trueblue32

Bona opens as 3.5 point favorites

Yeah I'm sure we could have scheduled a bad D1 team somewhere along the way. My impression of the situation is that we had an agreement with someone more desirable and it fell through which left UB scrambling late. I don't have any inside info, but I find the argument that this is something we wanted to do to be in bad faith based on the information that we have

All this talk about how good Bonaventure has been in the A-10 and your best class of players in 20+ years is staring down the barrel of graduating 0-3 against a lil ol' MAC program. Too bad

It’s wild to me that anyone thinks that 2 non-D1 games was a choice that Whitesell wanted to make. Prior to this year he’s scheduled 11 non-D1 games in 9 seasons. We were literally the last D1 team to announce our full schedule and Point Park was the last game announced. Let’s use our brains.

Myself and 4 other UB fans will be going

That poll is literally worthless lol. They don’t consider CUSA a mid major despite their last multi-bid year being 2012 when only 5 of their current teams were in the conference. Mid-major coaches are not spending their free time watching other mid-major games

https://www.prospectiveinsight.com/post/zaiden-cross In this interview he says he has an offer from Cincinnati and interest from Loyola Chicago

SFA wasn’t over the back at all in the half so this strategy is 100% effective

If Mballa crashes hard like he usually does and ends up with 3 fouls at the end of the half, people are saying Mballa made a dumb play and he never should have been in the game to begin with damned if you do, damned if you don’t on this board

We were #6 and they were #7 last year in OR%. We got punched in the mouth in the first half no doubt, but it’s not like SFA hitting the boards is a shocking development

I’d like to see a jumbo lineup with Hardnett/Fagan at the 3 in the second half. SFA can’t do anything outside the paint, clog it up and limit second chances and we can claw back

Lol we lose a rebound out of bounds as an SFA player is wrapped around Jeenathan’s left arm. Then on the inbounds #22 on SFA sets a screen moving his feet like an OT on a stretch play and there’s no fouls on either just some dog shit refereeing

We’re playing like shit but SFA got called for 27 fouls last game. Somehow we’ve been called for double the fouls when they’re initiating almost all contact

Barttorvik's site is now updated and displaying Wins Above Bubble, which I think is a good measure of how the team performs this year as hitting our ceiling would be a bubble caliber team imo. So far we're 50th in the country with 0.3 WAB, Bonaventure is 2nd in the country with 1.4 WAB. https://barttorvik.com/trank.php?sort=34&begin=20211101&end=20220501&conlimit=All&year=2022&top=0&hteam=&quad=5&rpi=# Beating SFA and Saint Louis on neutral floors this week would add an additional 0.54 WAB which would put us in the current Top 20 WAB definition for those not familiar: Wins Above Bubble (WAB): The difference in the number of wins a team has compared to the expected number of wins an average "bubble" team would earn against a given teams' schedule.

Yes and this also says Iso + kickouts. I really don't have a problem if an extra 4 times per game Williams + Segu are beating their guys off the bounce and kicking it out to Jack/Brewton (plz regain CC form)/Skogman/Segu/Williams. If a possession ends with any of them taking an open three that's a good possession imo

Mading has already said on social media that he’s not redshirting. It’s the player’s choice as much as it’s the coach’s decision. I’m sure they have dialog on what the playing time expectation is

“nothing has formally been brought to the NCAA to approve at this time.” Not to my knowledge but I could be wrong

No in basketball if you touch the floor in a regular season game and don’t have medical hardship that causes you to play under 33% of team games you’re burning a year of eligibility. football you can play up to 4 games and redshirt I believe

Bench production != depth. It may pan out that our depth isn’t good but with 3 clear best players, if rotations are properly managed at least 2 of them will be on the court at all times and most offense will run through them. Our top players being able to handle a larger workload is a good thing. We’ll get a better idea as we see a larger sample size and there is more foul trouble or health issues that challenge depth. So far Jones appears to be a capable backup true PG and Skogman appears to be a better big option than we had last year. Wild cards are Brewton regaining his form from Coastal and Mading developing since he’s not redshirting

Yeah I disagree, it feels like we're playing to lose by a close margin rather than trying to win. We could play that match-up 100 times and I can't imagine Brock wins that match-up in any. I know Hardnett wasn't healthy, but I can see a scenario where he or Mballa hits a couple threes, or blow by Dickinson a few times and get him in foul trouble. One of the primary reasons he's not in the NBA is he doesn't defend well on the perimeter. You gotta roll the dice in some of these situations if you're looking to pull off an upset like we did against Arizona. A more egregious example to me is like Dylan Swingle on BG last year. That kid was bad, but we'd start Brock as the token big guy as if Hardnett was going to lose us the game trying to defend Swingle. Or when Hardnett was in the game, on offense we'd have him float on the perimeter or in the dunkers spot rather than letting him handle the ball and make Swingle defend a ball screen. We've recruited a bunch of long, athletic, skilled bigs and I don't feel the staff has fully figured out how to utilize them yet

My takeaways from the first couple of games: -There were questions about who would step up and be a closer, Segu and Williams to me look like two guys that can get and make their own shot. Graves was a good player, but I don't think him being a creator was ever the best role for him. -I had concerns about Jack stepping in for Graves, but I think being a better shooter + lower usage is a better fit in an offense with the Big 3. He's rebounding at about the same rate, I still need to see more defensively -I'm not concerned about style points in the North Texas game. Their brand of basketball is winning rock fights. They were a top 50 defense last year and 350/357 in pace. There were 65 possessions last night, the last time we played such a slow paced game was against Coppin St. 12/10/2016. That's a style of game we've struggled with for the past 5 years, and we came out with a win on the road. I'll take it. -Hardnett being back is big, he doesn't post the rebounding numbers that Mballa does, so he doesn't get the love, but I think he's the best defender on the team. I'd like to see Mballa/Skogman split the 5, and Hardnett/Mballa split the 4. I like Brock but he's not one of our top guys, so if everyone's healthy I don't think he needs to start. One of my main criticisms of Whitesell is that he tries to match other teams rather than making them match us. Oats played 6'7" Jeremy Harris against 7'1" DeAndre Ayton, we don't need to be trotting Brock out just because the other team has someone 6'10"+

Yep I was just about to post that. That's a monstrous swing for there not to be injury/suspension news on Michigan's side. Kenpom spreads are generally sharp to Vegas spreads and KenPom has us losing by 17. I guess we'll see if any news comes out.

Vegas money is on our side as we started as 18.5 point dogs. This reminds me of the Ayton match-up. Back then we had Perkins, Harris, and McRae as outside threats to compromise Ayton defensively and they went 7-16 from 3 that game. We don't have big men with their track record shooting the 3 which is concerning to me. If we're trying to match Dickinson with Bertram I think it could be a long night

Tickets are on sale for the game vs. Canisius at Key Bank https://www.ticketmaster.com/mens-college-basketball-tripleheader-buffalo-new-york-12-18-2021/event/00005B66D2F94521