad about your rankings an dappreciate all the hard work and anylasis you put into those reveiws, I am just glad we proved you wrong

[kshoe]

You can count me in those that thought we'd be better than 11th but I can't harbor any anger towards WH for picking us there. Hell, a year before we were pumping of DP as a dominant recruit much like we did TL and KL. I don't blame anybody for being skeptical regarding the hype of our freshmen.

Perhaps, WH's biggest mistake was thinking the conference would be better than it was. There is no doubt in my mind part of the reason for our 3rd place finish was the disapointment of teams like Xavier and Dayton.

[WH]

For a variety of reasons, lots of A-10 teams did not make the natural progression I expected.

Dayton and Xavier, though bringing almost everyone back from 18-win teams, actually regressed. Poor point play by senior guards on each squad was a big part of the problem.

Similarly, UMass lost its starting guards (and 20 ppg) even before A-10 play started in January.

Also, URI’s starting PG from last year, sophomore Jon Lucky, quit before the season started and ended up sitting out the year. The Rams did not have any other true points on the roster capable of playing big minutes.

Basically, the performances of four teams, Dayton, Xavier, Temple and Charlotte, really account for most of the league’s problems. If they do what they are supposed to do, the league would have been as good as I thought.

In retrospect, I think I expected too much out of Warren Williams at Dayton and Dedrick Finn at Xavier. The problems at Charlotte and Temple are less easily explained.

To Billikan: You won’t hear me sing the praises of A-10 refs, but I see an awful lot of poor officiating. Ultimately, it evens up for everybody. We all have to deal with it.

As for your assessment of how I assessed the Bills, it’s dead wrong. I don’t know if you actually read my preview, but I did none of the things you suggested.

To wit: I did not emphasize the fact that you only won 9 games last year. The past is not always an indicator of the future. I did not ignore the injuries to key players. I did not ignore how many close games you lost last year. I did not ignore the two seasons prior to the Bills last go-around in C-USA (in fact, I taped 7-8 Bills games in EACH of the last two seasons you were in Conference USA, among other things). I did not ignore IV’s progress. Indeed, I took note of his unusual skills and savvy and some of his “McHale-like moves.†Nor did I write off the Bills carte blanche. I had them much improved and near .500.

I think I gave the Bills fair treatment, based on what I knew about ALL A-10 teams, even if I turned out to be wrong. Just like Bills fans were wrong two years ago about how St. Lo would fare. I bet none of you saw that 9-21 coming.

Such is life in college ball. Sometimes fans and prognosticators are right. Sometimes we are wrong. I gave it my best shot and came up short. It's happened before. It will happen again.

[Schasz]

WH,

I enjoyed your preseason analysis and while I hoped that you would be wrong I could certainly understand it. Frankly, this group of kids proved quite a few people wrong in the process. I can also honestly say they exceeded my expectations. As to the zebras, I watch a fair amount of basketball from many different conferences. There is uneven officiating in almost every college basketball conference...I don't think the A10 has a corner on the market for bad refs. In fact there was lots of whining about the CUSA zebras last year on this same website. Take care and keep on posting here as your unbiased opinions are certainly welcome here at least as far as I am concerned.

[billiken_roy]

if i would have known that reggie bryant and tom frericks would be injured basically the entire year, i would have definitely predicted a much worse season than what i did up front. any team that loses it's two goto seniors will pretty much fall apart.