early saturday rambling roy all in lower case with no cares about spelling and grammar however NEVER initials

[billiken_roy]

well I have been asked by quite a few of the board to come out of retirement. i left because imo, i had become nothing but a distraction to billikens.com. a number of the regular message board morons here were all about taking anything i posted out of context, i began posting what i thought people wanted to read rather than what i truly felt, and even then there were those continuing to attack me personally and trying to always discredit what i wrote. it had gotten to a point of stupid and like i said a distraction. so i felt for the better of billikens.com i needed to go away.

over the time via private messages and face to face meetings, i heard time and time again they missed my thoughts. and surprisingly, this past week a suggestion from a source i would have never guessed came to me, asked that i at least come back on a regular basis whereby i would give my opinion, observations and thoughts. i am willing to give this a try, but on the condition that it is understood i will not respond directly to any reply on the board. And those that come to me via private message will likely on be returned to those fellow message board morons that have conversed with me over the last year or so via private message. Otherwise, my thoughts are only there to generate billiken talk amongst yourselves. We shall see how it goes, i have absolutely no problem going back into retirement if that is the obvious want of the board.

i am thinking this will be a once a week appearance during the season, and during the offseason may be less. i plan to just ramble about just about anything but obviously mostly about the billikens and saint louis university.

Here we go…..

It has been a great disappointment that saint louis university hasn’t made a bigger deal about the upcoming retirement of Dr Mike Beczkala. mike pretty much started the billiken pep band and it has grown in size and talent over the years to the point it truly is the greatest pep band in all of college basketball. Plus, not only are they “the band", most games, they do a better job of being the typical student body than the student body. mike’s involvement has been minimized greatly this year as new director, austin turner takes over. Over the Christmas break when the students were gone, mike brought a number of us alumni musicians back one more time to be the band while the students were out. if you run into mike, you should make an effort to thank him for a wonderful job over the years and congratulate him on his upcoming retirement (he is also retiring as the columbia grade school principal as well after this current school year.) meanwhile the band plays on as great as ever. thanks mike for starting it all. it was great to see you leading the band last night. austin is doing a great job stepping into your shoes, but an old traditionalist like myself just feels more comfortable seeing the "same ole" leading the way.

While i am on the band, a big thanks to my line mates on the trumpet line that made me feel welcome during that month i got the privledge of sitting in with the band while the students when home for xmas break. dave, julie and bruce you are the best and I cant thank you enough for dealing with my trying to keep up with you guys in december. hopefully i get asked back again next xmas break and would welcome being in your area again.

all century team when first announced seemed like a neat idea. that said, the end of it was really somewhat of a trainwreck. it went from what everyone was assuming was going to be a 5 man team with a coach selected to a 16 player roster and three coaches and mysteriously the great harry rogers, jimmy irving, and david burns were all left off. coach grawer, who saved the program from falling into division III status, and who had some wonderful teams advance deep into the NIT , was not amongst the three coaches selected. then to top it off, there wasn’t an actual moment where the players live were presented to the crowd, just an announcement from the PA announcer and a flash on the video screen. what a let down.

recruiting young tatum. i think we truly have a shot at getting jason tatum to come to slu. a lot of the influential people in his life like his parents and his godfather all have billiken ties and reportedly are pushing for the billikens. getting jason at slu could be the key to turning things around again. he is one of those once in a lifetime players (like his godfather, larry hughes), that is an immediate game changer. personally, i think it is a no brainer to ask his father to be an assistant coach. Unlike some of the other fathers of previous ncaa stars that were offered coaching jobs to help bring their son’s to a program, Justin is different. Not only is he jason’s father, he comes as a very successful high school coach with numerous trips to the missouri state tourney and has been very active as an area aau coach prior to becoming a high school coach thus has the needed contacts to be an effective recruiter as well. jason is that good, that we should be taking every step we can to make his recruitment a success. by the way, hope to see many of you at the upcoming o’fallon shootout on february 7^th. i plan to be there all day wearing my billiken hoodie.

slu fan support has been a lot better thus far than i expected. we have had some games where the seats were filled far more than i would have ever dreamed considering how much this team has dropped off this year. got to love that. that said, i have been disappointed with the students thus far. they just sit there as much as i do. i’m an old tired guy with a bad ticker. i got an excuse. they don’t. far too often you look over and they are sitting there staring at their phones. like i said above, the band does a better job of being a student section than the student section. while many hate to admit it, the days that 05 and 13 were involved in the student section were fantastic. Those student sections rocked. whoever is the current head of the group needs to step it up. and you students that aren’t going crazy, you are missing out on creating some great memory. the likes of myself and taj and bonwich, when we were at slu there weren’t but about 10 of us sitting in the stands. and honestly i think we did more than this current section (that is packed to the top most games). quit trying to be joe cool smooth and get crazy. that is what students do. skip and i will yell at the refs. you just need to be constant noise and motion.

this is getting long so i am going to wrap it up. next week i will plan on talking detail about the roster, coaching and recruiting.

oh yeah there was a game last night. honestly, it was the best game of the year, probably in the entire conference. our billikens exceeded their past performances this year by leaps and bounds. it made me think maybe there is a chance with this group beyond malik. still missed too many free throws and had too many turnovers, but i can forgive the turnovers considering the fatigue that havoc causes. probably the same with the down the stretch free throw misses. i do have a problem letting graham even get the ball at the end let alone waltz to the rim. who the heck did the billikens think was going to get the ball? he should have been denied first double/triple teamed second and fouled third. instead he got a layup that i bet taj's wife could have made. (yeah she looks good, taj overachieved, but she is no player.)

wouldnt we all like to see a ref have the guts to call that foul on that last second court length pass where vcu just mugs our guy and tips the ball out of bounds? god i hate refs.

thanks slu for the shirt. and i think more of the casual and oldster fans put on the shirts last night than in years past.

see ya

[Billikenboy]

well I have been asked by quite a few of the board to come out of retirement. i left because imo, i had become nothing but a distraction to billikens.com. a number of the regular message board morons here were all about taking anything i posted out of context, i began posting what i thought people wanted to read rather than what i truly felt, and even then there were those continuing to attack me personally and trying to always discredit what i wrote. it had gotten to a point of stupid and like i said a distraction. so i felt for the better of billikens.com i needed to go away.

over the time via private messages and face to face meetings, i heard time and time again they missed my thoughts. and surprisingly, this past week a suggestion from a source i would have never guessed came to me, asked that i at least come back on a regular basis whereby i would give my opinion, observations and thoughts. i am willing to give this a try, but on the condition that it is understood i will not respond directly to any reply on the board. And those that come to me via private message will likely on be returned to those fellow message board morons that have conversed with me over the last year or so via private message. Otherwise, my thoughts are only there to generate billiken talk amongst yourselves. We shall see how it goes, i have absolutely no problem going back into retirement if that is the obvious want of the board.

i am thinking this will be a once a week appearance during the season, and during the offseason may be less. i plan to just ramble about just about anything but obviously mostly about the billikens and saint louis university.

Here we go..

It has been a great disappointment that saint louis university hasnt made a bigger deal about the upcoming retirement of Dr Mike Beczkala. mike pretty much started the billiken pep band and it has grown in size and talent over the years to the point it truly is the greatest pep band in all of college basketball. Plus, not only are they the band", most games, they do a better job of being the typical student body than the student body. mikes involvement has been minimized greatly this year as new director, austin turner takes over. Over the Christmas break when the students were gone, mike brought a number of us alumni musicians back one more time to be the band while the students were out. if you run into mike, you should make an effort to thank him for a wonderful job over the years and congratulate him on his upcoming retirement (he is also retiring as the columbia grade school principal as well after this current school year.) meanwhile the band plays on as great as ever. thanks mike for starting it all. it was great to see you leading the band last night. austin is doing a great job stepping into your shoes, but an old traditionalist like myself just feels more comfortable seeing the "same ole" leading the way.

While i am on the band, a big thanks to my line mates on the trumpet line that made me feel welcome during that month i got the privledge of sitting in with the band while the students when home for xmas break. dave, julie and bruce you are the best and I cant thank you enough for dealing with my trying to keep up with you guys in december. hopefully i get asked back again next xmas break and would welcome being in your area again.

all century team when first announced seemed like a neat idea. that said, the end of it was really somewhat of a trainwreck. it went from what everyone was assuming was going to be a 5 man team with a coach selected to a 16 player roster and three coaches and mysteriously the great harry rogers, jimmy irving, and david burns were all left off. coach grawer, who saved the program from falling into division III status, and who had some wonderful teams advance deep into the NIT , was not amongst the three coaches selected. then to top it off, there wasnt an actual moment where the players live were presented to the crowd, just an announcement from the PA announcer and a flash on the video screen. what a let down.

recruiting young tatum. i think we truly have a shot at getting jason tatum to come to slu. a lot of the influential people in his life like his parents and his godfather all have billiken ties and reportedly are pushing for the billikens. getting jason at slu could be the key to turning things around again. he is one of those once in a lifetime players (like his godfather, larry hughes), that is an immediate game changer. personally, i think it is a no brainer to ask his father to be an assistant coach. Unlike some of the other fathers of previous ncaa stars that were offered coaching jobs to help bring their sons to a program, Justin is different. Not only is he jasons father, he comes as a very successful high school coach with numerous trips to the missouri state tourney and has been very active as an area aau coach prior to becoming a high school coach thus has the needed contacts to be an effective recruiter as well. jason is that good, that we should be taking every step we can to make his recruitment a success. by the way, hope to see many of you at the upcoming ofallon shootout on february 7^th. i plan to be there all day wearing my billiken hoodie.

slu fan support has been a lot better thus far than i expected. we have had some games where the seats were filled far more than i would have ever dreamed considering how much this team has dropped off this year. got to love that. that said, i have been disappointed with the students thus far. they just sit there as much as i do. im an old tired guy with a bad ticker. i got an excuse. they dont. far too often you look over and they are sitting there staring at their phones. like i said above, the band does a better job of being a student section than the student section. while many hate to admit it, the days that 05 and 13 were involved in the student section were fantastic. Those student sections rocked. whoever is the current head of the group needs to step it up. and you students that arent going crazy, you are missing out on creating some great memory. the likes of myself and taj and bonwich, when we were at slu there werent but about 10 of us sitting in the stands. and honestly i think we did more than this current section (that is packed to the top most games). quit trying to be joe cool smooth and get crazy. that is what students do. skip and i will yell at the refs. you just need to be constant noise and motion.

this is getting long so i am going to wrap it up. next week i will plan on talking detail about the roster, coaching and recruiting.

oh yeah there was a game last night. honestly, it was the best game of the year, probably in the entire conference. our billikens exceeded their past performances this year by leaps and bounds. it made me think maybe there is a chance with this group beyond malik. still missed too many free throws and had too many turnovers, but i can forgive the turnovers considering the fatigue that havoc causes. probably the same with the down the stretch free throw misses. i do have a problem letting graham even get the ball at the end let alone waltz to the rim. who the heck did the billikens think was going to get the ball? he should have been denied first double/triple teamed second and fouled third. instead he got a layup that i bet taj's wife could have made. (yeah she looks good, taj overachieved, but she is no player.)

wouldnt we all like to see a ref have the guts to call that foul on that last second court length pass where vcu just mugs our guy and tips the ball out of bounds? god i hate refs.

thanks slu for the shirt. and i think more of the casual and oldster fans put on the shirts last night than in years past.

see ya

Thanks for the writeup. Looking forward to what your comments are on the current roster, individual player analysis, and where you think this team will be as a unit next season. Good day to you!

[slu72]

Welcome back, old friend.

[SluSignGuy]

First, Welcome Back Roy. Or should I say: welcome back roy. I am glad you decided to return to the Billikens.com community. I know you have kept in touch with many via private messaging, but Billikens.com isn’t quite the same without billiken_roy.

As many posters know, Roy took a self-imposed hiatus for the last year or so. Roy is one of many who have not liked how the Billikens.com has changed over the years. I cannot say I share this sentiment. The tone of the message board has definitely changed, but I think some fantastic posters have emerged. The “old boys club” and new posters (or one poster would likely refer to them: MBMs) don’t always get along, but I think both groups make great contributions. Roy and I discussed his coming back, and I hope the approach Roy is taking with doing a post a week can emerge as a feature of Billikens.com similar to Wiz’s pre-game predictions or Taj’s post-game thoughts from the couch.

I encourage people to reply and even challenge Roy. While Roy is one of my favorite posters, I don’t always agree with him (e.g. on Majerus). However, this message board is like a local bar where you can go and talk Billikens. There will be the occasional bar fight, but we are all on the same team. You will be hard pressed to find a more passionate Billiken fan than Roy (however his grandson Drew will likely give him a run for the money), and there is a reason why he is a legend in the Billikens.com community.

So welcome back Roy.

[bonwich]

I credit this resurrection to the fact that I drove through Terre Haute last week and managed to find some Three Floyds, at which point I said a little prayer of thanks to St. Roy, the patron of beer.

[Billikenboy]

I credit this resurrection to the fact that I drove through Terre Haute last week and managed to find some Three Floyds, at which point I said a little prayer of thanks to St. Roy, the patron of beer.

Well said!?

[bauman]

welcome back roy. i really missed your thoughts on all things billiken.

i look forward to your weekly posts, if that's what you decide to do.

[SluSignGuy]

To reply more to some points,

It has been a great disappointment that saint louis university hasn’t made a bigger deal about the upcoming retirement of Dr Mike Beczkala. mike pretty much started the billiken pep band and it has grown in size and talent over the years to the point it truly is the greatest pep band in all of college basketball. Plus, not only are they “the band", most games, they do a better job of being the typical student body than the student body. mike’s involvement has been minimized greatly this year as new director, austin turner takes over. Over the Christmas break when the students were gone, mike brought a number of us alumni musicians back one more time to be the band while the students were out. if you run into mike, you should make an effort to thank him for a wonderful job over the years and congratulate him on his upcoming retirement (he is also retiring as the columbia grade school principal as well after this current school year.) meanwhile the band plays on as great as ever. thanks mike for starting it all. it was great to see you leading the band last night. austin is doing a great job stepping into your shoes, but an old traditionalist like myself just feels more comfortable seeing the "same ole" leading the way.

It was neat to see Mike lead the band last night. I cannot speak to how SLU has treated Mike. There were some rumblings of unhappyness, but the band he developed is the core of the Billiken atmosphere we see at Fetz.

all century team when first announced seemed like a neat idea. that said, the end of it was really somewhat of a trainwreck. it went from what everyone was assuming was going to be a 5 man team with a coach selected to a 16 player roster and three coaches and mysteriously the great harry rogers, jimmy irving, and david burns were all left off. coach grawer, who saved the program from falling into division III status, and who had some wonderful teams advance deep into the NIT , was not amongst the three coaches selected. then to top it off, there wasn’t an actual moment where the players live were presented to the crowd, just an announcement from the PA announcer and a flash on the video screen. what a let down.

I agree I was a little disappointed in the all century team. I would have done 5 players, and one coach. And then make every effort to get those 5 players to the game. People know where I stand with Grawer. However, regarding the actual moment, I am pretty certain SLU announced they were going to do an event at a game in February.

slu fan support has been a lot better thus far than i expected. we have had some games where the seats were filled far more than i would have ever dreamed considering how much this team has dropped off this year. got to love that. that said, i have been disappointed with the students thus far. they just sit there as much as i do. i’m an old tired guy with a bad ticker. i got an excuse. they don’t. far too often you look over and they are sitting there staring at their phones. like i said above, the band does a better job of being a student section than the student section. while many hate to admit it, the days that 05 and 13 were involved in the student section were fantastic. Those student sections rocked. whoever is the current head of the group needs to step it up. and you students that aren’t going crazy, you are missing out on creating some great memory. the likes of myself and taj and bonwich, when we were at slu there weren’t but about 10 of us sitting in the stands. and honestly i think we did more than this current section (that is packed to the top most games). quit trying to be joe cool smooth and get crazy. that is what students do. skip and i will yell at the refs. you just need to be constant noise and motion.

I agree that I am surprised by general game turnout, but I think the student section deserves a little more credit. Everyone walked into Chaifetz last night expecting a loss, and the student section was full to the brim. This was something we did not see in Scott Trade or the early games of Chaifetz. Every student is not going to get crazy in any student section, but we had Cookie Monster and Big Bird from the student section in the dance off. Students are having fun with it. Also, I think the promotions are nicely organized this year. I sometimes I find relive the Billiken moment to be "relive last season," but still a nice promotion,

[JettFlight5]

We are in the presence of Roy.

Good to have ya back.

[Taj79]

dude ....... (subtle head nod, emphasizing 'no big deal') .......

you are still ugly and your momma still dresses you funny .......

[Nebraska_Bob]

Good to hear from you Roy. Belleville people know their basketball!

[Clock_Tower]

Roy. Welcome back in whatever capacity who feel comfortable!!

And speaking of the band, congratulations to them and to Mike. The band has been the fixture of support for the team and the program. Long before the team played on campus and long before the students showed up in force, the band brought youth and energy which was greatly needed. And if you think the season ticket holders are an older group today, they were older in the years past.

[West Pine Jim]

Yes, Roy, this is more like it. Keep giving us your thoughts and avoid those wild Illinois deer when driving about in your motorcar !

[MB73]

well I have been asked by quite a few of the board to come out of retirement. i left because imo, i had become nothing but a distraction to billikens.com. a number of the regular message board morons here were all about taking anything i posted out of context, i began posting what i thought people wanted to read rather than what i truly felt, and even then there were those continuing to attack me personally and trying to always discredit what i wrote. it had gotten to a point of stupid and like i said a distraction. so i felt for the better of billikens.com i needed to go away.

over the time via private messages and face to face meetings, i heard time and time again they missed my thoughts. and surprisingly, this past week a suggestion from a source i would have never guessed came to me, asked that i at least come back on a regular basis whereby i would give my opinion, observations and thoughts. i am willing to give this a try, but on the condition that it is understood i will not respond directly to any reply on the board. And those that come to me via private message will likely on be returned to those fellow message board morons that have conversed with me over the last year or so via private message. Otherwise, my thoughts are only there to generate billiken talk amongst yourselves. We shall see how it goes, i have absolutely no problem going back into retirement if that is the obvious want of the board.

i am thinking this will be a once a week appearance during the season, and during the offseason may be less. i plan to just ramble about just about anything but obviously mostly about the billikens and saint louis university.

Here we go…..

It has been a great disappointment that saint louis university hasn’t made a bigger deal about the upcoming retirement of Dr Mike Beczkala. mike pretty much started the billiken pep band and it has grown in size and talent over the years to the point it truly is the greatest pep band in all of college basketball. Plus, not only are they “the band", most games, they do a better job of being the typical student body than the student body. mike’s involvement has been minimized greatly this year as new director, austin turner takes over. Over the Christmas break when the students were gone, mike brought a number of us alumni musicians back one more time to be the band while the students were out. if you run into mike, you should make an effort to thank him for a wonderful job over the years and congratulate him on his upcoming retirement (he is also retiring as the columbia grade school principal as well after this current school year.) meanwhile the band plays on as great as ever. thanks mike for starting it all. it was great to see you leading the band last night. austin is doing a great job stepping into your shoes, but an old traditionalist like myself just feels more comfortable seeing the "same ole" leading the way.

While i am on the band, a big thanks to my line mates on the trumpet line that made me feel welcome during that month i got the privledge of sitting in with the band while the students when home for xmas break. dave, julie and bruce you are the best and I cant thank you enough for dealing with my trying to keep up with you guys in december. hopefully i get asked back again next xmas break and would welcome being in your area again.

all century team when first announced seemed like a neat idea. that said, the end of it was really somewhat of a trainwreck. it went from what everyone was assuming was going to be a 5 man team with a coach selected to a 16 player roster and three coaches and mysteriously the great harry rogers, jimmy irving, and david burns were all left off. coach grawer, who saved the program from falling into division III status, and who had some wonderful teams advance deep into the NIT , was not amongst the three coaches selected. then to top it off, there wasn’t an actual moment where the players live were presented to the crowd, just an announcement from the PA announcer and a flash on the video screen. what a let down.

recruiting young tatum. i think we truly have a shot at getting jason tatum to come to slu. a lot of the influential people in his life like his parents and his godfather all have billiken ties and reportedly are pushing for the billikens. getting jason at slu could be the key to turning things around again. he is one of those once in a lifetime players (like his godfather, larry hughes), that is an immediate game changer. personally, i think it is a no brainer to ask his father to be an assistant coach. Unlike some of the other fathers of previous ncaa stars that were offered coaching jobs to help bring their son’s to a program, Justin is different. Not only is he jason’s father, he comes as a very successful high school coach with numerous trips to the missouri state tourney and has been very active as an area aau coach prior to becoming a high school coach thus has the needed contacts to be an effective recruiter as well. jason is that good, that we should be taking every step we can to make his recruitment a success. by the way, hope to see many of you at the upcoming o’fallon shootout on february 7^th. i plan to be there all day wearing my billiken hoodie.

slu fan support has been a lot better thus far than i expected. we have had some games where the seats were filled far more than i would have ever dreamed considering how much this team has dropped off this year. got to love that. that said, i have been disappointed with the students thus far. they just sit there as much as i do. i’m an old tired guy with a bad ticker. i got an excuse. they don’t. far too often you look over and they are sitting there staring at their phones. like i said above, the band does a better job of being a student section than the student section. while many hate to admit it, the days that 05 and 13 were involved in the student section were fantastic. Those student sections rocked. whoever is the current head of the group needs to step it up. and you students that aren’t going crazy, you are missing out on creating some great memory. the likes of myself and taj and bonwich, when we were at slu there weren’t but about 10 of us sitting in the stands. and honestly i think we did more than this current section (that is packed to the top most games). quit trying to be joe cool smooth and get crazy. that is what students do. skip and i will yell at the refs. you just need to be constant noise and motion.

this is getting long so i am going to wrap it up. next week i will plan on talking detail about the roster, coaching and recruiting.

oh yeah there was a game last night. honestly, it was the best game of the year, probably in the entire conference. our billikens exceeded their past performances this year by leaps and bounds. it made me think maybe there is a chance with this group beyond malik. still missed too many free throws and had too many turnovers, but i can forgive the turnovers considering the fatigue that havoc causes. probably the same with the down the stretch free throw misses. i do have a problem letting graham even get the ball at the end let alone waltz to the rim. who the heck did the billikens think was going to get the ball? he should have been denied first double/triple teamed second and fouled third. instead he got a layup that i bet taj's wife could have made. (yeah she looks good, taj overachieved, but she is no player.)

wouldnt we all like to see a ref have the guts to call that foul on that last second court length pass where vcu just mugs our guy and tips the ball out of bounds? god i hate refs.

thanks slu for the shirt. and i think more of the casual and oldster fans put on the shirts last night than in years past.

see ya

well done, keep it up, and welcome back!

[hsmith19]

Re: the lack of a foul call on the inbound, I was really hoping the two fingers in the air meant two free throws, even though I knew better.

As always, I am with you on the lack of initials. Lack of capitalization is more than a fair trade for that.

[waldo027]

Welcome back. Although there are a few capital letters in the original post.

[cheeseman]

well I have been asked by quite a few of the board to come out of retirement. i left because imo, i had become nothing but a distraction to billikens.com. a number of the regular message board morons here were all about taking anything i posted out of context, i began posting what i thought people wanted to read rather than what i truly felt, and even then there were those continuing to attack me personally and trying to always discredit what i wrote. it had gotten to a point of stupid and like i said a distraction. so i felt for the better of billikens.com i needed to go away.

over the time via private messages and face to face meetings, i heard time and time again they missed my thoughts. and surprisingly, this past week a suggestion from a source i would have never guessed came to me, asked that i at least come back on a regular basis whereby i would give my opinion, observations and thoughts. i am willing to give this a try, but on the condition that it is understood i will not respond directly to any reply on the board. And those that come to me via private message will likely on be returned to those fellow message board morons that have conversed with me over the last year or so via private message. Otherwise, my thoughts are only there to generate billiken talk amongst yourselves. We shall see how it goes, i have absolutely no problem going back into retirement if that is the obvious want of the board.

i am thinking this will be a once a week appearance during the season, and during the offseason may be less. i plan to just ramble about just about anything but obviously mostly about the billikens and saint louis university.

Here we go…..

It has been a great disappointment that saint louis university hasn’t made a bigger deal about the upcoming retirement of Dr Mike Beczkala. mike pretty much started the billiken pep band and it has grown in size and talent over the years to the point it truly is the greatest pep band in all of college basketball. Plus, not only are they “the band", most games, they do a better job of being the typical student body than the student body. mike’s involvement has been minimized greatly this year as new director, austin turner takes over. Over the Christmas break when the students were gone, mike brought a number of us alumni musicians back one more time to be the band while the students were out. if you run into mike, you should make an effort to thank him for a wonderful job over the years and congratulate him on his upcoming retirement (he is also retiring as the columbia grade school principal as well after this current school year.) meanwhile the band plays on as great as ever. thanks mike for starting it all. it was great to see you leading the band last night. austin is doing a great job stepping into your shoes, but an old traditionalist like myself just feels more comfortable seeing the "same ole" leading the way.

While i am on the band, a big thanks to my line mates on the trumpet line that made me feel welcome during that month i got the privledge of sitting in with the band while the students when home for xmas break. dave, julie and bruce you are the best and I cant thank you enough for dealing with my trying to keep up with you guys in december. hopefully i get asked back again next xmas break and would welcome being in your area again.

all century team when first announced seemed like a neat idea. that said, the end of it was really somewhat of a trainwreck. it went from what everyone was assuming was going to be a 5 man team with a coach selected to a 16 player roster and three coaches and mysteriously the great harry rogers, jimmy irving, and david burns were all left off. coach grawer, who saved the program from falling into division III status, and who had some wonderful teams advance deep into the NIT , was not amongst the three coaches selected. then to top it off, there wasn’t an actual moment where the players live were presented to the crowd, just an announcement from the PA announcer and a flash on the video screen. what a let down.

recruiting young tatum. i think we truly have a shot at getting jason tatum to come to slu. a lot of the influential people in his life like his parents and his godfather all have billiken ties and reportedly are pushing for the billikens. getting jason at slu could be the key to turning things around again. he is one of those once in a lifetime players (like his godfather, larry hughes), that is an immediate game changer. personally, i think it is a no brainer to ask his father to be an assistant coach. Unlike some of the other fathers of previous ncaa stars that were offered coaching jobs to help bring their son’s to a program, Justin is different. Not only is he jason’s father, he comes as a very successful high school coach with numerous trips to the missouri state tourney and has been very active as an area aau coach prior to becoming a high school coach thus has the needed contacts to be an effective recruiter as well. jason is that good, that we should be taking every step we can to make his recruitment a success. by the way, hope to see many of you at the upcoming o’fallon shootout on february 7^th. i plan to be there all day wearing my billiken hoodie.

slu fan support has been a lot better thus far than i expected. we have had some games where the seats were filled far more than i would have ever dreamed considering how much this team has dropped off this year. got to love that. that said, i have been disappointed with the students thus far. they just sit there as much as i do. i’m an old tired guy with a bad ticker. i got an excuse. they don’t. far too often you look over and they are sitting there staring at their phones. like i said above, the band does a better job of being a student section than the student section. while many hate to admit it, the days that 05 and 13 were involved in the student section were fantastic. Those student sections rocked. whoever is the current head of the group needs to step it up. and you students that aren’t going crazy, you are missing out on creating some great memory. the likes of myself and taj and bonwich, when we were at slu there weren’t but about 10 of us sitting in the stands. and honestly i think we did more than this current section (that is packed to the top most games). quit trying to be joe cool smooth and get crazy. that is what students do. skip and i will yell at the refs. you just need to be constant noise and motion.

this is getting long so i am going to wrap it up. next week i will plan on talking detail about the roster, coaching and recruiting.

oh yeah there was a game last night. honestly, it was the best game of the year, probably in the entire conference. our billikens exceeded their past performances this year by leaps and bounds. it made me think maybe there is a chance with this group beyond malik. still missed too many free throws and had too many turnovers, but i can forgive the turnovers considering the fatigue that havoc causes. probably the same with the down the stretch free throw misses. i do have a problem letting graham even get the ball at the end let alone waltz to the rim. who the heck did the billikens think was going to get the ball? he should have been denied first double/triple teamed second and fouled third. instead he got a layup that i bet taj's wife could have made. (yeah she looks good, taj overachieved, but she is no player.)

wouldnt we all like to see a ref have the guts to call that foul on that last second court length pass where vcu just mugs our guy and tips the ball out of bounds? god i hate refs.

thanks slu for the shirt. and i think more of the casual and oldster fans put on the shirts last night than in years past.

see ya

I agree it was a foul.

[BACKHANDtheRICAN]

Have some motivation in your return. Please clean up your punctuation via the edit function.

[AlumniFan]

Welcome back! Glad to read your thoughts again. Now I've got that stupid theme song from "Welcome Back Kotter" going through my head...dammit!

[Schasz]

Glad to see you back Roy! While I read the website a lot my posts are rare. I hope you are right and that the Bills do have a decent chance to land Jayson. I was rooting hard for our kids to pull the upset off last night and thought is was a great effort by our young team.

[Duff Man]

Jayson

Milik

[Band Legend]

Broy is channeling GOSLU68- awesome to see you back!

[Billfan78]

On the band, has anybody noticed that the sound arrangement has been off lately? One game the bass is really loud (and completely off key - like playing a different song from everyone else off key) and the next the trombones are loud and the next the flutes. Something is up with the levels or the mics. After years of it being flawless, this year something is off IMHO. Although, last night I thought everything sounded great.

[BigMouthBilliken]

On the band, has anybody noticed that the sound arrangement has been off lately? One game the bass is really loud (and completely off key - like playing a different song from everyone else off key) and the next the trombones are loud and the next the flutes. Something is up with the levels or the mics. After years of it being flawless, this year something is off IMHO. Although, last night I thought everything sounded great.

Sounds like you don't drink enough before/during the games

[Billiken75]

It seems the universe has returned to a certain balance with the return of Roy to the Board. I believe Roy's return coincided with the return of Billiken defense and made what I anticipated to be a blowout - into an exciting game. Welcome back.

Bartely, Roby, Yarborough, and Gillman are a great cornerstone for the upcoming years. After 3 years of bliss, we have to endure this season and watch the young team grow up. I have to say I like what I am seeing.