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Foster's looked great so far. His passing and finishing around the rim have been on point. Hope he keeps it up!

https://www.wgrz.com/mobile/article/news/crime/750k-12-guns-fentanyl-found-in-buffalo-drug-bust/71-8af74e99-8328-42ff-80c2-83ca3c5c2d3b

Great first half. Shooting is probably a little fluky, 7-9 on 3's, but it's nice to have. The defense is what I feel better about. Marreon Jackson hasn't made a field goal and has 4 turnovers to 0 assists. Toledo has 11 turnovers in one half. That's the kind of stuff that UB can control every game

1 hour ago, clodney said:

Can anyone explain to me how a team can be ranked #97 after starting the season 5-1 with wins over #42 and #85 and their only loss coming on the road against #34? Kenpom's calculations are garbage to midmajors.

Kenpom's rankings factor in the preseason ratings for the first two months of the season so I'm assuming Bowling Green is being held back because of that

UCONN looks really bad at transition defense. If we keep exploiting that I think we got a win

Thought that it would be a fun discussion to make an all-decade team for UB basketball. Might be a bit of recency bias in my team but it's hard not to considering the success we've had as of late.

C Nick Perkins

F Javon McCrea

F Jeremy Harris

G CJ Massinburg

G Wes Clark

Backups:

C Mitchell Watt

F Justin Moss

F Blake Hamilton

G Shannon Evans

G Dontay Caruthers

Reserves:

F Willie Conner

G Davonta Jordan

CJ Massinburg will be in a 3 point competition tonight at 9 PM on ESPN. Here is the field:

David Crisp - Washington

Clayton Custer - Loyola Chicago

Mike Daum - South Dakota St

Corey Davis Jr - Houston

Fletcher Magee - Wofford

CJ Massinburg - Buffalo

Josh Perkins - Gonzaga

BJ Taylor - UCF

Just want to mention that Mike Bibby was terminated from coaching at Shadow Mountain due to accusations of sexual abuse. I think we can cross him off the list

With a season like the one we just had, and an incredible senior class graduating, it's tough to imagine that we reach the same level of success next season. Moving forward, we have enough pieces in place that we should be able to at least contend for the MAC and get back in the tournament. For us to get there, we are going to need some development out of our returning players. Here's what I would like to see from each player:

Jordan - He has to be our leader next year. Graves should be the best player, but Jordan will be the most important player. I want to see Jordan become more reliable as a decision maker, and aim for an assist/turnover rate at around 2.5. 5 assists per game and 2 turnovers per game will get the job done (Currently at 3.7 APG and 2.3 TPG). Obviously he needs to become a competent free throw shooter, and I think he can do that. His 3 point shot is reliable enough that he can knock them down sometimes, and I want it to get to a point where I feel like it's going in if he's open. Overall, I want Jordan's stats to be around 12 PPG 4 RPG 5 APG 2 SPG 2 TPG 38% 3P 60% FT

Graves - A lot of our fate lies in his hands. I don't think he's necessarily the next CJ, probably a tad worse. But I'd love to be proven wrong. I think what we need most out of Graves is for him to become a threat to create his own shot. A lot of his shots this year were spot up 3's and putbacks. If he's our best scorer, he's going to need more ways to get a bucket. He's got the athleticism to be able to break a defender down and he's got the shooting ability to pull up for a shot on a defender. I think he just needs to be more confident in his ball handling ability and he will become much more of an iso threat. This is what I would like out of Graves next year: 16 PPG 6 RPG 3 APG 1 SPG 1 BPG 47% FG 40% 3P 75% FT

Williams - Each of the last two years we've seen a player make a huge leap from freshman to sophomore year, first Jordan and then Graves. I would like to see both Williams and Segu make this leap. We have a hole at the 4 position to fill, and Williams seems like the most likely guy to fill it. I feel like Williams can make a leap even bigger than Jordan and Graves. It felt like he got better as the season went on. You know how Harris is able to break down a lot of big guys off the dribble and get to the basket? Williams is quicker than Harris, and he's going to be guarded by these same big guys. The key for Harris though is that he's a legitimate threat from 3, so his defender has to play him tight and it allows for Harris to drive. Williams isn't exactly a threat from 3. If we can get Williams to shoot even 30% on 3's, that's just enough where the defender will have to guard him on the 3 point line. He will blow by any big guy that guards him out there. Defensively, Williams has a lot of potential. A year under his belt should help him play smarter. I'm hoping Williams can get to this point next year: 9 PPG 6 RPG 1 APG 1 SPG 1 BPG 48% FG 30% 3P 65% FT

Segu - Hoping for a similar freshman to sophomore leap as Jordan or Graves. It feels like the starting backcourt next year will be Jordan/Johnson/Graves, so I'm thinking that Segu will be the 6th man next season. Watching Segu this season, it was easy to sense the raw talent, but it came with some poor decisions offensively at times, thus leading to a shorter leash from Coach Oats. By the end of the year, it felt like Segu tried too hard to play under control. He was afraid to look for his own shot and preferred to drive and kick, but defenses were aware and stole the kick passes a lot of the time. I feel like Segu is really going to benefit from the additional playing time next year. He's got a lot to work on with his decision making, but it's tough to really improve on decision making without the experience against D1 defenses. His shooting is solid already, he's got a strong handle on the ball, he's quick enough to get past defenders, and he's a willing passer. Give him a few years to develop more and he will be a nightmare to guard. Defensively, I think Segu will benefit from having the mentorship of Caruthers/Jordan/Massinburg this past year. Segu liked to guard opposing ball handlers full court, which he actually did a good job of making their lives at least a little more difficult in initiating their offense. But he had two huge problems defensively: too small to get through screens, and lacking awareness to be able to effectively guard players off-ball. These things need to change or else he's not getting much more playing time next year. If he can add some muscle and make better decisions, he's going to be really good. I think he's an all-MAC player his junior year and a potential MAC POY by his senior year. For now, I want him here: 9 PPG 3 RPG 3 APG 1 SPG 1.5 TPG 45% FG 38% 3P 75% FT.

The other guys we don't really know that well. Johnson seems like a starter right away based on his stats at Middle Tennessee. If JUCO rankings are accurate at all, then Allen seems like the favorite to start at center. Noah Williams/Hawkins are good recruits, but who knows how well it will translate to a productive freshman year. Rojas should be in the rotation. Grant has had a year to practice with the team, so I anticipate that he will get a shot at minutes too. If I were to guess the lineup, I would say Jordan/Johnson/Graves/J. Williams/Allen with Segu/N. Williams/Grant/Rojas/Hawkins off the bench (Hopefully not getting ahead of myself with the Hawkins talk before he has committed). This leaves Fagan/Bertram/Cadwell out of the rotation. I don't have a good feeling about Fagan and Bertram, considering we were playing a football player in the rotation ahead of those two for certain parts of the year. Hopefully this will motivate them to improve their games in the offseason. Cadwell is ranked rather low on the JUCO rankings. I'm sure he'll get a chance at minutes, but I don't think we will play 11 guys. For now he seems like the odd man out.

All in all, this was an incredible season. This was the best senior class in school history, and there is no way that our newcomers can match the production that they put up. But if our returners up their games and take on bigger roles, and some of our recruits and transfers are able to make instant impacts, the blueprint is there to get another chance at a tournament run. Go Bulls!

Yeah I don't think there's any debating here. Oats has the same amount of NCAA tournament appearances as Hurley, more tournament wins, and his team is in a better position right now than Hurley's, all while having less resources than Hurley.

It's worth mentioning that Howard scored 45 against Kansas State earlier in the season, and Kansas State is rated as the second best defensive team in the country on kenpom. Between that, the game I just watched, and what Marquette fans have had to say, it's pretty clear that good defense can't stop Markus Howard when he's on. No shame in losing this one.

1 hour ago, Jeseph said:

CJ has been named to the Oscar Robertson Midseason Watch List

http://www.ubbulls.com/sports/mbkb/2018-19/releases/20181221id6lsa

This is incredible! This essentially labels him as a top 20 player in the country so far. It's amazing how far this program has come

I think this is a game where we match up really well. Marquette is a very perimeter oriented team. The key I think is going to be keeping Jordan and Caruthers out of foul trouble, which will be a challenge considering how good Howard is at getting to the line. But this is the perfect game to have multiple suffocating on ball defenders.

15 minutes ago, UB85 said:

My weekly review of the voting (for some odd reason I enjoy looking at how everyone voted). Graham Couch of the Lansing paper has us at #5, which is up from 8 last week. He values true road wins. Dicky V has us at 14. A writer from the St. Louis Post Dispatch is the only voter without UB is his/her top 25. Two or three voters have UB at #9 and one at #10.Let's keep it rolling with a big win next Saturday against the Salukis! Go Bulls!

Graham Couch is a particularly interesting case. He isn't ranking teams that have not played a road game so far this season. This means he left Kansas, Duke, Tennessee, Auburn, and Texas Tech unranked even though they are all in the top 11 currently. I think he even said that once Tennessee plays a road game next week, he might put them at number 1. 

With this win, we moved up to 32nd in kenpom, which is especially impressive considering part of the ranking at this point in the season still consists of their "preseason ranking", which had us in the 70's. Even more fun, is that we are ranked ahead of every team in the PAC 12 on kenpom.

Andy Katz released his own bracket and has us as a 4 seed. He sure likes this team!

They are both transfers that get to play their one year next season.

I was checking Cierra Dillard's stats out of curiosity, and discovered that she is leading the nation in points per game! Looking at the women's hoops twitter feed I guess they discovered that first. Also worth noting that Dillard has the most free throws made in the country as well. It's been said several times already on this board, but I think it's worth emphasizing even more that we need to take the time to watch and appreciate a talent like this while we have it at UB.

17 minutes ago, hurley said:

Looking at these rankings and what a joke some of it is!  Purdue jumps 5 spots from 24 to 19 for beating Robert Morris!  Their best win is Davidson, while they lost at home to VT by 6.

Texas jumping us makes sense a they had a strong W this week. Texas Tech jumped from 40 to 20 for beating Northern Colorado and Nebraska.  Nebraska is 5-1, but that is their best win of the year by a large margin. 

Even Ohio State could be argued.  They were ranked behind us even though they had 2 strong road wins at Cincy and Creighton earlier in the season.  This week they beat Samford and Cleveland state easily. We played very strong this week against teams of similar stature. if those 2 strong road wins were already "priced in" why would they jump us this week?

 

Still a lot of disrespect out there for mid-majors.

Yeah definitely this, and preseason hype factors into it. The only reason Kentucky is even ranked at this point is because of preseason hype, and yet they are 10th. Purdue was expected to be good so that's why they jumped us. This isn't to say that preseason expectations should be ignored, but I feel like there's got to be a better balance. BTW Furman should easily be ranked at this point, especially ahead of Villanova

Ranked 25 in the AP Poll! https://collegebasketball.ap.org/poll

I think I was most impressed by Davonta Jordan this game. He had a really complete game, 3 steals, 3 blocks, took 2 charges, held their best scorer to 4-14 shooting and 6 turnovers, but most importantly, knocked down two 3's. If he can consistently make open 3's this year, that's going to help a lot with our spacing

The Preseason AP Poll was released today. UB received 14 votes, which was tied for 37th most in the poll.

West Virginia comes in ranked 13th, Syracuse ranked 16th, and Marquette had 124 votes which would put them 27th.

Mainly posting this article here because parts of this article focus on UB and coach Oats. Definitely interesting to get a feel for the strategy Oats takes when scheduling games

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