We haven't had a solid win in well over a year. This season URI is 0-8 as an underdog and hasn't even covered a spread as a dog. Past 2 seasons we are 2-15 as a dog and those two wins are the only times we have even COVERED THE SPREAD as an underdog.
What does all this mean? When we play better teams, not only do we lose, but we have also unperformed expectations. The point spread is supposed to be the "great equalizer" and even when considering that handicap we have underperformed in every single game where we were facing a better team for well over a year.
skwalk47 wrote:We haven't had a solid win in well over a year. This season URI is 0-8 as an underdog and hasn't even covered a spread as a dog. Past 2 seasons we are 2-15 as a dog and those two wins are the only times we have even COVERED THE SPREAD as an underdog.
What does all this mean? When we play better teams, not only do we lose, but we have also unperformed expectations. The point spread is supposed to be the "great equalizer" and even when considering that handicap we have underperformed in every single game where we were facing a better team for well over a year.
I'm not a gambler, but I believe one of the reasons for not beating the spread, is the number of close games we have been in. Play a couple of games as an underdog close and you will have the margin smaller and smaller as the season goes on. Even Vegas had high expectations for us.
What does it mean? Nothing because Vegas' handicapping doesn't matter when it comes to the standings. I mean congratulations that you like to gamble I guess, but it doesn't matter at all in real life, and won't until coaches and players start to coach and play to the spread instead of the score.
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Take down the Robert Carothers banner and fix the concession stand lines
RhowdyRam02 wrote:What does it mean? Nothing because Vegas' handicapping doesn't matter when it comes to the standings. I mean congratulations that you like to gamble I guess, but it doesn't matter at all in real life, and won't until coaches and players start to coach and play to the spread instead of the score.
I don't think it's a gambling thing. Just how this program has underperformed. Just look at the preseason prediction thread after EC went down. Maybe one person won;t have guessed too many. Well, sure that's fans. How about Vegas? How about Kenpom? Any metric you look at shows coming up short in big spots. The optimistic says that's bound to turn around. The pessimist says it's a systemic, staff issue. It looks like next year is like the end of "The Stand". We'll see what sides prevails.
I think the non-covering of spreads is the are too high of expectations with this team. The best player/leading scorer is missing. I think everyone forgets that.
URIGONZO wrote:I think the non-covering of spreads is the are too high of expectations with this team. The best player/leading scorer is missing. I think everyone forgets that.
You don't think Vegas and bettors have figured out EC blew out his knee 25 games ago? It's amazing the excuses that fly around. No one is debating that losing EC was rough but, wow, 14-12 (6-7) is just not acceptable, especially considering it was a back court injury. Maybe (MAYBE) if it was Hassan.
RhowdyRam02 wrote:What does it mean? Nothing because Vegas' handicapping doesn't matter when it comes to the standings. I mean congratulations that you like to gamble I guess, but it doesn't matter at all in real life, and won't until coaches and players start to coach and play to the spread instead of the score.
I don't think it's a gambling thing. Just how this program has underperformed. Just look at the preseason prediction thread after EC went down. Maybe one person won;t have guessed too many. Well, sure that's fans. How about Vegas? How about Kenpom? Any metric you look at shows coming up short in big spots. The optimistic says that's bound to turn around. The pessimist says it's a systemic, staff issue. It looks like next year is like the end of "The Stand". We'll see what sides prevails.
agree GBG. Team has performed lower than expected even with the loss.
Also have to wonder about the team make up and team chemistry itself, does this group really click? Coaching some of it, but could be more
Based on social media and interviews with players/coaches it seems this team has great chemistry and that all the core players are very friendly on and off the court. That said, sometimes its not a good thing to follow their social media as it could make you believe you are taking a loss harder than they are. Just saying.
As a guy who works with the markets and probability everyday, it's hard to ignore that statistic. Vegas bookmakers are very good at their job, and if we're consistently not covering as an underdog, that clearly indicates underperformance against good teams. Not a good sign.
bigappleram wrote:Based on social media and interviews with players/coaches it seems this team has great chemistry and that all the core players are very friendly on and off the court. That said, sometimes its not a good thing to follow their social media as it could make you believe you are taking a loss harder than they are. Just saying.
I think many (most?) of those that are more than casual fans DO take the losses harder than most of the players do.
This tells me the team was overated/overhyped coming into the season. EC injury or not the results would seem to indicate that the players are not as good as expected.
bigappleram wrote:Based on social media and interviews with players/coaches it seems this team has great chemistry and that all the core players are very friendly on and off the court. That said, sometimes its not a good thing to follow their social media as it could make you believe you are taking a loss harder than they are. Just saying.
BAR,
When I said chemistry I was not thinking about how the guys get along off the court and as friends and such. What I meant to convey is the team chemistry on the court itself. How well do the puzzle pieces fit? Sometimes the individual styles, individual strengths, individual talents in different areas all combine to have a finished product greater than the sum of its parts.......not being critical just Sometimes it all just does not mesh so well. We see it all the time on sports teams but basketball is very, very much a team sport and very dependent upon all 5 players complimenting one another.
How much of the intangibles bring to last year's team that we underestimated from EC, Biruta and TJ? Maybe more than some of us thought.
Also Stan Robinson should be good.
Seemed to be a solid role player at Indiana.
Should have all the depth we need at guard.
Don't know how much help the freshman bigs will be to Kuran and Hassan.
I'm mostly optimistic about next year despite the struggles we've had this year. At least on paper we look like we should be good enough to dance. But that's just paper.
I just hope we don't have nearly the injury plagued year next year as we've had this year.
If we stay healthy we can be more consistent and we should have the depth to play defense as good more better than we did two years ago, only hopefully be better on offense with JT JG and EC being able to put 20 on the board any given night.
Makes sense Ramster and speaks to an opinion I heard from a well informed supporter, that DH needs to become a better GM. I don't subscribe to our guys not being talented, especially as it relates to other A10 teams, we have plenty of talent (even without EC) to be playing near the top of league.
That is Interesting BAR. You look at how some of the best coaches in the NBA develop their teams to,play effectively as a unit, but they also obtain players that are flexible and sacrifice their individuality for the team.
I think I underestimated the impact that EC had on Martin's game. I thought Martin would explode this year but many of Martin's tremendous dunks last year came off fast breaks with EC often delivering the key pass to Martin. With EC out we changed the style and slowed the games pace which I think was detrimental to Martin's game. Not agreeing or disagreeing with the style change it just is what it is.
Just an example of how ECs lack of presence could have impacted other players to varying degrees.
Clearly we were all surprised how this year has gone.
RAM67 wrote:I'm not a gambler, but I believe one of the reasons for not beating the spread, is the number of close games we have been in. Play a couple of games as an underdog close and you will have the margin smaller and smaller as the season goes on. Even Vegas had high expectations for us.
I don't bet college basketball. At least haven't in a while, but I do believe that the betting market is an efficient market and provides valuable insight as an indicator of smart expectations, which we keep underperforming.
I just like being able to quantify things and the point spread (which is supposed to make things close to 50/50) is about the best indicator we have available to quantify how we are performing relative to expectations.
Keaney.Blue wrote:As a guy who works with the markets and probability everyday, it's hard to ignore that statistic. Vegas bookmakers are very good at their job, and if we're consistently not covering as an underdog, that clearly indicates underperformance against good teams. Not a good sign.
Vegas is outstanding at what they do. And what they do is intimately tied to how we do on the court. But my issue with judging our performance based on Vegas odds is that for as important as our performance is to Vegas, Vegas is totally irrelevant to us. How can we fairly judge a team on a fake score? When you played, did you ever play to the spread? Do you think your coach ever coached to the spread? I'd imagine it's a hard no in both cases. I'm sure several times you did something that gave you a better chance to win but hurt your chances of covering a spread. So how can we judge players or coaches on something they're not really working to. Anyone that has bet a favorite and lost because the favorite allowed a back door cover when the game was never in doubt should intuitively understand that.
I myself try to tend more toward the numbers side of analyzing sports. But a key to using numbers in analysis is making sure the numbers actually matter and truly measure what you want. I don't see how a Vegas spread can actually do that.
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Take down the Robert Carothers banner and fix the concession stand lines
Keaney.Blue wrote:As a guy who works with the markets and probability everyday, it's hard to ignore that statistic. Vegas bookmakers are very good at their job, and if we're consistently not covering as an underdog, that clearly indicates underperformance against good teams. Not a good sign.
Vegas is outstanding at what they do. And what they do is intimately tied to how we do on the court. But my issue with judging our performance based on Vegas odds is that for as important as our performance is to Vegas, Vegas is totally irrelevant to us. How can we fairly judge a team on a fake score? When you played, did you ever play to the spread? Do you think your coach ever coached to the spread? I'd imagine it's a hard no in both cases. I'm sure several times you did something that gave you a better chance to win but hurt your chances of covering a spread. So how can we judge players or coaches on something they're not really working to. Anyone that has bet a favorite and lost because the favorite allowed a back door cover when the game was never in doubt should intuitively understand that.
I myself try to tend more toward the numbers side of analyzing sports. But a key to using numbers in analysis is making sure the numbers actually matter and truly measure what you want. I don't see how a Vegas spread can actually do that.
I don't know if you can take anything on a game to game basis. College hoops is insanely hard to be profitable at. The ends of games with the fouling and crazy three point attempts can turn a game that was a two point game into an eight point one in a hurry. But, over the course of a season, I think it tells a story.
URI has settled into 7th place in the A-10 and owns the H-H tiebreaker over the teams just behind it making it very strong possibility at the end of the regular season. Rhody has lost all six games thus far it played versus the teams ahead of it. The odds are that it will lose its remaining two games against this group (@Davidson, @Dayton). A key component to this was the fact that URI played just two home games out of the eight. The two home games were against teams likely to finish #1-3.
All of URI's A-10 wins are against teams currently in the range of 8-14th place in the league. It also has the UMass loss versus this group.
URI in A-10 Games YTD
vs Seeds 1-6 0-6
vs Seeds 8-14 7-1
