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Coach Ford on Bernie's show 8/3


ARon

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Nice 15 min interview with Coach Ford today.

-His family is moving to STL today.

-Summer practices have been focused on teaching his system, very different from what was in place.  Teaching an aggressive mentality.

-The freshman have to get strong (of course) but will play this year. 

-Transfers will be a value this year by giving the players who can play high-level practices.

-Heard nothing but good things about Tate as he asked around.  Happy to have someone plugged into the local community.  Says Tate had only positive things to say about Kim Anderson.

-Believes there are "difference makers" in the local 2017 class.

-Our incoming transfers had multiple options from known programs but chose SLU.

-Bernie praised the transfers as a sign that Ford wanted to make SLU a national brand (kinda old school thinking but whatever).  Says SLU has an opportunity with the Rams gone.  Ford said that Mizzou will be back but agreed that he wanted to make SLU THE basketball program in Missouri.

Ford references that SLU was #8 in the country less than 3 years ago.  Plans to get back there.

-Marty Jenkins called Bess a 3 or 4 star player that could have gone anywhere. That he came to SLU is a sign of good things coming.

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On 8/3/2016 at 8:42 AM, SLURadioBoy said:

Jenkins also said that he thinks Ford will get SLU back in the top 10 in three years.

It took Majerus 7 years, you think Ford can do it in 3? Borderline blasphemy, but I wouldn't complain by any means.

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On 8/3/2016 at 8:42 AM, SLURadioBoy said:

Jenkins also said that he thinks Ford will get SLU back in the top 10 in three years.

Jenkins literally knows nothing more than the dude in the cube next to me 

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1 hour ago, NextYearBill said:

Jenkins literally knows nothing more than the dude in the cube next to me 

This.

I doubt Ford makes SLU a top 10 team ever.  

That being said, the fact that Majerus was molding a team of underrated players into a top 10 squad and he had a bigger hole to dig out of meant that it was going to take him longer to build.  Majerus took the long route because quick fixes such as JUCOs and transfers would not have been able to learn his system the way he wanted.  Ford seems to be all about getting as much talent as quickly as possible which hopefully leads to a quicker turnaround (though I don't see the end result being a top 10 team).

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28 minutes ago, RUBillsFan said:

This.

I doubt Ford makes SLU a top 10 team ever.  

That being said, the fact that Majerus was molding a team of underrated players into a top 10 squad and he had a bigger hole to dig out of meant that it was going to take him longer to build.  Majerus took the long route because quick fixes such as JUCOs and transfers would not have been able to learn his system the way he wanted.  Ford seems to be all about getting as much talent as quickly as possible which hopefully leads to a quicker turnaround (though I don't see the end result being a top 10 team).

Majerus had a bigger hole?   Rickma inherited  a team that had won 20 games and had Lisch and Liddell returning.   

Who is "lisch and liddell" on our current roster?

Crews f'd saint Louis university badly.   Ford inherited the worst roster in my nearly 40 years of following the billikens.  

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1 minute ago, billiken_roy said:

Majerus had a bigger hole?   Rickma inherited  a team that had won 20 games and had Lisch and Liddell returning.   

Who is "lisch and liddell" on our current roster?

Crews f'd saint Louis university badly.   Ford inherited the worst roster in my nearly 40 years of following the billikens.  

I would agree with you

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21 minutes ago, cheeseman said:

I would agree with you

Oh most definitely Crews left an empty cupboard. Zo also didn't leave Brad much but still he had Perry, Brown, Fisher, and Sloan who were legit D1 talents.  Brad also scrambled and landed some decent talent that spring. Izik and Drejaj come to mind. The mish mash that Travis inherited, however, is beyond the pale. We have some guys that wouldn't see floor time for Savannah St.   

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Let's also remember that Majerus would have taken less time without a series of unfortunate events over which he had no control. 

 

Ford does seem to be going the quick fix route, and I'm fine with that. Majerus could afford to weather some lean years, Ford not so much.

 

I do think we could be dancing in year two if everything goes just right, and be top 25 by year 3. All of our transfers need to pan out, a couple of current guys need to improve, and we need a stellar class of '17; the cookie could crumble just right...

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48 minutes ago, Zink said:

Let's also remember that Majerus would have taken less time without a series of unfortunate events over which he had no control. 

 

Ford does seem to be going the quick fix route, and I'm fine with that. Majerus could afford to weather some lean years, Ford not so much.

 

I do think we could be dancing in year two if everything goes just right, and be top 25 by year 3. All of our transfers need to pan out, a couple of current guys need to improve, and we need a stellar class of '17; the cookie could crumble just right...

1) Roy is right - Crews destroyed the roster

2) If Ford isable to get Goodwin I think we will be dancing in year 2. 

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I've seen Tatum play on a number of occasions, and really have always liked his game, his handles and scoring, and upside.  However...

This may sound like sour grapes but :  IMHO, he's darned good, but just is not as good as some guys on here seem to think.  With Tatum, I really do not think our current roster would be a tournament team, and would not be able to be a top 2 or 3 team in the A10.  Just my opinion, we'll see.  He will be good at Duke, I think; but he will be a really talented freshman surrounded by talent.  He would do well to stay there 2-3 years, but of course he won't.  His game would get exposed with our current group, sorry.  I'm posting this just to push back on what others have said, no doubt he is really good; but he is no Kevin Durant or Magic, believe me.   I'm sure some guys will not like this .....but I would be interested to know if anyone else shares my mild concerns.

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2 hours ago, Zink said:

 

Ford does seem to be going the quick fix route, and I'm fine with that. Majerus could afford to weather some lean years, Ford not so much.

 

 

-hopefully it is the route to success not very far down the line

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2 hours ago, Zink said:

Let's also remember that Majerus would have taken less time without a series of unfortunate events over which he had no control. 

 

Ford does seem to be going the quick fix route, and I'm fine with that. Majerus could afford to weather some lean years, Ford not so much.

 

I do think we could be dancing in year two if everything goes just right, and be top 25 by year 3. All of our transfers need to pan out, a couple of current guys need to improve, and we need a stellar class of '17; the cookie could crumble just right...

Yeah but Majerus recruited the guys who got into that mess...

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Majerus, Crews, Tatum, etc... what difference does it makes, it is water under the bridge. Majerus was a very sad loss, Crews was a disaster, Tatum was a great player that might not have been as great as we think under Crews but we will never know for sure. So, we lost a BIG opportunity to advance and had to retreat. So, lets concentrate in how we are going to advance again instead of revisiting the land of "opportunity lost" and "who was the villain that caused it." The real villain in this play was death which took Majerus away, the rest just followed in the wake of his death.

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2 hours ago, DoctorB said:

I've seen Tatum play on a number of occasions, and really have always liked his game, his handles and scoring, and upside.  However...

This may sound like sour grapes but :  IMHO, he's darned good, but just is not as good as some guys on here seem to think.  With Tatum, I really do not think our current roster would be a tournament team, and would not be able to be a top 2 or 3 team in the A10.  Just my opinion, we'll see.  He will be good at Duke, I think; but he will be a really talented freshman surrounded by talent.  He would do well to stay there 2-3 years, but of course he won't.  His game would get exposed with our current group, sorry.  I'm posting this just to push back on what others have said, no doubt he is really good; but he is no Kevin Durant or Magic, believe me.   I'm sure some guys will not like this .....but I would be interested to know if anyone else shares my mild concerns.

I do, wholeheartedly.

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4 hours ago, DoctorB said:

I've seen Tatum play on a number of occasions, and really have always liked his game, his handles and scoring, and upside.  However...

This may sound like sour grapes but :  IMHO, he's darned good, but just is not as good as some guys on here seem to think.  With Tatum, I really do not think our current roster would be a tournament team, and would not be able to be a top 2 or 3 team in the A10.  Just my opinion, we'll see.  He will be good at Duke, I think; but he will be a really talented freshman surrounded by talent.  He would do well to stay there 2-3 years, but of course he won't.  His game would get exposed with our current group, sorry.  I'm posting this just to push back on what others have said, no doubt he is really good; but he is no Kevin Durant or Magic, believe me.   I'm sure some guys will not like this .....but I would be interested to know if anyone else shares my mild concerns.

All it would take is for Tatum to win two games in the tournament to top the mighty team maker Kevin Durant.

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5 hours ago, billikenfan05 said:

Yeah but Majerus recruited the guys who got into that mess...

A somewhat reasonable yet harsh criticism, but the way that unfolded was pretty strange and unpredictable. I don't blame Majerus for that. One night of inappropriate conduct is pretty hard to foresee. 

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I agree with Doc B (which is rare).  But it is how the dominoes fall, is it not?  I don't think Tatum takes this team much further, others have noted how Ben Simmons did not at LSU; and Durant did not do the same at Texas. He may have elevated mediocre talent as Hughes did but the rest is pure speculation. And while Hughes did elevate mediocre talent it was talent none the less.   Baniak,Tatum Sr. and Heinrich were talent just the same albeit not great talent.  Jolly wasn't going anywhere upwards.  Ditto for Gillmann right now.  Reynolds was no point guard and neither is Roby or Bartley.  And Yarbrough may have been such a head case that seeing Tatum play might have made Milik go "watch what I can do" allover the place.  Any other recruits (Cook,Barnes) would have been speculation once again and Cook wasn't playing with Tatum anyway.

When Tatum takes the court at Duke and throws down his first ESPN highlight reel poster, don't bother to say that could have been us.  It will only prolong the agony because we just don't know and never will.  The best thing about Tatum going to Duke is it ushered Crewsplatt out the door.  With Tatum and a decent year, Crewsplatt pushes for an extension, meaning at least two, maybe three more years of hole digging all the same.

As for the situation, Mitchell went with the little head as cheeseman suggests.  Let's not forget the role Jon Smith played in that.  He was leaving, what did he care.  And Justin Jordan --- who was also leaving.  Reed was playing video games in the next room and since he was staying at SLU along with Mitchell, the other shoe fell.  Smith got away scott-free.  Ditto Jordan.  I've lived through "athletic entitlement"with my daughter ---- it takes two to tango.  But the athletic entitlement issue seems somewhat universal --- especially when it goes bad.  

Mitchell walks/drives this girl home that night and how does that play out?  

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17 hours ago, DoctorB said:

I've seen Tatum play on a number of occasions, and really have always liked his game, his handles and scoring, and upside.  However...

This may sound like sour grapes but :  IMHO, he's darned good, but just is not as good as some guys on here seem to think.  With Tatum, I really do not think our current roster would be a tournament team, and would not be able to be a top 2 or 3 team in the A10.  Just my opinion, we'll see.  He will be good at Duke, I think; but he will be a really talented freshman surrounded by talent.  He would do well to stay there 2-3 years, but of course he won't.  His game would get exposed with our current group, sorry.  I'm posting this just to push back on what others have said, no doubt he is really good; but he is no Kevin Durant or Magic, believe me.   I'm sure some guys will not like this .....but I would be interested to know if anyone else shares my mild concerns.

Jayson Tatum is a professional scorer.  He doesn't have Kevin Durant's ceiling because he lacks Durant's freakish wingspan.  Provided he gets his touches, Tatum will do very well at Duke playing alongside a top-flight point guard.  In a situation where he is forced to be the primary playmaker, I agree that he would have gotten exposed.  Maybe he will develop into that guy in the next 4-5 years but he's not that guy right now. 

Larry Hughes wasn't much of a playmaker either.  That's why his FG% was so low at SLU and his assist/turnover ratio was so poor -- he forced his share of bad shots.  I think Tatum could have put up similar numbers on next year's squad.  And the A-10 isn't as tough as the old Conference USA.  Maybe that would have been enough to get us in the dance.  But the next year we would be right back where we started.  You would think that one year of hero ball would get future recruits excited but it rarely plays out that way.

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12 hours ago, Zink said:

A somewhat reasonable yet harsh criticism, but the way that unfolded was pretty strange and unpredictable. I don't blame Majerus for that. One night of inappropriate conduct is pretty hard to foresee. 

Totally just playing devils advocate. I agree it's a harsh criticism but when you want to be considered one of the greats you have to be critiqued in the harshest manner possible IMO

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RM had more than just the Situation happen which delayed his rebuild of the program.  First, Fr. Biondi waited so long to hire RM that we missed that initial year.  Imagine if Ford were hired too late as well.  In that case, we would have zero help for next year unless Ford could find his version of a walk-on like Paul Eckerle and no top transfers waiting in the wings for next year.  Yes, RM started with TL and KL already on the roster (better than what Ford inherited) but he also couldn't recruit his own guys that whole first year. Second, the transfer option was largely not used by RM (and not initially) due to RM's desire to coach kids for 4 years but that was also b/c such guys would have to sit out his 2nd year of coaching and not play until his 3rd year.  Third, the NCAA's delay in processing Cody Ellis' transcripts had a huge and negative impact for both Cody and the team.  Fourth, no basketball suspensions would have occurred at most NCAA basketball programs, would not have been conducted in such a kangaroo court format and would not have been conducted with punishments levied at such a late date to the detriment of the team, other players and coaching staff.  Fifth, Fr. Biondi's reversal of his promises to RM leading to a public feud sure didn't help the program. 

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Interested to see the freshmen this year. With only 10 scholarship players available, they'll be forced to see some time although I hope Ford cuts down a rotation by January. I like Jalen Johnson's upside and hopefully he'll be a guy who can play multiple positions and give us a few different lineup looks. As always, defense will be an issue with the freshmen, but defense will probably be an issue with everyone. 

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