Travis Ford On 590

[BIG BILL FAN]

On with Frank after 11am today. 

 

Here is the audio link. Go to segment 4 for the interview.

 

http://insidestl.com/radio-shows/the-press-box

 

 

[RiseAndGrind]

• Watched basketball from 5pm - 11pm yesterday
• watching 15 different kids today (started at 9am today & going until 11pm again)
• likes to sit midcourt or baseline when recruiting
• looking at mostly 2018 and 2019 kids, but recruiting some 2020s
• in an "evaluation only" period - can't talk to them in person but can call & text (that's really weird)
• recruited in STL last weekend and was able to catch some of Brooks' games
• Kids wants to know more now earlier than ever if they've been offered. Says you need to offer almost immediately if you want any chance with a kid. Says it's tough to balance it all.
• Ford has more than 5 offers out to local kids for 2018,2019, 2020.
• Ford stops recruiting a kid when he "verbals" somewhere else ("not everyone does it that way")
• Need to identify quickly whether you have a chance with someone. 
• Henriquez: no chance he beats Ford in "HORSE", but he can score/shoot. great size. "can really shoot", "good feel for game of basketball, makes others better."
• Goodwin: proud of his recovery. He's cleared & is playing. Full contact for a couple weeks. Worked really hard to get in shape. had great workout on Tuesday. 
• Javon Bess: we have a lot of players who can play a lot of different positions. Everyone is going to play a lot. "Bess could be one of most valuable players on the team. Could be best defender on the team. can score in many ways. He's a 6'6 guard who can post up. Good Strength. Good size. His outside jumpshot is improving. He's a stat guy. I want 8-10 rebounds, couple steals, 16-18 points from Bess. He's at the gym 6am every morning by himself"
• "night & day in talent and skill level from last year. bigger. more athletic. We only played 6 guys last year. This team has so much versatility. This team will be oriented about spacing & ball movement more than traditional 1-5 positions.
• this team is very aggressive defensively; last year we played preventative defense.
• SLU/Mizzou; think it will happen. He's spent some time with Martin this summer. It's come up. Think it could happen in near future (my comment: not happening any time soon)

 

 

[ACE]

Said Bess could be team's best defender. Got the sense he may not start, but Ford said could be one of our most valuable players. Great work ethic.

Goodwin working hard to get back from his injury, coming along well.

Will play a system that takes advantage of the roster's versatility. Not hung up on positions.

He's excited about the potential of the defense. A lot of "length"

This is the key time for recruiting, identifying your top targets.

[billiken_roy]

4 minutes ago, RiseAndGrind said:

• Watched basketball from 5pm - 11pm yesterday
• watching 15 different kids today (started at 9am today & going until 11pm again)
• likes to sit midcourt or baseline when recruiting
• looking at mostly 2018 and 2019 kids, but recruiting some 2020s
• in an "evaluation only" period - can't talk to them in person but can call & text (that's really weird)
• recruited in STL last weekend and was able to catch some of Brooks' games
• Kids wants to know more now earlier than ever if they've been offered. Says you need to offer almost immediately if you want any chance with a kid. Says it's tough to balance it all.
• Ford has more than 5 offers out to local kids for 2018,2019, 2020.
• Ford stops recruiting a kid when he "verbals" somewhere else ("not everyone does it that way")
• Need to identify quickly whether you have a chance with someone. 
• Henriquez: no chance he beats Ford in "HORSE", but he can score/shoot. great size. "can really shoot", "good feel for game of basketball, makes others better."
• Goodwin: proud of his recovery. He's cleared & is playing. Full contact for a couple weeks. Worked really hard to get in shape. had great workout on Tuesday. 
• Javon Bess: we have a lot of players who can play a lot of different positions. Everyone is going to play a lot. "Bess could be one of most valuable players on the team. Could be best defender on the team. can score in many ways. He's a 6'6 guard who can post up. Good Strength. Good size. His outside jumpshot is improving. He's a stat guy. I want 8-10 rebounds, couple steals, 16-18 points from Bess. He's at the gym 6am every morning by himself"
• "night & day in talent and skill level from last year. bigger. more athletic. We only played 6 guys last year. This team has so much versatility. This team will be oriented about spacing & ball movement more than traditional 1-5 positions.
• this team is very aggressive defensively; last year we played preventative defense.
• SLU/Mizzou; think it will happen. He's spent some time with Martin this summer. It's come up. Think it could happen in near future (my comment: not happening any time soon)

 

 

+1  this will be a whole new team more or less.    

[TheChosenOne]

Thanks @RiseAndGrind, really good stuff and certainly has me excited for the season to start.

[CBFan]

13 minutes ago, TheChosenOne said:

Thanks @RiseAndGrind, really good stuff and certainly has me excited for the season to start.

+1 and Ace for the summary.

To quote the wiz, tick tick tick to the start of the season I am so excited.

[Pistol]

Great stuff, thanks.

So he has really high hopes for Bess, and sees him as option 1 for scoring. If Bess puts up close to the numbers Ford is talking about (which I know are high-end targets), he's going to be an all-conference player and have a super high usage rate. I think we probably have more balance than that, with guys like Goodwin and Henriquez out there, but I like that Ford is pushing him to be that upperclassman leader out of the new guys. He seems like a great motivator.

[TheChosenOne]

9 minutes ago, CBFan said:

+1 and Ace for the summary.

To quote the wiz, tick tick tick to the start of the season I am so excited.

This may be lame, but would the board be up for some sort of billikens.com tailgate before one of the games early in the season? I think we are as excited as we have been since Mitchell/Conklin/Jett/Evans/McCall and the boys, so the fist fights between posters should be limited.

[Pistol]

48 minutes ago, RiseAndGrind said:

• Watched basketball from 5pm - 11pm yesterday
• watching 15 different kids today (started at 9am today & going until 11pm again)
• likes to sit midcourt or baseline when recruiting
• looking at mostly 2018 and 2019 kids, but recruiting some 2020s
• in an "evaluation only" period - can't talk to them in person but can call & text (that's really weird)
• recruited in STL last weekend and was able to catch some of Brooks' games
• Kids wants to know more now earlier than ever if they've been offered. Says you need to offer almost immediately if you want any chance with a kid. Says it's tough to balance it all.
• Ford has more than 5 offers out to local kids for 2018,2019, 2020.
• Ford stops recruiting a kid when he "verbals" somewhere else ("not everyone does it that way")
• Need to identify quickly whether you have a chance with someone. 

Good perspective on his recruiting mindset.

For local offers, I have:

2018: Hellems, Reece, Davis (although not sure if he's considered local anymore, or if the offer is fresh)

2019: Collins, Hargrove, Liddell

You could stretch "local" to include Leech (Poplar Bluff) and Okoro (Bloomington-Normal) for 2019.

So it's right at 5 using the strictest definition, possibly as many as 8 for 2018-2019. Interesting that he says 2020 in that grouping; maybe he's offered one or more of the local names I put on the interest list, like Bradford or Love from CBC.

[TFord and TRavs]

Anything on French?

[Quality Is Job 1]

@RiseAndGrind, I'm pretty sure I heard him say regarding telling Bess his expectations for points, "15-16."

Regarding defense, he said that last year the defense was more preventive ("which is fine") but this year they'll look to cause more "havoc" (I cringed inside) and create offense from their defense.

[RiseAndGrind]

14 minutes ago, TheChosenOne said:

This may be lame, but would the board be up for some sort of billikens.com tailgate before one of the games early in the season? I think we are as excited as we have been since Mitchell/Conklin/Jett/Evans/McCall and the boys, so the fist fights between posters should be limited.

Yes

[slufan13]

20 minutes ago, TheChosenOne said:

This may be lame, but would the board be up for some sort of billikens.com tailgate before one of the games early in the season? I think we are as excited as we have been since Mitchell/Conklin/Jett/Evans/McCall and the boys, so the fist fights between posters should be limited.

Yup

[CBFan]

35 minutes ago, TheChosenOne said:

This may be lame, but would the board be up for some sort of billikens.com tailgate before one of the games early in the season? I think we are as excited as we have been since Mitchell/Conklin/Jett/Evans/McCall and the boys, so the fist fights between posters should be limited.

Not lame, and would love to do that.

[3star_recruit]

I don't think some of the 2020 kids even have Twitter accounts so you won't be getting online confirmation for awhile. But rest assured that Caleb Love and Davion Bradford of CBC will be on that offer list.

[TheChosenOne]

8 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

I don't think some of the 2020 kids even have Twitter accounts so you won't be getting online confirmation for awhile. But rest assured that Caleb Love and Davion Bradford of CBC will be on that offer list.

Caleb Love looks really good.

[RiseAndGrind]

2 hours ago, Quality Is Job 1 said:

@RiseAndGrind, I'm pretty sure I heard him say regarding telling Bess his expectations for points, "15-16."

Regarding defense, he said that last year the defense was more preventive ("which is fine") but this year they'll look to cause more "havoc" (I cringed inside) and create offense from their defense.

You could be right. I was just surprised to hear such a high number either way (the 16)

[Quality Is Job 1]

24 minutes ago, RiseAndGrind said:

You could be right. I was just surprised to hear such a high number either way (the 16)

Me, too.  That's typically leading scorer territory, unless the team's going to score over 80 or 85 per game and have two or three big scorers.

[ACE]

Regarding the team defense, I think we can expect Ford to use the press more and be aggressive with traps. Even with last year's extremely thin roster, he put on the press early in the season a bit. Once Bishop went down and Zeke got banged up, he pretty much ditched it, but now that he has the horses I expect Ford to press.

[slu72]

Happy to hear his expectations for Bess. Just because of his lineage, ie an Izzo guy, I figured him for the best of the transfers. Granted Izzo has made recruiting mistakes, all coaches do, but when Bess reneged on transferring to Akron, it was rumored Izzo wanted him back at MSU. Good enough endorsement for me.

[NextYearBill]

but when Bess reneged on transferring to Akron, 

Been meaning to ask about this..... anybody know what really went on here? 

[TFord and TRavs]

Any word on French?

[RiseAndGrind]

Just now, TFord and TRavs said:

Any word on French?

Wasn't discussed 

[3star_recruit]

Coach Ford hasn't used the press a lot in his previous stops and I don't expect him to use it here either. We're going to make other teams uncomfortable because we finally have the length and the foot speed to be disruptive in our man-to-man.

http://coachingbetterbball.blogspot.com/2009/01/oklahoma-states-tough-man-defense.html

[crymdg2]

58 minutes ago, NextYearBill said:

but when Bess reneged on transferring to Akron, 

Been meaning to ask about this..... anybody know what really went on here? 

I thought I had heard Bess wanted to transfer to SLU, but his family (dad possibly?) wasn't on board with SLU hence Akron. After Bess convinced them to at least talk to Ford and consider it they jumped on board.