slu72 Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 A quarter of the games have been played, still very early, but is anyone as confident now that this team is dance selectable? The W-Ill game was not a good showing. But KL being injured hurt us. A&M game was scary bad. SIU, thought that would have been more hotly contested and a possible W. But you had to know it was over by the 10:00 mark of the second half. There didn't appear to be a plan to crack their D by going inside to IV, and we weren't making stops when we had to. Loyola has been our best win to date. Houston, expected victory, but if it's true they were missing a couple of starters, would have thought we'd have won by more. Still too early to judge, but the next three weeks tells us where this team really is. Positives: TL's shot, KL's increased scoring, LM's spirited play. Negatives: IV's not being a dominant a factor in any game so far, which may be the result of no breakthroughs at the 4, DB not scoring more, team defense is down from previous years. Yes, we're running and pushing it more, but we still have to play exceptional D to be competitive with the higher ranked teams. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SShoe Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 I remain relatively positive for the single reason that as long as Brad's been coach, his teams have started the season poorly and progressed as the year's gone on. I'm hoping for the same this year. So at this point, to be 6-2 is fine for me as long as we improve like Brad's teams normally do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billiken Rich Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 Regardless of how we've played we've only lost TWO games. TWO TOUGH ROAD GAMES AGAINST PROBABLE NCAA CALIBER TEAMS. Sure our wins haven't been blowouts but compared to the win one lose one goofiness of last year and the pain of two years ago this is freaking heaven. Assuming we beat Pacific while they are down and Tenn. Martin ay home we are 8-2 going into Mo State. WE NEED TO BEAT THEM AT HOME. I'll be ok with losing to UNC. Not happy but ok. Ole Miss here another must win if we are a tourney team. If we are 10-3 after this buzz saw I'll be pretty damn proud. Margin of victory doesn't matter. Period. End of discussion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Box and Won Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 Dance material? Ask me again in March. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billiken Rich Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 Eom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NashvilleBilliken Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 I'm much less confident about it than I was, but I think we are still dance material. We've won some games that we would lose in prior years. We couldn't hit the rim from behind the arc on Saturday, but still found a way to win. That's a new one. As much as people think our lack of a 4 is the problem, I think it is lack of intensity. I saw both the SIUC and A&M games and thought we were just flat. My buddy kept commenting on how slow we were and how we didn't move. We didn't fight for boards, the definsive intesity was lacking, and confidence was low. I think we have the tools, but lack the heart. Hopefully we can improve on that. If nothing more than so I don't have to write a check to RealisicBilliken. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevinfootes Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 and that didn't stop Ian. It would certainly help, but I don't buy that as an excuse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slufanskip Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 Offensively it should give him more room to operate or leave someone open if they double him. We need Ian to pick up his game. Official Billikens.com sponsor of H Waldman Official Sponser of the Stemmler and Ahearn could and would have helped club. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tonka Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 I have expected more from Ian at this point and I have expected more from our defense. The good thing is that both of these things are fixable. I think the team adjusting to a new offense has hurt them defensively. I am hoping that will get figured out soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 the reason i have less confidence about the ncaa tourney is more because it appears that the atlantic 10 did not bounce back as i expected. i fully expected the a-10 to revert back to the days of a 4 bid conference and now it appears it will at best be a two bid conference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACE Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 Roy, you just stated why a lot of us have an issue with the a-10. Playing in this crap conference leaves little margin for error. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianstl Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 I think if SLU and Dayton take care of their business in the rest of the ooc schedule, it could be a three bid conference. Beating both MSU and Mississippi would make me feel a lot more comfortable about the Bills. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kshoe Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 How many bids this conference gets will be dependent on how much parity the league has. If its like last year where one team dominates and everyone else beats up on eachother then we could be looking at only 1 (assuming they win the conference tourney). If the right teams (UMass, SLU, GW, UD, XU for example) finish off the non-conference portion in decent shape and then then dominate the conference slate, only losing to eachother you could get as many as 3. I also agree with Roy though, that the poor performance of the A-10 hurts SLU's chances for an at-large bid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 Ace, I am not happy with what the a-10 has deteriated to in the last couple of years. however in all fairness, when the decision was made, the a-10 was coming off of a 4 bid season with two teams in the elite 8. couple that with the off court positives of being in the a-10 i still believe that the a-10 can get it together and long term this is the best place to be. it is time for the athletic directors to band together and demand advancements or else get bruno the hell out of dodge. and if it isnt bruno that is the problem and she is doing what the majority of ad's want, then indeed we need to move again. personally i find it hard to believe it is the latter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slu72 Posted December 12, 2006 Author Share Posted December 12, 2006 Would agree it will be a struggle for the A-10 to get two let alone 3 bids. Had X not won the tourney last year, it was pretty clear they weren't being invited despite winning 20 games. What also hurts is some of the "mid major" conferences such as the Valley, the one w/ Hofstra and GM, and possibly others may get two or more bids. The Valley will most likely get 3-4. I think the only way we would get an at large is if we win the conference and go 10-3 ooc. Now if one of those is an upset over UNC, that could swing things in our favor even if we don't win the conference regular season. There's too many other good teams out there right now and if some of the early surprise teams like OK State, Mizzery, Purdue keep it up that makes it even all the more difficult. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLUDrew Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 Tommie and Kevin are great guards but they cannot carry us into the tourney. If Ian continues to play the way he has (and don't tell me about the double-doubles we all know he hasn't been playing well) and we don't start making some stops on D, we will find ourselves in the NIT. I would say that our dance chances right now are about 50/50 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kshoe Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 "I think the only way we would get an at large is if we win the conference and go 10-3 ooc." If we go 10-4 in non-conference and 12-4 or better in conference (that does not assure a regular season conference championship by any stretch) we are sitting at 22-8. Maybe we need to win 1 more game in the conference tourney but i think that would be good enough. the teams that get denied with 23 plus wins are usually ones that schedule a ton of mediocre non-conference games AND play in a mediocre conference. Our non-conference schedule is certainly not mediocre and the committee would reward us for it if we got to 23 games. So no, I'm not one of those that believe the onyl way we make the dance is to win the regular season or conference tourney. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NashvilleBilliken Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 You guys know I always look on the bright side, but 3 bids isn't as big a pipe dream as some think. Currently Dayton is 8-1. They have 4 non-conference games left with the highlights being UNC and Pittsburg. Xavier is 9-2 with 5 OOC games featuring Cincy, Illinois, and K-State. We still have UNC, Mississippi, and MO St. If the three teams finish real strong OOC and dominate the A-10 (as KShoe mentions), 3 isn't out of the picture. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kwyjibo Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 Currently 22-8 puts SLU into the 45-48 range (a good tourney run/good finish/top 50 wins with that and maybe SLU gets a bid). Frankly, 23-7, is now (thanks to the crappy weekend A-10 had) a more realistic "get us in" target as it gets us to the 36-38 range. This is using RPIForecast.com to get the final SOS projection (which is better statistically speaking than Jerry Palm's forecasted RPI). This will all change but the A-10 currently does not give much margin for error. Hopefully, the A-10 has a great holiday season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 drew, if the a-10 was stronger i would agree. but i am now convinced that even with ian being a support player and kevin and tommie being our goto, i think we are top 3 minimum material. if ian wakes up and plays as we all expected, then we are looking at being the cream of the league imo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLUDrew Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 Roy, you are right. A weak A-10 means we should still have a lot of wins. BUT, we are not currently strong enough to get the right wins. You cannot count on two sophomore guards(one of whom is still coming into his own as a shooter) to carry you night in and night out without a dominant inside presence. I say we try JJ and AK with Tommie, Kevin and Dwayne and see what they can do. Maybe Ian needs to sit and ponder about what he should be contributing to this team. Obviously if we are to be as good as we can be, we need Ian, but the current version of Ian will get us nowhere Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quality Is Job 1 Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 >Maybe Ian needs to sit and ponder about >what he should be contributing to this team. Obviously if we >are to be as good as we can be, we need Ian, but the current >version of Ian will get us nowhere. I might have agreed with this until I found out that Ian Vouyoukas hasn't been completely healthy. I don't have a problem with reducing IV's court-time, but let's do it because of his health rather than because his attitude. I don't think he "needs to sit and ponder what he should be contributing to the team." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLUDrew Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 If so, then that changes things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianstl Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 It was posted yesterday that he has been suffering from an urinary tract infection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRaginCajun Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 Are we to believe that this is the truth? It was reported by a guy with the name diggerphelps and I do not believe he has posted much on this site. I just question the validity of this guys post. It is my understanding that a urinary tract infection is curable within a couple days of taking antibiotics. I think this guy was trying to take a shot at Ian in some way with this post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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