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Milwaukee Billiken

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About Milwaukee Billiken

  • Birthday 03/14/1983

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Milwaukee, WI

Milwaukee Billiken's Achievements

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Freshman (2/7)

  1. Thanks Wiz. I always enjoy your predictions, so here's a bump. Dayton is one of the most athletic, underrated teams in college basketball right now. How they're unranked and Notre Dame is in the top 25 beats the hell out of me. Unfortunately, I have to say Dayton by 19 in this one.
  2. You must have misread my original post. I mentioned the players I did to show that in addition to luck and Dwayne Wade, recruiting one's own city can be extremely beneficial to the strength of a program. That's something SLU has always struggled to do, at least since I started following the program. You're almost right though. All the local players I mentioned in my post were signed either before or at the same time as Wade, save Steve Novak. My point was that recruiting local players paid of in those instances. Although they were good, nobody predicted Diener or Novak would be NBA caliber players when they were recruited. Marquette recruited locally and it paid off. What I failed to mention is that the 4 players currently starring for the team, Wes Matthews, Jerel McNeal, Dom James, and Lazar Hayward, were all recruited after Wade. MU has recruited three and four-star reruits every year since 2004, and their 2009 class looks to be the best in years. There has been an exponential improvement in recruiting at MU, post Wade. I guess to set the record straight, I fundamentally disagree with your position. I obviously think MU success has a lot more to do with luck than anything else. You mention facility disparities, but they've always been even, with SLU now well ahead. You mention coaching disparities, but there really weren't any. The two teams played in the same conference for several years. They have similar budgets. The large differences are that Marquette won a national championship 31 years ago, and has always recruited well locally (maybe the 2 are related?). And yes, Marquette lucked out with Dwayne Wade. His success and that surrounding his teams led to an eventual Big East invite and improved recruits. It wasn't just landing Wade that was lucky, it was the timing. The improved recruits post Wade have turned Marquette into a competetive team in the Big East and in turn will continue to foster more recruits. As Bay Area Bill points out, SLU simply wasn't as lucky with Larry Hughes. With another year of Hughes, who knows what would have happened with the program? My main point is that with the pieces now apparently in place, SLU is primed to break out.
  3. It's been a while since I've chimed in around here, but this question is of particular interest to me. Growing up in Milwaukee and attending Marquette University High School, I've been a Marquette fan longer than I've been a Billiken fan. Since setting foot on the SLU campus as a freshman in 2001, however, my real passion has rested with the Billikens. I'd like nothing more than to see our Billikens take off the way Marquette basketball has in the past decade. The way schools are viewed by the nation as a whole is largely affected by athletic performance, like it or not. For example, the spring after Marquette made the final four, freshman applications increased four-fold. We're talking a jump from 3,000 applications for admissions to 12,000. Who on this board wouldn't want SLU and SLU basketball to see that kind of exposure? There are several differences between MU and SLU when it comes to their basketball programs. Many of them have been mentioned here. My focus is a little different. One difference that several people overlook is luck. Marquette was lucky enough to win the National Championship in 1977 and they were lucky enough to land Dwayne Wade (not even close to being the #1 recuit in the country) for two years. Both instances involved a great deal of luck. Success and winning at the college level is all based on prior winning. Schools like SLU that can't get the ball rolling remain stuck where they've always been: the bottom of the top third. For as many success stories are there are out there (Marquette, Xavier, Gonzaga, Butler), there are more Depauls, Seton Halls, SLUs, and Detroits. Because of their sustained sucess, MU has established a fan base and recruiting points. And yes, Marquette is at the top to stay. I'm not saying they're always going to be a top 25 team. Who is? Even Kentucky isn't up there anymore. But because of their success, mainly attributable to one player, MU will continue to recuit in the top 25. They regularly sign 4 star recuits. They average over 20,000 fans per game and they recruit their backyard. The best Marquette success stories have been local recruits turned NBA caliber players. Steve Novak, Jim McIlvane, Scott Merritt, and Travis Diener were all Milwaukee area players. I can guarantee SLU would be in better place if Drew Diener was lucky enough to convince his brother Travis to head to SLU. Brad Soderberg might even still have his old job. Unfortunately, without some luck, the program just hasn't and just won't get rolling. Fortunately, lady luck is on the horizon. Continue to have faith, Billikens. Our time will come. SLU built an arena to lend credibility to a program with none. SLU hired a head coach with more credibility and experience than any other SLU coach in history. Majerus is recruiting at level unparalled in SLU history. One of his recruits is going to break out, and when he does, the program will have something to build on. The school and the athletic department have enough financial support to continue investing in the future. When it comes to sports, unfortunately, a lot of the time, you're investing in a dice-roll. Winning is going to happen eventually. It's just going to take a little luck, a lot of patience, and a lot of time to get rolling.
  4. I saw Coach Majerus at the Original Pancake House in Brookfield, WI a couple of weeks ago.
  5. was named 1st team All-State in Wisconsin. 1st team All-State
  6. The WPG is still used by the Saint Louis University Earthquake Center and Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences. In my earth sciences class my freshman year, Professor Koper told us that there is extensive equipment inside and underneath WPG. According to this Website, there is still a vault "in the northwest corner of the old University gymnasium".
  7. Student tickets are $70 for the season at Marquette. It comes out to $3.89/ ticket and you get a nice gold shirt. Student season tickets at Notre Dame are $60, and that doesn't include games over Christmas break. Individual student tickets are $5. When I was a Freshman at SLU in 2001, season tickets were $20.
  8. I just saw this article posted about the A-10. It's a rivals article, but I found it on the top of the front page of Yahoo's Men's Basketball page. I don't think SLU was even mentioned in the article. With a few big conference wins and a top 3 finish in the conference, SLU could be one of the 4-5 teams Rivals is predicting will make the tourney out of the A-10. http://collegebasketball.rivals.com/conten...&CID=757266
  9. The A-10 has more teams (4) in the top 15 in RPI today than any other conference in the country. No other conference has 4 teams in the top 25 either. Dayton #7 Xavier #13 UMass #14 Rhode Island #15 SLU is #100 today.
  10. http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=701562
  11. Dayton leads by 8 at half. This would be a big one for the A-10.
  12. This is awful for the board. My hope is that Tdell continues to supply inside information, but in all reality, those days are over. Tdell, if you're out there, perhaps with a little bit more care you can continue to supply the board with objective information about Tommie and the team. If not, we all understand why, and we'll miss your posts.
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