1 of 1- Gwmayhem
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Want To See Progress? Win On The Road
In true road games, GW under JC is 5-21 overall, 5-11 in the A10. (That's right, a JC coached team has not won a true road OOC game in three seasons. Ouch.) In MoJo's final two seasons, his teams were 3-20 on the road overall, 3-15 in conference games. Throw in his first year and those numbers improve to 8-27 overall, 6-21 in the conference. And in case you were wondering, the coach who gets maligned here by some for having underperformed in the conference went 5-4 in conference road games and 8-5 overall on the road (including the NIT win at Monmouth).
So over the past 5 1/2 seasons, GW has gone 13-48 in true road games and 11-32 in conference road games. It's time to change this trend.
The next three are on the road. At UMASs, At Dayton, At Duquesne. That can be 2-1. Or, it could end up being 0-3. The other remaining road games are at Mason and at Fordham, venues where GW has won their share of games. 3-2 in the remaining 5 road games ought to be the realistic goal. At UMASS, At Duquesne and AT Fordham are all winnable games. Mason is more of a longshot, either despite having beaten them once already or because we've beaten them once already. We should look more competitive at Dayton than in our first meeting, but it's hard to predict a W here.
The remaining home schedule includes URI, Richmond, Duquesne and if rescheduled, St. Bonaventure. Only the Dukes look like anything close to a lock among this group (though to this point, we have seemed to derail URI's season).
As it's been said, on the road, the baskets remain the same height, the court dimensions do not change, and the ball is essentially the same. It's time for this team, this program, to learn how to beat schools away from home who are "beatable". Let's hope this starts for real tonight.
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- GWRising
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Re: Want To See Progress? Win On The Road
Progress is occurring!
- Free Quebec
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Re: Want To See Progress? Win On The Road
We are 5-5 in the league, but have been outscored by 58 points, mostly because our wins have been close, but 4 of our 5 losses have been by double figures include 25-27 point blowouts to Dayton and VCU.
Clearly we are playing better since then, as we now seem to be winning against the mid-level to poor teams on our schedule - we’ve won 5 of our last 6 vs teams outside the top 100 after an OOC in which we lost multiple times to teams outside the top 250.
But profess to becoming a 175-200ish team isn’t that meaningful. It’s a first step, to be sure, but we need more.
The real test; I think, comes against Dayton this weekend. They are big, deep, rebound the crap out of the ball and don’t rely on the three. Maybe unfair for me to hold this take out as meaningful because on paper, they are probably the worst matchup for us in the A10. But let’s see if we can maintain our newfound commitment to moving the ball and taking better shots. I know we will have a rebounding issue, but the improvement I would like to see is being competitive against a good team, playing well, that previously beat us by 25 at home.
Obviously winning at Dayton is not a reasonable standard, but I’m looking to see us compete and to play well against a team like Dayton, rather than just getting blown out again.
- GWRising
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Re: Want To See Progress? Win On The Road
Free Quebec wrote:
We are 5-5 in the league, but have been outscored by 58 points, mostly because our wins have been close, but 4 of our 5 losses have been by double figures include 25-27 point blowouts to Dayton and VCU.
Clearly we are playing better since then, as we now seem to be winning against the mid-level to poor teams on our schedule - we’ve won 5 of our last 6 vs teams outside the top 100 after an OOC in which we lost multiple times to teams outside the top 250.
But profess to becoming a 175-200ish team isn’t that meaningful. It’s a first step, to be sure, but we need more.
The real test; I think, comes against Dayton this weekend. They are big, deep, rebound the crap out of the ball and don’t rely on the three. Maybe unfair for me to hold this take out as meaningful because on paper, they are probably the worst matchup for us in the A10. But let’s see if we can maintain our newfound commitment to moving the ball and taking better shots. I know we will have a rebounding issue, but the improvement I would like to see is being competitive against a good team, playing well, that previously beat us by 25 at home.
Obviously winning at Dayton is not a reasonable standard, but I’m looking to see us compete and to play well against a team like Dayton, rather than just getting blown out again.
I don't think it's an unfair take. We need to be competitive against teams like Dayton, VCU, St. Louis, Davidson and Bonnies, if we want to ascend to the top of the league eventually. You have to walk before you can run. We need to be competitive Saturday even if it is a loss.
- Gwmayhem
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Re: Want To See Progress? Win On The Road
I do see Saturday a bit differently. Of course I'd love a win but short of a Carl Elliott heave, we just don't win there. Then sure, I'd like to lose competitively, and for the record, I think that is what will happen. However, do we NEED to be competitive in this one, or is this something we all would like to see? By need, the inference (to me) is that the program takes a step or two backwards if the team gets blown out again, and I feel there have been too many positives since the consecutive losses to Dayton and VCU to allow one outcome to cause this to happen. In fact, I think that because this is arguably the least winnable game remaining on the schedule, I would actually look to get guys healthy who have not been at 100% (Ricky being a logical candidate to sit if he's not feeling great), as well as give Hunter Dean far more of a breather than he's recently had, which also allows Noel Brown to better play his way back into shape. Of course you're making every effort to win the game but you also have an eye towards more winnable games on the schedule. Might a healthier Ricky off some rest, a less winded Hunter, and a "more in-game shape" Noel be beneficial to this team down the road? I think they would.
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Thread Starter- Gwmayhem
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Re: Want To See Progress? Win On The Road
Best thing about last night was that they put the Dayton debacle completely aside and focused on the next opponent. That's the sign of a maturing team. We're beating teams we should be beating, and getting blown out by teams who we're not close to yet (except Davidson who we played close). I'll take that.
Onto gambling. The first thing I do when I am interested in wagering on a game is I guess the point spread. A discrepancy by a wide enough margin indicates that someone isn't seeing the game correctly, either oddsmakers or me. This is where there are competitive advantages to betting college basketball. Let's compare this to the NFL.
16 games (or less) per week in the NFL. 32 teams to know. Each team plays weekly. More money bet on any single NFL game than virtually any other sporting event. The oddsmakers had best not get things wrong. If 90% of the money goes in one direction and that team covers, you are looking at a devastating result for the various "houses".
Division 1 college basketball has around 11 times as many schools playing than the NFL has teams. Teams often play twice per week, sometimes more. The experts know that they can't know everything about every team. Therefore, two things happen. First, they will focus on knowing the major conferences where the most money is wagered. It's therefore much harder to find an outlier or "incorrect" spread in a Big 10 game than an Atlantic 10 game. Second, oddsmakers will rely quite a bit on advanced statistics to help determine a spread which will produce the rough equivalent of equal money bet on both teams.
That brings me to last night's game. First, for the reasons that LSF stated, I try not to bet on very many GW games. Prior to last night, I had only bet on two, and lost both. The more recent of the two was the loss at St. Joe's which was about a month ago. Nevertheless, I did go through the exercise of coming up with my own pointspread based on these factors:
Home team: Advantage Duquesne
Coach with Better Past History Over the Other: Advantage Duquesne
Talent: Advantage GW
Conference Results: Advantage GW
Recent Results: Advantage GW
Can one team exploit the other team's weakness: Advantage GW
In short, Dambrot has had a good record against JC, albeit with much better talent at his disposal. The Dukes were 1-10 in the conference and had lost their last 10 games in a row. GW has been settling into a groove of losing its difficult games, winning its easy ones, and even winning the "up for grabs" contests against Mason and URI. It would be impossible not to classify Duquesne as anything but an easy one.
Respecting the fact that it's difficult for road teams to prevail in college, I deemed GW to be a 5 point favorite in this one. I was off initially by 9 as the Dukes opened as a 4 point favorite which was brought down to 3. I took GW on the money line at +145, which went down to +140 by tipoff.
Yes, I made my decision despite the fact that Bart Torvik gave us a 34% chance of winning the game. And ESPN gave us a 38% chance. And GW0509 pointing out that the game is a toss up according to the statistics. Those statistics, which lead oddsmakers to declare Duquesne -4 or Tarvik/ESPN's claims take into account a team's entire body of work. This includes our OOC which was atrocious. Is GW atrocious right now, at this point in time? Moreover, is Duquesne, now losers of 11 straight, atrocious right now?
GW had covered 6 straight games prior to recent loss at Dayton. They have covered 7 of their last 8 and 10 of their last 14. This is after starting the season 2-8 against the spread. This makes them 12-12 against the spread for the season. If oddsmakers continue to look at the full body of work when setting the lines, they are looking at a 12-12 ATS team and not a 7-1 or 10-4 ATS team. Something to keep in mind.
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