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Recruiting - 2018 class


NextYearBill

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11 minutes ago, CBFan said:

Well said but the city embraced Spoonball with 17,000 a game SLU was in the top 20 in attendance and Rick Majerus ball was also embraced.  The problem has always been sustaining exciting winning basketball.  I think coach Romar had he stayed could have sustained the momentum by Spoon but he moved on to Washington.  I am hoping there will be enough money to keep coach Ford here for a long time.

True, I think though that it's more so the sustained culture that I'm referring to. Like I said, whenever I travel to Omaha, the support for Creighton basketball there is unbelievable, and has been that way for years, even in their down years (which are obviously fewer and farther in between than SLU's). When you come to St. Louis, it's a mixed bag of support and the local media writes ten times as many articles about the school 2 hours away in Boone county as they do about the local basketball team. SLU has TWO top 100 recruits coming in this season, yet I've seen hardly any media hype this summer. I understand the Post Dispatch is all but dead at this point and needs to do all they can to generate clicks, but when you don't even hype up the local basketball team for what could be an incredible season, something is wrong with the local sports media....

 

You are correct about SLU basketball being a pattern of sustained ups and downs, which doesn't help foster much longitudinal local support. The fact that Biondi was never fully committed to basketball also hurt us longterm. But the media should have still been all in on SLU these past several decades. They should have held SLU accountable and to a higher standard. That is what you would see in Omaha for Creighton. It's about making SLU "St. Louis' basketball team." 

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Even during the Majerus years we had trouble selling out 10,600 seats. Something has changed from the Spoonball era, and I'm not sure what it is. It can't be Mizzou-related, because Mizzou was very good during the peak of Spoonball. If it was really all about local recruits, then Goodwin and Gordon should be packing them in every bit as much as Claggett and Highmark. I guess we'll see.

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1 minute ago, hsmith19 said:

Even during the Majerus years we had trouble selling out 10,600 seats. Something has changed from the Spoonball era, and I'm not sure what it is. It can't be Mizzou-related, because Mizzou was very good during the peak of Spoonball. If it was really all about local recruits, then Goodwin and Gordon should be packing them in every bit as much as Claggett and Highmark. I guess we'll see.

Part of it was the lack of professional football (and Mizzou football was languishing, too).  Also, following of college basketball, in general, is lagging.  CBS's changing of the coverage of the NCAA Tournament hasn't helped.

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4 minutes ago, Quality Is Job 1 said:

Part of it was the lack of professional football (and Mizzou football was languishing, too).  Also, following of college basketball, in general, is lagging.  CBS's changing of the coverage of the NCAA Tournament hasn't helped.

The Rams came pretty early during the Spoon era though, a couple years before Hughes. Without looking at the numbers again I don't think there was much of a noticeable dropoff in '95.

Obviously we will never be top 10 in the nation again with a 10,000 seat arena, but our fan support seems to have fallen off much quicker than the national average. Majerus/Crews only had a handful of sellouts even when we were nationally ranked. Meanwhile Spoon's teams were very rarely ranked but regularly selling out arenas close to twice that size.

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19 minutes ago, Quality Is Job 1 said:

Even though he took a no-so-veiled shot across your port bow?

Or are you ready to fully back the Billikens?

Come on, I want to read you and STL Hoops Insider proclaim, without hedging, that you want Carte'Are Gordon at SLU... period.

Seriously, please stop re-engaging these fools. You are a big part of the problem.

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1 minute ago, gobillsgo said:

I think having top local guys like Goodwin, Gordon, Thatch should increase local attendance, especially if the team is as successful as we believe they will be. 

Looking forward to reading about Thatch's progression this year. I think he ends up ranked a lot higher than he is now.

 

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10 minutes ago, gobillsgo said:

I think having top local guys like Goodwin, Gordon, Thatch should increase local attendance, especially if the team is as successful as we believe they will be. 

 

Exactly. A pretty big thing that those schools we strive to be like do is that they get the high end local talent and showcase it for the region. Not only does it boost local pride, but it also makes the team as a whole feel more like the city's team. And this is only the beginning. If these guys that Ford brings in start going to the NBA, it has a wide ripple effect local players around here. People will start to look at the SLU program and viewing it through a completely different lens, a lens of legitimacy. 

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14 minutes ago, Spoon-Balls said:

 

Exactly. A pretty big thing that those schools we strive to be like do is that they get the high end local talent and showcase it for the region. Not only does it boost local pride, but it also makes the team as a whole feel more like the city's team. And this is only the beginning. If these guys that Ford brings in start going to the NBA, it has a wide ripple effect local players around here. People will start to look at the SLU program and viewing it through a completely different lens, a lens of legitimacy. 

You're on fire. Good string. You're right on point about Ford sending some guys to the NBA. While a lot of high school and especially AAU coaches want what is best for their students, there are quite a few in the metro areas that want that feather in their cap of "I send my kids to these top 10 type schools" which hurts local D1 teams. I don't think it will ever go away for SLU, but the level of player that is an automatic blow off can keep going higher and higher. It will always be hard to resist a top 5 school like KU, Duke, UNC, etc. You see the same thing happen in Peoria with Bradley and Chicago with any of the numerous schools there. It happens on the highest of levels with Chicago kids and UIUC. 

On that note, I think if SLU is going to compete at a high level long term, Fprd has much more to worry about in Champaign than he does in Columbia. We know how the Columbia story goes already - a few highly ranked recruiting classes, players that don't hit their potential, disappointing results, a few top players fall from surefire lottery picks to 2nd round or undrafted, and scene. We've seen it before. UIUC has much more of a basketball tradition, has won more recently, has brand new facilities, plays in the 1st or 2nd best basketball conference every year, and is somewhat of a sleeping giant. 

It is the coaches who say "I just want the best for the kid" who you have to worry the most about. Its one of those if you have to say it, its probably not true kind of things. 

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1 hour ago, Spoon-Balls said:

There's still a general problem with the perception of SLU basketball in the St. Louis region. It will always be viewed as second rate by casual fans and the Post Dispatch (which might as well be the Columbia Post Dispatch at this point), etc. You go to cities like Omaha, where Creighton is basketball king over Nebraska. Or Cincinnati, where Xavier is viewed more highly than U Cincy. It's not even a question in those places. But in this region, SLU will always be looked at simply as a lower tier program for recruits until Ford can change the perception. Having local guys like Goodwin and Gordon commit is a terrific start, but even now you see the pushback against Ford's valiant efforts. They said, "oh that's cute" when SLU was a top 10 team, but in reality they never believed it was a sign of longterm legitimacy. Unfortunately, Mizzou has jumped back into the fray, moderately rolling back the tide on Ford's momentum in STL recruiting. 

One need not loo any further than the "coaches" who post on this board and proclaim their "duel fanship." Yet when you read between the lines, it is pretty obvious they harbor the same condescending attitude towards SLU that the local media and most of the other high school and AAU coaches all have. It's subtle, but it makes a huge difference in how recruits themselves end up viewing a program. Until St. Louis as a region and city embraces SLU as its basketball team, rather than the school 2 hours away in Boone County, no one will really take SLU seriously as a program and you will continue to see coaches, friends, family, etc. all trying to convince players that they can "do better than SLU." There is no reason we can't be like Xavier, Creighton, or Gonzaga, a place where recruits believe they can thrive and play for a winning team. All it takes is commitment from the administration and consistent support from the local region. 

Absolutely right. Excellent post. And I believe this was SLU's objective when they built Chaifetz and hired Rick. Unfortunately, we had a brief break from building on the plan with Rick's untimely death and misguided decision to hire Jim Crews. 

But I trust the ship has been righted. A fun ride should be in store...

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I have always really liked 247 sports' crystal ball.  After seeing seven different recruiting "experts" flip Gordon to Mizzou, I think I am going to call it quits with them.  They seem to know just as much as a casual message board or tweet reader.  They just jump on the bandwagon and do whatever they can to earn points despite not actually knowing anything.

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2 minutes ago, QUAILMAN said:

I have always really liked 247 sports' crystal ball.  After seeing seven different recruiting "experts" flip Gordon to Mizzou, I think I am going to call it quits with them.  They seem to know just as much as a casual message board or tweet reader.  They just jump on the bandwagon and do whatever they can to earn points despite not actually knowing anything.

How does the point system work?  I thought somebody said that if you don't get any when the kid verbally commits, then if you change your prediction it won't matter since you already missed out.  You would get the points if he does switch or stay at zero if he sticks with it.  Anybody know if that's true?

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28 minutes ago, gobillsgo said:

I think having top local guys like Goodwin, Gordon, Thatch should increase local attendance, especially if the team is as successful as we believe they will be. 

I can tell you of at least 20 people I know who have bought sets of season tickets this year alone because of Goodwin. That number is only going to rise.

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36 minutes ago, Quality Is Job 1 said:

Even though he took a no-so-veiled shot across your port bow?

Or are you ready to fully back the Billikens?

Come on, I want to read you and STL Hoops Insider proclaim, without hedging, that you want Carte'Are Gordon at SLU... period.

I don't take the shots personally.  I find them amusing.  I am proud of Gordon no matter where he goes.  Gordon has been through a lot over the years.  I wish him the best.  If this is the University that is best for him then i am all for it.   I will still watch all the schools with local players.  I root for them all.

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4 minutes ago, Coach314 said:

Don't let them take your joy ?

"McKissic would consider SLU...IF THEY OFFERED!!  Gordon, Ramey,  Watson aren't coming to SLU.  But by all means...continue on with the assumptions and misinformation."

- "Coach"314  July 2016

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18 minutes ago, dennis_w said:

during the spoonball days there was no football so there was more sport spectator money available. the teams were entertaining and spoon was a good interview. spoon also didnt recruit well and left the cupboard bare so there was no follow up to the spoonball era

 

Except there was pro football here for all but the beginning of the Spoonball run. And the Rams were the bright shiny new thing back then, not the faded has-been on the way our that they were in the Majerus/Crews years.

Regardless, it's one more thing that can't be used as an excuse now. Ditto for the "no local players" theory.

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