Billikan Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 I would suggest that the people complaining about the 4 "cupcakes" might consider the following: 1. Over the years almost every good team has 3 or 4 "cupcakes" on the schedule, particularly if the team in not composed of experienced players. 2. Although RPI is important I would suggest that confidence and a positive attitude are even more important. If we start out and win a few games and a positive attitude develops then that is a good thing. Reality will set in when Arizona comes to town but winning a few games early will be a big boost. After a month no one pays any attention to the schedule anyway. All that will be reported, particularly by the local press, will be "the Bills record is now 7-3", etc. 3. Most important, the Bills have almost an entirely new team in terms of playing time on the floor. Only Sloan and Fisher have heavy experience. We have at least 3 new guards --Bryant, Morris, Clarke and three or four new big men--Fredricks, V, JJ, and the 7 footer--not including McClain who will need to be evaluated in game situations( or redshirted).The coach will be experimenting with rotations and matchups. The team will need to become acclimated to the new surroundings and their new teammates. As a former coach I can tell you that it is musch easier to coach and motivate new players, and experiment with various lineups, if you are not playing the very best teams early in the season. Furthermore, winning is always good, no mater who you are playing provided that the coaching staff keeps the team intense and focused. This staff will meet that challenge IMO. 4. Every coach and AD set up a schedule based upon the team they have. Remember the schedule for Larry'a second year--when he left for the NBA--Spoon thought with the addition of Love that we were going to have a great team and he scheduled accordingly. we than proceeded to get killed because Larry was gone. this year's team will not be great but it has the potential to be good. the schedule is appropriate for the quality of this team. We will be playing plenty of very good and several outstanding teams. I, for one, will be at every home game cheering for the Bills, regardless of the opponents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billiken Rich Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 I tend to agree with your take. The thing that scares me though is that if we drop one of these games we're screwed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dewey33 Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Here's some food for thought.... We act like we can get any team to come in here and play when we want. 1. We have limited dates due to Savvis availability. 2. We have commitments with home & home deals. 3. The teams we are soliciting for buy games are being courted by everyone else. These teams are probably using it to their advantage. Our schedule is plenty strong....especially as the C-USA gets better from top to bottom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kwyjibo Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 The RPI point is this: The 4 teams (pariticularly if they do finish the year with bad records/RPI's as expected) will hurt SLU's post season chances statistically. They will be a larger statistical anchor than SLU has been chained to in many years. This is different and comes at a time in which the conference SOS boost will *likely* be lower. As to the confidence of the players you obviously have a point, although I am not sure how much more confidence a whooping of NC A+T is going to give one than a close game (win or lose) with a challenging opponent. And as much as I respect your general point that *any* win is better than a loss psychologically, my own personal experiences are different. Any mismatch (win or lose) has far less instructive power than a close contest. Hopefully it does help and enables some of the new players to gel. This is likely Woolard's/Brad's thinking. The problem is this thinking runs afoul of established post-season criteria. If SLU has a bubble season (which is very possible) the 4 250+ teams will hurt a lot. Hopefully, they have such a solid season that it won't be necessary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACE Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 I agree with Dewey. We need some buy-in games to avoid having to return the favor and go on the road. Yes it would be nice to add an Illinois State and Bradley, but I'm sure they'd require us to make a return visit. That, IMO, is not a good idea. I'd rather go on the road as a pretty big underdog to a place like Georgia Tech, than run the risk of going on the road and losing to a mediocre school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 i've only missed about 5 games since 1988 and i dont plan on changing that ratio just because we have scheduled 4 dog games. i too will be there every game. that said, that doesnt mean i am not disappointed with the 4 buy in games. there is a big difference between the likes of savannah state and let's say siu or eastern illinois or loyola of chicago. the billikens can still accomplish the same thing with a more respectable opponent plus you are playing a nearby team that might actually draw a few local fans. no one is suggesting we play 11 of the top 25 teams in the nation with our out of conference schedule, but to face 4 of the 52 worst teams is insulting imo. especially when so many billiken fans get upset when the tigers use the "we have nothing to gain and everything to lose" excuse for ducking us. we should practice what we preach instead of looking for record padding ducks and inflicting the same stinging schedule snub on our neighbors that the tigers do to us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjray Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Roys point is that all cupcakes are not equal to which I agree. We managed to scrap 4 of the lowest out of the barrel (with no geographic proximity). Maybe it was a scheduling problem at Savvis as someone suggested that led to us coming up with the bad cupcakes. I like mine fresh and somewhere off the bottom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillikenButch Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 First off, 4 cupcakes is too many. Secondly, 3 cupcakes to start the season is foolish. I consider the start of the season to be five exhibition games and candidly, that is crap. Absolutely no good can come from those first three "real" games. We must win them all and even if we do (and I expect we will handily) we gain zero respect. If any are even close it will damage the reputation of the program. Does anyone think we are going to build momentum in these games? Confidence is built through accomplishment against meaningful competition, not gimmie games. Well the schedule is set, so I am not going to loose any sleep over it, but I do feel the schedule is weak and does more to limit team success than it does to strengthen it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NashvilleBilliken Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Yeah, playing these games at the beginning of the season is a dumb move IMO. We are coming off a season where the attendence was a real problem. If we were going to schedule cupcakes, at least schedule a team close to STL so that we could see more bodies in the seats and maybe get the fans to come back. Momentum, confidence? Sure, I think we can win these games, and sure it will give us confidence. But it will be false confidence. This is in NO WAY preparing us to face Arizona. This team could take a blow losing to arizona at home by 40 worse than losing to siu by 5...not to mention the national embarassment that it could become. I think the schedule could be worse, but it sure could be better... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACE Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Why does geographic proximity matter for the cupcakes? I remember games in the Grawer era against Eastern and Western Illinois and I don't remember throngs of fans turning out for those games. Read my post below. Just about everybody has these types of games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjray Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 >>Read my post below.<< Why? Does it contain words imparted to you while kneeling before a burning bush? Might you be coming at it from a somewhat high horse "ACE"? I'm sure they are very fine words in your post below. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lefty Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 Mizzou is doing to us ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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