Prior to the Dayton game, I was thinking to myself, you know what hasn’t happened this season? Tommie hasn’t gotten called for carrying over that much. Last year, he seemed to be good for one per game. This year, not so. And then against Dayton, bingo! Carrying over. Still it hasn’t happened much.

Also prior to the Dayton game, I was talking to my colleague Bernie Miklasz about this season and I noted that we really hadn’t had one of the postgame interview sessions where Majerus just didn’t want to talk. There were several of those last season, where he’d come into the interview room and answer questions yes or no or with very short sentences. That hadn’t happened this season, even in the bad early season losses at Nebraska or Detroit. Apparently last night that happened, at least from what I can infer from stringer J.P. Butler’s game story from Olean. Here’s the Buffalo News’ take. They have one extra quote from Majerus.

Majerus singled out the seniors, particulary Liddell. Tommie played just 32 minutes. When his number is that low, it usually means disfavor on the part of the coaching staff, and that disfavor usually revolves around his defense. Liddell’s defense has been universally praised lately, but there are still fluctuations in his play. St. Bonaventure coach Mark Schmidt seemed to like the times when Lisch was defending Hall, who had 31 points.

If this were the ACT, I’d say St. Bonaventure is to SLU as SLU is to St. Joseph’s.

The standard blowout disclaimer on plus-minus: The more minutes you play, likely the worse your number is. Majerus used some interesting substitution patters in this game. In the first half, Thompson and Reed went back and forth at the 5 spot and Conklin and Eberhardt went back and forth at the 4. Usually there will be points where Conklin and Eberhardt are on the court at the same time. Majerus didn’t break from this rotation until about 5 minutes into the second half when Liddell went in for Conklin. And it wasn’t until much later in the game that Eberhardt went in for Reed. What all that means is that it’s easier to make head to head comparisons, though you have to keep in mind that sometimes there are certain matchups coaches are looking at that can affect things. Anyway, in almost identical minutes, Reed was -14 and Thompson was -4. And in identical minutes, Conklin was -12 and Eberhardt was -1.

But when you break it down on a piece by piece case, you don’t get a clear verdict. Early in the first half, there was a -5 run with Thompson in, but that was outweighed by a -8 with Reed on the court later in the half and a -10 for Reed early in the second.

Anyway, here are the numbers:

Eckerle +5

Eberhardt -1

Thompson -4

Cassity -7

Conklin -12

Liddell -14

Reed -14

Lisch -16

Mitchell -22 (LIsch and Mitchell both played 36 minutes.)

I listened to the end of the Dayton-Rhode Island game after the SLU game — lesson learned: not a lot of impartiality in either broadcast, though Bob and Earl had no choice but to be gloomy about SLU getting whipped — and it was quite a game. Dayton rallied to go to overtime and then got beat at the buzzer. That link also has some comments on the end from Dayton fans who are getting awfully miffed that the Flyers can’t shoot free throws. I don’t know that making each guy stay on the line till he makes 10 straight is going to solve the problem at this point. This was a bad outing for Dayton’s defense. It was a big win for Rhody, with fans storming the court after the game. Columnist Jim Donaldson sings the praises of Marquis Jones in what looks like a well-covered game by the Providence Journal last night.

Duquesne ran all over UMass and got its first win in Amherst in 20 years.

For hardcore A-10-iacs, here’s an account of the all unimportant Charlotte-GW game last night.

Two A-10 games tonight in Philly: La Salle at Temple and Xavier at St. Joe’s on ESPN2. The question of what’s gone wrong with St. Joe’s has been raised. While there’s good news for La Salle: They’re on the road, not in Tom Gola Arena, where they stink.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia Daily News columnist Dick Jerardi waxes about how to make college basketball better, in which he rails against the A-10’s TV deal and BCS schools that avoid playing schools in leagues like the A-10 (and people like Jay Bilas who won’t acknowledge it’s true). It’s a nice read.