Billiken Roy - where are you???

[Cowboy]

1 hour ago, bauman said:

Will you "Ford is a bad game (now we are even having his individual practice skills being questioned) coach" guys just give it a rest.  I still can't find any REAL basis for this other than MBMs, primarily OSU fans.  That's hardly a solid foundation for the continued spewing of that cr@p on this Board, especially at a time when he has given us the most hope for Billiken basketball since the hiring of RM. Why keep feeling compelled to insert that negative in threads dealing with the great job he is doing transforming the talent level at SLU?   I guess it's just another example of "if you read it on the internet it must be true."

Let's give him, and his staff, a few years before jumping on that bandwagon. 

-if you don't like the answer then don't ask the question

[ACE]

It's kind of interesting to see which posters are less visible when things are going well, but then start posting more when things start heading in the wrong direction. Now with things looking up again, some folks are again less visible. Where is great SLU fan aj to share in the joy of these great recruiting victories or vtime to finally give us the validation that we have long been seeking from him about successfully landing local recruits.   In all seriousness, I kind of miss MB. Not sure if his act was a joke (which I hope it was) or if he was for real, but either way, hope he is ok. Maybe it is just taking him some time to get over the loss of Crews.

[bauman]

3 minutes ago, Cowboy said:

-if you don't like the answer then don't ask the question

That's about as insightful as "it is what it is"/ "I'm just sayin"/ or "we agree to disagree."  All very meaningless parts of today's vernacular.

I guess the fact that my ? was a rhetorical one was a little too subtle!  Sorry, go ahead and continue the constant negatives about a new coach's "alleged" shortcomings.  It's very helpful to the perception of the SLU MBB image.  While you are at it you might want to cite a few qualified writers/coaches who share your opinion instead of the masked internet postings of MBB's.

[Billiken Rich]

why did OSU fire Travis Ford?

[Old guy]

I guess there are two answers to this question: 1) the official version of the causes for his firing, and 2) the real causes for his firing. Please keep in mind that there is always some truth included in the official version of the causes for the firing. What I mean to say is that you may find out the official version but you will not find out the real causes. Period. 

We have to wait and see how well our teams perform in order to judge his coaching abilities. 

[bauman]

6 minutes ago, Billiken Rich said:

why did OSU fire Travis Ford?

I believe because he had one losing season.  As I read their press releases I didn't pick up on the mention that he is a bad game (and practice) coach, nor have I read any intelligent commentators making the bad game-coach statement, although I'm sure there is at least one out there.  Another good question for you is why did UMASS hire him and why did OSU hire him?  They must not have read the internet message boards as they made those hiring decisions and I'm glad that Chris May and all the SLU administrators who were involved in the decision to hire Ford, relied on information not found on fan-based message boards.

[Billiken Rich]

Travis Ford: Two Sides to the Story

9

A piece looking at Cowboy head coach Travis Ford and some pros and cons of his career work at OSU

by thomasflem97  Mar 30, 2015, 7:00a

 

 

The Pros of Travis Ford

- In seven seasons, Ford has 20 wins over top-25 teams, with ten of those games being against top-10 opponents

- His team has defeated either the #1 or #2 team in the country three times

- He has received credit for instilling his defensive focus and underdog mentality in his teams

- He has 18 years of experience at the head coaching position, coaching at Campbellsville, Eastern Kentucky and Umass, as well as Oklahoma State

- He has seen a handful of Cowboys move on to play to the NBA, including James Anderson,Marcus Smart and Markel Brown

- He has been accredited by many with the development of Cowboys like Byron Eaton,Marshall Moses and Markel Brown

- He has a reputation as a persistent recruiter, with three top-25 recruiting classes in his time at OSU

- He has had a recruiting class ranked as highly as fourth by HoopScoop.com

The Cons of Travis Ford

- He has never won either a regular season or tournament conference championship with Oklahoma State

- In his seven seasons, his highest finish in regular season conference standings was third

- He has been criticized for his offensive philosophy and late-game situational strategy

- He hasn't reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament since his first season in 2008

- Under his time at OSU, the Cowboys are one of only four teams with only one NCAA Tournament win in six years

- In the only season where OSU started the season ranked (2013-2014), the Cowboys plummeted from #8 to unranked by the end of the regular season

- He was included in Forbes' Most Overpaid College Hoops Coaches piece

- According to pistolsfiringblog.com, his Cowboys have only held two minutes and 51 seconds worth of NCAA Tournament leads in the last four years.

 

 

The guy who wrote this might be a MBM or might not but looking a the "pros" Travis sure seems to recruit well and according to the "cons" he sure seems to underachieve with that talent.

 

 

 

[Billiken Rich]

29 minutes ago, bauman said:

I believe because he had one losing season.  As I read their press releases I didn't pick up on the mention that he is a bad game (and practice) coach, nor have I read any intelligent commentators making the bad game-coach statement, although I'm sure there is at least one out there.  Another good question for you is why did UMASS hire him and why did OSU hire him?  They must not have read the internet message boards as they made those hiring decisions and I'm glad that Chris May and all the SLU administrators who were involved in the decision to hire Ford, relied on information not found on fan-based message boards.

I never said I wasn't happy he was here. I said he still has a lot to prove. Any objective observer would would agree with the latter statement. 

[slufanskip]

54 minutes ago, Billiken Rich said:

Travis Ford: Two Sides to the Story

9

A piece looking at Cowboy head coach Travis Ford and some pros and cons of his career work at OSU

by thomasflem97  Mar 30, 2015, 7:00a

 

 

The Pros of Travis Ford

- In seven seasons, Ford has 20 wins over top-25 teams, with ten of those games being against top-10 opponents

- His team has defeated either the #1 or #2 team in the country three times

- He has received credit for instilling his defensive focus and underdog mentality in his teams

- He has 18 years of experience at the head coaching position, coaching at Campbellsville, Eastern Kentucky and Umass, as well as Oklahoma State

- He has seen a handful of Cowboys move on to play to the NBA, including James Anderson,Marcus Smart and Markel Brown

- He has been accredited by many with the development of Cowboys like Byron Eaton,Marshall Moses and Markel Brown

- He has a reputation as a persistent recruiter, with three top-25 recruiting classes in his time at OSU

- He has had a recruiting class ranked as highly as fourth by HoopScoop.com

The Cons of Travis Ford

- He has never won either a regular season or tournament conference championship with Oklahoma State

- In his seven seasons, his highest finish in regular season conference standings was third

- He has been criticized for his offensive philosophy and late-game situational strategy

- He hasn't reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament since his first season in 2008

- Under his time at OSU, the Cowboys are one of only four teams with only one NCAA Tournament win in six years

- In the only season where OSU started the season ranked (2013-2014), the Cowboys plummeted from #8 to unranked by the end of the regular season

- He was included in Forbes' Most Overpaid College Hoops Coaches piece

- According to pistolsfiringblog.com, his Cowboys have only held two minutes and 51 seconds worth of NCAA Tournament leads in the last four years.

 

 

The guy who wrote this might be a MBM or might not but looking a the "pros" Travis sure seems to recruit well and according to the "cons" he sure seems to underachieve with that talent.

 

 

 

Yes, he recruits well, but does he recruit better than the top 3 Big 12 schools? KS, OU, and UT? If he was in the A10 that level of recruiting would be nice, but I highly doubt it puts him in the top 3 on a normal basis in the big 12. I'd assume UT, OU, and KS have had more than 3 top 25 recruiting classes. Hell Baylor and ISU have possibly had a few. The tourney results are something that concerns me, but he got there consistently. More than any coach ever at SLU. However, to say he recruited talent to OSU that should have performed better compared to the talent on the other Big 12 teams ... I'm not sure I see that.

And some of the cons are pretty subjective ... he has been criticized for? What coach hasn't been criticized.  Forbes lists him as overpaid? What makes Forbes opinion worth a crap.

One NCAA win in 6 appearances ... I can list a lot of good schools with less appearances than Ford during that same time frame. So is 1 and done worse than not making it at all? Every time he made it he was in probably the top 40 teams in the country.

[slufan13]

Ford underachieved at UMass as well. The comments about him not being a good in-game, in-season coach are not unfounded. However, at the moment, he's recruiting at such a high level here at SLU that I'm not sure it will make a major difference.

[ACE]

I am keeping an open mind about Ford's coaching until I see more of it during his time at SLU and I am aware of his reputation as an in-game coach, but not sure why you say he underachieved at UMass. He finished tied for 1st in the A-10 in his second season and made the NIT finals in his third and final season at UMass. That's quite an improvement from his predecessor Lappas, who had losing records in three of his four seasons.

[Billiken Rich]

Majerus/Crews had three times the Tourney wins Travis had with zero top 25 recruiting classes and zero Mc Dees All Americans (Travis Had four.)   Maybe being in the Big Twelve hurt their seeding?  

I don't follow big twelve basketball so I'm not really concerned about OSU's conference record

[Quality Is Job 1]

With regard to NCAA Tournament success, sometimes the issue is the draw:  how well do you match up with the teams and their style of play and, to (perhaps) a lesser extent, how close they may be to their home base.  And sometimes the issue is the construction of your team and whether they're peaking or ebbing come Tournament time.  Some teams are constructed extremely well for Tournament success; others happen to get hot at the right time.

Perhaps Ford's OSU Tourney teams weren't well-constructed for Tournament success.  Some of the knock that we read from OSU fans is that his teams lacked depth behind key players and that he didn't have enough rebounders and ballhandlers.  It seems the rebounding shortcomings have been addressed.  As long as there are enough ballhandlers -- they don't necessarily have to be prototypical with regard to height -- it appears forthcoming SLU squads should be well constructed.  Then we'll get to see to what extent Ford's strategy and preparation are an asset or flaw.

[cheeseman]

I saw Ford reading "My Life on a Napkin" - all is good.

[CBFan]

The cons mentioned in the article was the reason I did not originally like the decision to hire Coach Ford.

The pros are the reason I have enjoyed the hire of Coach Ford and I am glad Chris May made that decision and I was wrong.

No matter what happens if Coach Ford is not successful I will continue to support the decision because the excitement of Billiken Basketball is back to the days when Rick Majerus was hired.

More importantly, Coach Ford is getting the local recruits.  I loved watching Larry the legend playing here.  I loved watching Highmark and Clagget.  Also watching Anthony Bonner play was a treat.

I will wait and see if Coach Ford can coach game day or not before I am concerned.  The first play to teach these guys will be an inbound pass from under our goal not going to the backcourt.  If Coach Ford can teach to the remaining players an inbound play it will be a big step, just kidding.

[Cowboy]

18 minutes ago, CBFan said:

The cons mentioned in the article was the reason I did not originally like the decision to hire Coach Ford.

The pros are the reason I have enjoyed the hire of Coach Ford and I am glad Chris May made that decision and I was wrong.

No matter what happens if Coach Ford is not successful I will continue to support the decision because the excitement of Billiken Basketball is back to the days when Rick Majerus was hired.

More importantly, Coach Ford is getting the local recruits.  I loved watching Larry the legend playing here.  I loved watching Highmark and Clagget.  Also watching Anthony Bonner play was a treat.

I will wait and see if Coach Ford can coach game day or not before I am concerned.  The first play to teach these guys will be an inbound pass from under our goal not going to the backcourt.  If Coach Ford can teach to the remaining players an inbound play it will be a big step, just kidding.

 

-do you remember the GW game last year, which we won - MC big down the stretch - but we tried to give it away when we couldn't inbounds because GW double teamed Miles and we had no other option? I am hopeful we don't see that stuff so with much more talent coming and even slightly better coaching the arrow swings to the correct direction

[Old guy]

There is a certain similarity between what is going on currently in the posts about Ford's reported coaching abilities and whether this makes him a good or bad coach, and the roller coaster rides that some people go through regarding specific recruitment candidates before they commit. All I can say is that instant gratification is something that does not come readily to anyone. It is sad to see adults that just do not understand this. 

Reading tea leaves and interpreting rumors, trying to dig the worst aspects of anyone are not occupations that will prove rewarding in the long run. It is like with Hassan French; people where panicked whenever they thought someone else was favored over SLU based upon some invalid sum of the opinions from the net. What a bunch of baloney that is.

The way I see Ford is this. We do not know how he will train and coach our teams, but we will see the results of his coaching in due time. What we do know is that he has been able to attract national attention upon SLU, something we have not had often for good reasons. He has been able to recruit players with talent and higher ranking than we ever enjoyed in our teams, and he is a good public speaker. In comparison with some of the others whose name will not be mentioned here, this guy shines and has made a positive difference for our basketball team. Now then, why is it that it proves so hard to give the guy a break and just wait and see what results he gets in the court?True we may have to wait until 2017-2018 to see what he does since no one expects much of this season, but that is the way it is. Why do anyone needs to know NOW, just in order to criticize NOW, even before he has started showing what he can do for us? Why the attempt to kill his reputation and think bad thoughts about him after he has been doing so well for us so far? Is this the way some of you people get your jollies? Jes_s in heaven, just give the guy some time and then judge him. 

And by the way, it is OK to have a bad opinion of someone and then to realize you were wrong and change your opinion. 

[NextYearBill]

dont forget... Ford and Marcus Smart lost to the same Oregon team that schooled our very own in the tournament.... lose and go home can be cruel

[billikenfan05]

25 minutes ago, NextYearBill said:

dont forget... Ford and Marcus Smart lost to the same Oregon team that schooled our very own in the tournament.... lose and go home can be cruel

Strange to think those who stuck around for that game were watching our future coach in action 

[Bills_06]

Gary Parrish was on the writer's block today and talked about Ford.  Mentioned that he isn't as bad of an x and o guy as people say but mainly, he would take a better recruiter over a better x and o guy, especially in the A10, 10 times out of 10.  In an ACC, every school has the top talent so the coaching errors can stick out more but in the A10, the talent can win out.  It was a pretty good interview with him.

[NextYearBill]

23 minutes ago, Bills_06 said:

Gary Parrish was on the writer's block today and talked about Ford.  Mentioned that he isn't as bad of an x and o guy as people say but mainly, he would take a better recruiter over a better x and o guy, especially in the A10, 10 times out of 10.  In an ACC, every school has the top talent so the coaching errors can stick out more but in the A10, the talent can win out.  It was a pretty good interview with him.

i dont claim to know anything about x and o.... but as an MBM who watches a lot of basketball..... the big, good players win games.

[CBFan]

13 hours ago, Cowboy said:

 

-do you remember the GW game last year, which we won - MC big down the stretch - but we tried to give it away when we couldn't inbounds because GW double teamed Miles and we had no other option? I am hopeful we don't see that stuff so with much more talent coming and even slightly better coaching the arrow swings to the correct direction

I do not remember that with the GW game but the inbounding issue lasted two seasons with Coach Crews.  Just seeing inbound plays that don't go to the back court every time and post defense will be a big coaching improvement and show that Coach Ford can teach.

If Coach Ford can get this seasons team to play even in the A10 then I think he will do great with his recruits.

I am really looking forward to the season.

[kwyjibo]

I think some of you see the world only in (bogus) dichotomies.  If you like a coach everything about that coach has to great and you will bully anyone who says (or dares to notice) different. If you do not like a coach everything about them is terrible.

Do you remember that 100% terrible at everything coach Soderberg beating Ford's UMass teams (I do)?   Do you remember Majerus beating Travis Ford's UMass team with 2 future NBA players with all the 100% terrible players Soderberg recruited (I do)?  The past is not the future but there is a reason knowledgeable people do not always want to stick their head in the sand about Coach Ford's abilities.  I certainly did not watch enough of UMass or OSU games to have a critique of his "in game" coaching but according to the (knowledgeable) UMass fans I talked to that was not the problem.  The problem was offensive philosophy, most notably "shot selection", in that everybody had the green light and that is how 3 future NBA players at UMass never played in the NCAA tournament (it is also revisionist history to blame Lappas for Ford's failure as Lappas left a nucleus of good players and Ford instantly recruited 7 or 8 transfers including 2 that could play right away).  I could get into the pros and cons of good offensive philosophy but I would hope SLU fans were paying attention when Majerus was coach.

Now, Ford is obviously gaining experience and there is nothing to say that he does not develop good offensive and defensive schemes for the Billikens. Even with the less than optimal schemes his teams did pretty good (maybe not to the level of his recruiting rankings but Oklahoma State did not have many bad losses under Ford).  So (and this should go without saying) everyone has to give him time and that is more than this year. I am assuming that all SLU fans are rooting for him to develop schemes that work with all the players he has now and the excellent players he has recruited. 

For the record, I do not have that much criticism of Coach Ford at OSU based on the NCAA tourney.   It is not a cause for praise but it is hard to say there is a consistent pattern either.   I think Ford's teams seem to have been pretty consistently seeded too generously and so early round losses reflect the fact the committee probably created slightly unrealistic expectations (playing in the Big 12 meant they got lots of chances to play and beat top 25 teams so those wins were probably overvalued rather than looking at the whole).

[ACE]

21 minutes ago, kwyjibo said:

I think some of you see the world only in (bogus) dichotomies.  If you like a coach everything about that coach has to great and you will bully anyone who says (or dares to notice) different. If you do not like a coach everything about them is terrible.

Do you remember that 100% terrible at everything coach Soderberg beating Ford's UMass teams (I do)?   Do you remember Majerus beating Travis Ford's UMass team with 2 future NBA players with all the 100% terrible players Soderberg recruited (I do)?  The past is not the future but there is a reason knowledgeable people do not always want to stick their head in the sand about Coach Ford's abilities.  I certainly did not watch enough of UMass or OSU games to have a critique of his "in game" coaching but according to the (knowledgeable) UMass fans I talked to that was not the problem.  The problem was offensive philosophy, most notably "shot selection", in that everybody had the green light and that is how 3 future NBA players at UMass never played in the NCAA tournament (it is also revisionist history to blame Lappas for Ford's failure as Lappas left a nucleus of good players and Ford instantly recruited 7 or 8 transfers including 2 that could play right away).  I could get into the pros and cons of good offensive philosophy but I would hope SLU fans were paying attention when Majerus was coach.

Now, Ford is obviously gaining experience and there is nothing to say that he does not develop good offensive and defensive schemes for the Billikens. Even with the less than optimal schemes his teams did pretty good (maybe not to the level of his recruiting rankings but Oklahoma State did not have many bad losses under Ford).  So (and this should go without saying) everyone has to give him time and that is more than this year. I am assuming that all SLU fans are rooting for him to develop schemes that work with all the players he has now and the excellent players he has recruited. 

For the record, I do not have that much criticism of Coach Ford at OSU based on the NCAA tourney.   It is not a cause for praise but it is hard to say there is a consistent pattern either.   I think Ford's teams seem to have been pretty consistently seeded too generously and so early round losses reflect the fact the committee probably created slightly unrealistic expectations (playing in the Big 12 meant they got lots of chances to play and beat top 25 teams so those wins were probably overvalued rather than looking at the whole).

Who are these 3 future NBA players at UMass you are referencing? I don't recall anybody of significance after Camby.

 

[hsmith19]

Gary Forbes, Tony Gaffney, and Stephan Lasme all played for Ford at UMass and had cups of coffee in the NBA. All three probably fell short of even the Willie Reed level as pros, but were still good enough that I think it's fair to say Ford's Minutemen teams underachieved.