squire17

UB 20.xlsxUB 20.xlsx

Jeremy Harris was a great athlete for UB. He shot over 40% from 3 in his first season as a Bull. Inexplicably, he shot slightly better than 25% from 3 in his final season. He regressed. And yet he did enough other things well in his second year that almost compensated for the drop off in 3 point accuracy. The transfers and JUCOs that currently play for UB have not brought much in the way of positive development. With the exception of Mballa, it appears that the new members are a bust.

Much has been written here that lambastes the Bulls’ defense, their lack of hustle, selfishness, lack of urgency, and even teammates foray into post game tweets that presumably showcase individual feats of accomplishment (even after team losses!). At the same time, the number of posts insisting that this team is among the most athletically talented in the MAC has virtually disappeared. I want to return to an observation that I made in November. This is a guard laden team. It has virtually no depth in quality bigs. And so far, as a team, two areas of inadequacy stand out: poor three point shooting and abysmal foul shooting. I don’t know how you turn that around in the short term. You can improve your team’s chances of winning by getting better defensive efforts, but if you continue to shoot the ball as poorly as the Bulls have (at least in all their losses), your prospects for a successful season are slim.

Going to zone would help in one sense - it would limit the drives to the hoop with impunity. However, it would also diminish the number of defensive rebounds that the Bulls gathered.

The Bulls earn a victory of sorts, if they can hold their opponent to less than 90 points.

Johnson! So dangerous!!

We are getting back in this

There is a lot of time left...we have to go to our strength - chuck it from 3, baby.

Give Johnson the rock. He is smoking!

Not worried. Just have to tighten it up a bit on D.

The buck stops with Alnutt. He’s got ultimate say on hiring any and all head coaches. He must have been cognizant of salary limitations when contemplating Oats’ replacement. Waiting as long as he did before naming Whitesell gives the impression that the AD was flat footed.

?? 85, Care to elaborate?

I don’t see a lack of effort. Which Buffalo Bull is dogging it? Name one. Lack of fundamentals? Enlighten us.

From the glass half full department: As others have stated, this team is capable of beating or losing to any MAC team. I think we’ll see them to do that with regularity throughout the season. Anything from a 9 win to a 12 win record seems a reasonable expectation. The Bulls hold their own in rebounds, but are sketchy and inconsistent in many other areas including foul shooting (deplorable), three point shooting (inconsistent, but deplorable in losses to date), and defense (inconsistent, but shows signs of brilliance with the full court press late in games). I know they’ll never do it, but I think they periodically should use a zone defense to limit the number of drives for layups. They’ll get to Cleveland with no pressure on them. They can win it all there. Go Bulls!

They’re all going to be grinders from here on out.

Why not Jordan? If he Get’s fouled, he gets 2...nevermind

Who’s number 41? He looks familiar...

It’s clear that the Bulls are an athletically superior team...perhaps the best that the MAC has to offer. Now, if they could shoot the ball and play defense, they would make mincemeat of their opposition.

I agree with much that you say. Agreed that a small school like St Bona has fewer resources from a financial standpoint than UB. And Bona utilizes it’s resources quite differently than UB regarding which sports teams it fields. But it must be pointed out that as of 2018, Schmidt’s salary was $831000+. Compare that with what Oats was offered and with Whitesell’s salary.

By your logic, you are also saying that Iona is just as good. It has gone to the NCAA in 4 consecutive years.

The A10 is 13 - 32 against top 100. One team didn’t play any OOC games against a top 100 team: DuQuesne.

Just looking at current season MAC men’s basketball victories over OOC teams ranked in top 100 (per kenpom). There have only been 4: UB defeated Harvard (91) and DePaul (69); Ball St knocked off Georgia Tech (96); and Bowling Green beat Cincinnati (58). Against teams ranked in the top 100: Akron lost to 3 teams, Kent St lost 2, UB lost 1, Bowling Green lost 2, Ohio lost 3, Miami lost 1, Toledo lost 1, Ball St lost 1, N Illinois lost 4, E Michigan lost 1, C Michigan lost 4, and W Michigan lost 4. So 4 - 27 record against top 100. I’d say the MAC is up for grabs.

I’m only looking at the men’s teams. In the past ten seasons including the present, Bona is 7 - 3 against UB. The average final kenpom rank for each team in 9 prior seasons is Bona 78 and UB 100. However the trend suggests that their relative comparison is flipping in UB’s favor. I arbitrarily decided to use a ten year span, but the teams didn’t play each other much before that span. Overall, the A10 is a better conference in men’s basketball.

Great game yesterday. It should be pointed out that UB and Niagara did not play each other last year. I don’t want to say that the Purple Eagles couldn’t have won, if they had played...however, there was a probability of 99.99999% that the Bulls would have won.

Know the feeling. Driving through Batavia, Elmira, Binghamton... sometimes wonder how many get the same feeling when they fly into Buffalo from New York, Baltimore, Austin, Tampa, Charlotte, and a hundred other places - in this country (to say nothing about the rest of the world). Why would they (anyone) want to live here? High taxes, crappy weather, low wages/salaries, and crappy weather...but, at least we’ve got climate change. So, crappy weather can’t get any worse, unless it turns into Florida, Arizona, or Seattle. My Buffalo...I think I’ll keep her. Plus the food rools!