PD article about growing pains

[slufan13]

At least one player will look to transfer. Maybe they'll stay if there isn't another appealing option, but it would be extremely rare in today's age of college basketball to have 9 FR/SO and none leave.

If anything, it'll help even out the classes and maybe keep us from having a down year every 4 years.

[MB73]

Question on JUCO transfers. If we find one now, is he immediately eligible to play next year? I really would like an enforcer type. He doesn't even need to shoot. I just want him 6'8, 240 and mean. I think we might be able to catch lightning in a bottle next year if we can find some rebounding somewhere.

Reggie is still a project and the light might come on, but I dont want to rely on it. Also Reggie thinks he is a scorer...I want someone who realizes that they aren't. Thoughts?

we've been looking for that player for 50 years, no way we get a JUCO like that...

[jimbofive]

Badass fauxtoe. Anybody that leaves this team because they don't think it's trending up is a gotdamn moran. If we stay together and continue to recruit well, we'll be the class of the league again in no more than 2 years.

[ACE]

we've been looking for that player for 50 years, no way we get a JUCO like that...

Jamal Johnson was a transfer (not a JUCO) but that kind of player.

[NextYearBill]

here's the link to the Stu Durando article

Very interesting insight about Conklin (and Cassity) keeping the freshmen in tow when things got bad in 2010-11...I'm suspect this coincided with Majerus medical hiatus following the 2011 New Years Day leg injury and subsequent team meltdown.

Kwamain and Majerus get a ton of credit for turning the program around (and rightfully so), but Brian Conklin was every bit as important. Everybody remembers the Pick, and his emotional breakdown following the loss to Michigan St, but this guy was a leader from day 1 and eventually turned himself into a first team all conference low post bad @ss who served as the first option on a team that featured 3 All-Century Billikens.

speaking of the PD, SLU is now featured in the sports header of the STLtoday home page.

These were good uniforms.

[moytoy12]

Jamal Johnson was a transfer (not a JUCO) but that kind of player.

I'd kill for Jammin Jamal v2.0

[cheeseman]

Sophomores can transfer (that is what Ash did) and juniors can transfer (or graduate). I don't want anyone to leave, but just sayin' you can look at the full roster is you are looking at someone possibly leaving.

Right now, no new guards are coming in and two unknown quality 'post players' are coming. We are losing Manning, Glaze is TBD, so to me the 4 and 5 slots are where I look for future playing time being highly contested and thus a higher potential for the 'after season discussion'.

Of course Sophomores and juniors can transfer - who said they can not? My point was specifically focused on the Freshmen because honestly who cares about the other classes at this point. AM and AY are stuck here so we are only really looking at Freshmen and sophomores of which none would be of great loss to us.

[cheeseman]

This article was written as a Missouri one and by a Missouri honk who wants to calm the crowd down at his old alma mater. This article could have been written just about any other team who has fallen on hard times in the last 4 years or so. My point is that the PD allowed this honk to use them to do a public service announcement for Missouri - pretty pitiful in my opinion - I wonder if Missouri paid him to write it like the Show Me think tank tried to pay journalist to write articles for them - just kidding.

[kshoe]

This article was written as a Missouri one and by a Missouri honk who wants to calm the crowd down at his old alma mater. This article could have been written just about any other team who has fallen on hard times in the last 4 years or so. My point is that the PD allowed this honk to use them to do a public service announcement for Missouri - pretty pitiful in my opinion - I wonder if Missouri paid him to write it like the Show Me think tank tried to pay journalist to write articles for them - just kidding.

Huh? This was a SLU article written by our beat writer.

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/college/slu/growing-pains-are-familiar-for-slu/article_c451b581-ecf7-5b1f-ab47-4d8d051ca9b6.html

[White Pelican]

This article was written as a Missouri one and by a Missouri honk who wants to calm the crowd down at his old alma mater. This article could have been written just about any other team who has fallen on hard times in the last 4 years or so. My point is that the PD allowed this honk to use them to do a public service announcement for Missouri - pretty pitiful in my opinion - I wonder if Missouri paid him to write it like the Show Me think tank tried to pay journalist to write articles for them - just kidding.

You're referring to today's article in the Post. (And it does contain a lot of food for thought no matter which team one roots for.) However, this thread is about the SLU article the other day. I know you think today's was written because the bad ol' Post favors Missouri but it's in a similar vein to the one for SLU. Both teams down and trying to get back up.

[Clock_Tower]

You're referring to today's article in the Post. (And it does contain a lot of food for thought no matter which team one roots for.) However, this thread is about the SLU article the other day. I know you think today's was written because the bad ol' Post favors Missouri but it's in a similar vein to the one for SLU. Both teams down and trying to get back up.

The Illini are are also not what they used to be.

[Cowboy]

This article was written as a Missouri one and by a Missouri honk who wants to calm the crowd down at his old alma mater. This article could have been written just about any other team who has fallen on hard times in the last 4 years or so. My point is that the PD allowed this honk to use them to do a public service announcement for Missouri - pretty pitiful in my opinion - I wonder if Missouri paid him to write it like the Show Me think tank tried to pay journalist to write articles for them - just kidding.

-in seeing Cheese's post I decided to read the article he is referring to, the first clue that the piece would have extreme bias was the author and it reminded me why I don't typically read his stuff and will again stay away from it for a long time

-I do love the sympathetic conclusion...it's not Mizzou's fault, rather it is the fault of college basketball, sets up the article down the road if Kim Anderson is successful on how he overcame the odds

-I do wonder if this article could have been written about any other school as that would require other news outlets to employ similar characters with this level of absolute homerism

[kmbilliken]

Yea, with 2 good shoulders though. In terms of transfers, I also agree that it is naive to think that everyone stays put.

Miles Reynolds has shown promise at times but his lack of jump shot really hinders him in an offense that works best when the opposing guards cannot sag in the lane. If he hit the weights hard and combines that with his ability to attack the rim, I could see him in 2 years as a poor man's Jett. He is just too thin to get into the lane and expect good things to happen. But he seems to be way behind Bartley at the moment (even though I hate Bartley's defense so much).

Reynolds also needs to be able to finish. He rarely does.

[Quality Is Job 1]

How about Conklin's comment about if Jayson Tatum comes? I think I might have omitted that, if I were Stu Durando, to avoid shaky ground.

[kshoe]

How about Conklin's comment about if Jayson Tatum comes? I think I might have omitted that, if I were Stu Durando, to avoid shaky ground.

There is no shaky ground about it.

[Quality Is Job 1]

There is no shaky ground about it.

He named a recruit in the media. He's an alumnus of the school. If it's not shaky ground, it looks to me like it COULD be shaky ground. It's not Twitter or Facebook, but the newspaper.

Hey, it's permissible for a school to say whether they are recruiting a player or not, but most coaches won't even go that far, just to avoid any possible scrutiny.

[Bizziken]

He named a recruit in the media. He's an alumnus of the school. If it's not shaky ground, it looks to me like it COULD be shaky ground. It's not Twitter or Facebook, but the newspaper.

Hey, it's permissible for a school to say whether they are recruiting a player or not, but most coaches won't even go that far, just to avoid any possible scrutiny.

If youre talking about Durando, he didn't go to SLU. I think he went to Cal State Fullerton...

[Quality Is Job 1]

If youre talking about Durando, he didn't go to SLU. I think he went to Cal State Fullerton...

I was talking about Conklin. But if I were Durando, I might have left that out of the story and dropped it in the blog. But that's just me.

[moytoy12]

I was talking about Conklin. But if I were Durando, I might have left that out of the story and dropped it in the blog. But that's just me.

Tatum has named SLU as a potential school. What's the harm in essentially repeating what the recruit said?

[kshoe]

Thicks, you should change your name back to absurdbillsfan because it is ABSURD to think that a former player being interviewed in Australia and saying that if a top recruit chose SLU he would be only the second one to do so is putting anyone on "shaky ground"

[Quality Is Job 1]

Tatum has named SLU as a potential school. What's the harm in essentially repeating what the recruit said?

There's no harm in it as long as there's absolutely no chance the NCAA would consider the person saying it a representative of the university.

Kshoe, if you want to consider me absurd, go right ahead. All I did was express my feelings on the matter. I read it and raised an eyebrow; maybe others would, as well. That's the point. I would have left that tidbit out of the print edition, if I were the beat writer. I'm not, however, but I merely shared my opinion here.

[The Wiz]

I'm having a hard time figuring out which of the remaining games are winnable. I'd probably be disappointed if we were to lose to St. Joe's at home, Fordham on the road, and George Mason at home.

I have to think that based on our recent efforts versus GW and VCU, we could potentially pull off upsets against any of the remaining teams we play at home. Then again, this team is also capable of crapping the bed against any of the three games I mentioned earlier.

Is 15-17 wins attainable for this team?

Yes....15-17 wins is attainable. That is the short answer.

The long answer is...it will be difficult

First, let me say I am optimistic about the future...The 2 key words are optimistic and future. How optimistic and how long is the future? The answer is the longer the future the more I am optimistic.

Let's review how we got here...

The season started on a good note with 2 wins against 2 so-so Mo Valley teams (currently D+ ) From there we went into a month long slide culminating in a loss to SDSt. We hit rock bottom after that game with an F rating. The next game against SIU-E seemed like a meaningless game but it wasn't. It was after that game the numbers turned and we have been in an uptrend since. Unfortunately, most of that improvement has been masked by a bear of a schedule the last few weeks with 6 of 7 games being against teams that are A- or better. But even with losses, there have been bright spots. Two of those bright spots have been the GW and VCU games. In the GW game, we played our best game of the year offensively ...shooting 50%+ from the field and the arc...even shot 71% FTs. But alas we were overwhelmed by foul shots as GW had 5 times more FTAs than we did. The VCU game was even more significant. We not only played the 16th rated veteran team even but we did it on an average night.Unlike the GW game, our numbers were very average....In fact we shot poorly from the 3 (low 20's) and yet we were right there at the end. Playing just average against a ranked team and taking them down to the wire shows we can play with almost anybody in the league and certainly within our conference.

So how optimistic and how long into the future? Now for the bad news....we will not be favored in any of the remaining games (maybe Fordham) But that wasn't your question Box...it was how attainable will it be? There will be 7 close games in the last 12. Because we are trending up, we have the potential to win them all and thus finish the next 12 games at 7-5...that is what I would say is our best case scenario....worst case is 0-12....most likely 4-8. So to anwer your question of 15-17 wins...16 is possible....13 is most likely.

That is the long answer.

[Taj79]

Projected Losses: @ VCWho and @ Richmond.

Projected wins: Home against Mason.

Too close to call (reason why): @ Mason (have yet to win onthe road); Umass (home cooking is good but Umass disdains the perimter game for drives by Gordon - then Esho, Lalanne and Coleman crash boards and rebounding is one of our weak spots); St. Joe's (home cooking again but Bembry is a monster and we tend to turn 6'7" guys into really big monsters (see James, Delroy) /plus Miles and Demery are coming on); @ Fordham (maybe a win at Mason breaks the road issue and gives us confidence but Fordham doe shave som enice players in Paschall, Severe, Rhoomes, Thomas); Dayton (ranked team but we will be "up" for this one, will that be enough); @Rhode Island (rematch, their place, road question); La Salle (home and they play worse on road but do have leadership/talent in Zack and Wright and others); @ Duquesne (on road, revenge factor at play); and the Bonnies (who give us fits no matter the location).

It's all one big crap shoot. Can't wait.

[willie]

There's no harm in it as long as there's absolutely no chance the NCAA would consider the person saying it a representative of the university.

Kshoe, if you want to consider me absurd, go right ahead. All I did was express my feelings on the matter. I read it and raised an eyebrow; maybe others would, as well. That's the point. I would have left that tidbit out of the print edition, if I were the beat writer. I'm not, however, but I merely shared my opinion here.

I think we take this what you can say about a recruit to extremes. I have relatives in Louisville Kentucky and thats all the newspaper there does. They talk about who is recruiting who and what Pitino or Cal says about that recruit. I think a lot of the silence is a SLU cop out,not fear of the NCAA.

[MusicCityBilliken]

I think we take this what you can say about a recruit to extremes. I have relatives in Louisville Kentucky and thats all the newspaper there does. They talk about who is recruiting who and what Pitino or Cal says about that recruit. I think a lot of the silence is a SLU cop out,not fear of the NCAA.

Its different, Kentucky and Louisville select, SLU has to recruit. Also they zero in on 5 star Mickey Dee All-Americans, we try to locate players under the radar. Those players get a lot of press whether Kentucky or Louisville recruits them or not. Because we shooting for under-the-radar players, probably best to keep it low-keyed. Majerus was a master at this. I am sure many coaches from BCS schools are kicking themselves and asking, how did we let MY slip by. I recall Romer after the Washington home game blame himself for not going after Conklin in his own back yard.

I hope someday we can be more in the select category but I do feel we did really well with this 2014 class, even better then the Jett, Evans, Loe, McCall class. Only difference is when that class was soph's they had KM and BC. Juniors they had just KM. Senior year it was just them. Its unfortunate we had some weak recruiting classes in between.