Game 23: @ St. Bonaventure

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MikeUMA
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Game 23: @ St. Bonaventure

Post by MikeUMA » Wed Feb 11, 2009 11:38 pm

Can't remember if I stopped last year, but I'm not gonna call them The Welders anymore. That was 6 years and 2 coaches ago.

Anyway, we go up to the netherworld of Olean NY this weekend for a match with the Bonnies. Bona just dropped one tonight at Rhode Island, 87-80. They fell to 12-11 overall, but 3-7 in the league.

Their big black mark: they've given Fordham their one and only conference win this season, and that was in Olean.

Other A-10 results:
Wins at Fordham, at Richmond, and home vs La Salle
Losses at home vs Duq, Saint Joe, and Xavier. Road losses at Dayton, Duq, and Rhody.

Their best win, arguably, is at Rutgers. At a Big East school is decent. Their best win according to the RPI was at home vs Robert Morris.

Bona's RPI, before tonight, was 197, with an SoS of 234. They've played 5 non-conf games against teams with 300+ RPI ratings. (What happened to the A-10 playing a strong schedule?)

More about them later.

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CrooksisRhyming
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Post by CrooksisRhyming » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:09 am

Strangely enough, St. Bonaventure is better on the road (7-3) than at home (5-6). Also, even though this team is A LOT better (record wise) than last year, it's home attendance has shrunk from 4,227 last season to 3,880 this year.

Seems strange... even at their very worst (which is unbelievably awful) the Reilly Rowdies have always been the team's biggest asset.

St. Bona has one of the best freshmen in the A-10 in Andrew Nicholson. The kid can flat out play, and leads the team in blocks, points and is second in rebounds. Gaffney/Bonner are going to have their hands full with this kid. A lot of the Bona fateful were pumped to have someone come in and replace Michael Lee.

The team has decent size and one monstrosity named D'Lancy Carter - however, Carter basically does nothing. He's just massive.

I think this is going to be closer than we're comfortable with. We win the guard battle, but it will be interesting to see how our bigs deal with theirs.
"Wherever I go, I’ll never be bashful about being from UMass, baby.” -Victor Cruz

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UMass'96
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Post by UMass'96 » Thu Feb 12, 2009 8:19 am

http://www.rpiforecast.com/

RPI forcast gives us a 48% chance of winning the game. The page hasn't been updated since 2-10-09 so it doesn't take last nights results into account.
Save your breath... you'll need it to blow up your date

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Kosty
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Post by Kosty » Thu Feb 12, 2009 9:37 am

Wow......the Bonnies have 12 wins.....when's the last time they had 12 wins at this point in the season??? Impressive.

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Post by MikeUMA » Thu Feb 12, 2009 9:46 am

They were 17-13 in 2001-02, when they had JR Bremer. He was league first team and led the league in scoring at 24.6 per game. They finished 3rd in the A-10 East and made the NIT (lost first game at Syracuse).

As for the 12 wins, it's moving forward from their dark years, but the average RPI of those wins is 244.

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InnervisionsUMASS
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Post by InnervisionsUMASS » Thu Feb 12, 2009 9:54 am

But Mike, sometimes you just have to get wins to gain confidence for your program. That might be what they are trying to accomplish there.



With that said, this is really a chance to get our boys rolling and some good confidence going into URI and beyond. If we can ping this one off in convincing fashion, that will really be a boost going forward with the rest of the A-10 schedule and the tournament.

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Post by MikeUMA » Thu Feb 12, 2009 10:45 am

InnervisionsUMASS wrote:But Mike, sometimes you just have to get wins to gain confidence for your program. That might be what they are trying to accomplish there.
Completely agree. Just saying that they're not 12 quality wins.

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Post by InnervisionsUMASS » Thu Feb 12, 2009 10:54 am

Very good.

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Post by MikeUMA » Fri Feb 13, 2009 9:32 am


6thManPA
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Post by 6thManPA » Sat Feb 14, 2009 11:56 am

Bump.
Future recruits and past backcourts are great, but there's a game tonight.

Minutemen 75 -- Rowdies 65.


Go UMass!
Last edited by 6thManPA on Sat Feb 14, 2009 12:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by LS71 » Sat Feb 14, 2009 12:00 pm

"Win without boasting, lose without crying." -- Julius Erving

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MikeUMA
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Post by MikeUMA » Sat Feb 14, 2009 12:05 pm


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WhatWouldLarryDavidDo
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Post by WhatWouldLarryDavidDo » Sat Feb 14, 2009 12:57 pm

I wish I could be there tonight, but can't. I'm only about 2 hours away just between Rochester and Buffalo.

Hurts to not be watching it in person...hopefully the end result and score makes me angrier I couldn't go.

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Post by MikeUMA » Sat Feb 14, 2009 1:44 pm

Give the wife/girlfriend your present today, pick up an extra bouquet of flowers, then move the dinner reservation to tomorrow. 8)

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Post by umassfan0000 » Sat Feb 14, 2009 2:44 pm

thanks mike

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