JC Hot Seat

[TheChosenOne]

From my eye test, he is an ideal point guard in today's game.

Really?

[BillikensBlog]

A handful of notes:

- I'd expect our style of play to be pretty different this year. Quicker pace, more shots, more traps, etc.

- Crews will feel no pressure to play a shorter rotation. I think the compromise may be though that he only plays 9 guys a game, but those 9 guys aren't the same game to game. This would be worrisome to me because he started to lose the guys by the middle of last year with sporadic playing time. As a fan, we should hope 9 guys just establish themselves and make it easy.

- One former player who is still active in terms of being around the team strongly questioned Crews' use of players last year. Not so much the large rotation, but that he tried to turn everyone into role players. If they went away from that role, they got the now famous "yank". Examples....

1. Crews wanted Bartley to be a point guard. So games that he lit it up from 3? That's not his role so he wasn't playing.
2. Milik was instructed to play the 4, not try that coast to coast stuff, and play good defense. If he scored 16 points on 8-9 shooting, but put up shots out of his role...Yank
3. Ash was told to be a ball handler. When he tried driving or even shooting, he was yanked.

- The issue with this was that some players were upset that guys like Roby were allowed to play through early season problems. Now, it clearly paid off for him, but that only added fuel to the fire that guys should be given chances to play through mistakes.

[slufanskip]

Talk about small sample sizes. You want to talk about two games and want to ignore what happened in the other 30.

You can't compare the turnover % of a 1 and a 4-5. Well, I guess you can but the results mean absolutely nothing

[slufanskip]

A handful of notes:

- I'd expect our style of play to be pretty different this year. Quicker pace, more shots, more traps, etc.

- Crews will feel no pressure to play a shorter rotation. I think the compromise may be though that he only plays 9 guys a game, but those 9 guys aren't the same game to game. This would be worrisome to me because he started to lose the guys by the middle of last year with sporadic playing time. As a fan, we should hope 9 guys just establish themselves and make it easy.

- One former player who is still active in terms of being around the team strongly questioned Crews' use of players last year. Not so much the large rotation, but that he tried to turn everyone into role players. If they went away from that role, they got the now famous "yank". Examples....

1. Crews wanted Bartley to be a point guard. So games that he lit it up from 3? That's not his role so he wasn't playing.
2. Milik was instructed to play the 4, not try that coast to coast stuff, and play good defense. If he scored 16 points on 8-9 shooting, but put up shots out of his role...Yank
3. Ash was told to be a ball handler. When he tried driving or even shooting, he was yanked.

- The issue with this was that some players were upset that guys like Roby were allowed to play through early season problems. Now, it clearly paid off for him, but that only added fuel to the fire that guys should be given chances to play through mistakes.

We have a ball handler that isn't supposed to drive or shoot? This just doesn't pass the smell test and if by some chance it was true the coach should be fired on the spot. There has to be more to it that that.

[3star_recruit]

Talk about small sample sizes. You want to talk about two games and want to ignore what happened in the other 30.

I'm curious about how 6'4 180lb Bartley compares at the point vs 6'4 165lb Bartley. Maybe he's no stronger with the ball than he was last year. Or maybe those 15lb are exactly what the doctor ordered. Here's hoping.

[VeniceMenace]

Every year our stringbeans suddenly emerge as Arnold Schwarzeneggers, ready to manhandle anyone and anything.

[BillikensBlog]

We have a ball handler that isn't supposed to drive or shoot? This just doesn't pass the smell test and if by some chance it was true the coach should be fired on the spot. There has to be more to it that that.

Unfortunately it is true and has now been confirmed by a separate source. Not saying this year will be the same but last year Crews set certain roles for each player and did not want that player going out of that role. Due to some recruiting errors, he had to have players play away from their biggest strengths to fit the role he wanted/needed.

[moytoy12]

Unfortunately it is true and has now been confirmed by a separate source. Not saying this year will be the same but last year Crews set certain roles for each player and did not want that player going out of that role. Due to some recruiting errors, he had to have players play away from their biggest strengths to fit the role he wanted/needed.

Don't know if it's true or not, but it is consistent with a lot of coaching decisions made last year.

[JMM28]

Don't know if it's true or not, but it is consistent with a lot of coaching decisions made last year.

It makes me less of a Crews fan to know that though. While I think there is some value in the "we suck anyways, im going to teach some lessons this year", there is a lot more value in putting players in the best position to succeed.

[davidnark]

Don't know if it's true or not, but it is consistent with a lot of coaching decisions made last year.

If it is true (and it is still anonymous 3rd hand at this point), Crews will lose my support. That model is extremely dates and is not good for player growth and development.

[slu72]

The above claim seems so bizzare it's difficult to accept. What coach wouldn't create for his players their best chance to succeed, ie playing to their strengths, and then try and design a system that takes advantage of those strengths. I think most modern day coaches think this way. Yes, they'll have diverse talents, so it's his job to take those parts and make a functional system out of it.

If the coach goes the other way he has to be saying, "I'll recruit players that will work in my systems." I think this was RM's approach. He knew his systems worked very successfully and put together the pieces that would buy into them. If he made a mistake in a player he recruited, he'd run them off. For example, Relphorde was one of Brad's better gets as evidenced by his success at Colorado, but the story is he didn't agree with Rick's idea of where and how he would best fit into his system. Consequently, Rick and he decided he'd be better off somewhere else. Fair enough.

If the above is true about Crews about not utilizing a player's strengths, I suspect there may be a mass exodus if this season goes south like last season. No player likes playing on a consistent loser, but they'd really be upset if they're thinking, "we could win if he'd just put us in a position to win."

[3star_recruit]

The above claim seems so bizzare it's difficult to accept. What coach wouldn't create for his players their best chance to succeed, ie playing to their strengths, and then try and design a system that takes advantage of those strengths. I think most modern day coaches think this way. Yes, they'll have diverse talents, so it's his job to take those parts and make a functional system out of it.

If the coach goes the other way he has to be saying, "I'll recruit players that will work in my systems." I think this was RM's approach. He knew his systems worked very successfully and put together the pieces that would buy into them. If he made a mistake in a player he recruited, he'd run them off. For example, Relphorde was one of Brad's better gets as evidenced by his success at Colorado, but the story is he didn't agree with Rick's idea of where and how he would best fit into his system. Consequently, Rick and he decided he'd be better off somewhere else. Fair enough.

In the first paragraph, you say forcing the players to conform to a system is bizarre and then in the next paragraph you say that's exactly what RM did. The difference is RM is was a household name so he could discard players and find equivalent talent in the offseason. When most system coaches make a recruiting mistake, they don't have that luxury. They have to figure out how to make their system work with the pieces they have. And the vast majority of basketball coaches are system coaches. The coaches who can design a system that takes advantage of player strengths are the elite of the profession.

[Billiken Rich]

How many forgave Rick for "wasting" Tommie and Kevin's senior season by installing his system come hell or high water or 8 point games............

[BillikensBlog]

If it is true (and it is still anonymous 3rd hand at this point), Crews will lose my support. That model is extremely dates and is not good for player growth and development.

Doubt we ever have this confirmed, but I'm not convinced this year will be the same. Crews has his full system in place now and I think he is more comfortable with letting players play and not worrying about a specific role. We will see though.

[brianstl]

How many forgave Rick for "wasting" Tommie and Kevin's senior season by installing his system come hell or high water or 8 point games............

If Crews paid a price in results on the court to install his system last season, why is he throwing it all out the window to install a new system this season?

[JMM28]

How many forgave Rick for "wasting" Tommie and Kevin's senior season by installing his system come hell or high water or 8 point games............

Fair or not, Rick had done the same thing successfully at multiple schools before SLU. Crews doesn't have that same track record of success.

Also Rick still finished over .500 and won 16 games that year, so it wasn't nearly as terrible as last year.

[Quality Is Job 1]

If Crews paid a price in results on the court to install his system last season, why is he throwing it all out the window to install a new system this season?

Is he throwing out and installing a completely new system, or is he building on what he installed last season? Or maybe last season was a "detour" to transition from he'd been caretaker of (after taking over for Majerus) to his preferred system.

[Scoop]

TL3 should have transferred. He needed the ball in his hands with the option to create, not jump shooting off screens.

[Quality Is Job 1]

TL3 should have transferred.

That would have been unfortunate. It's too bad that Coach Majerus was so inflexible as to refuse to adapt his system a bit for the star players he inherited in a manner more similar to the way Coach Crews did for the players Majerus left him, but a college basketball program ultimately rests on the shoulders of the head coach and is bigger than any of the players who spend no more than five years in it, no matter how outstanding they are.

[JMM28]

That would have been unfortunate. It's too bad that Coach Majerus was so inflexible as to refuse to adapt his system a bit for the star players he inherited in a manner more similar to the way Coach Crews did for the players Majerus left him, but a college basketball program ultimately rests on the shoulders of the head coach and is bigger than any of the players who spend no more than five years in it, no matter how outstanding they are.

I'll take Majerus's best month here over Tommie freaking Liddell's best years.

Also there is a huge difference in adapting for 2 guys who won't be around in a year versus adapting for 6 guys that have 3 more years after the current one. Crews recruited this class. Majerus didn't recruit (and probably wouldn't have recruited) Tommie Liddell.

[ACE]

I'll take Majerus's best month here over Tommie freaking Liddell's best years.

Also there is a huge difference in adapting for 2 guys who won't be around in a year versus adapting for 6 guys that have 3 more years after the current one. Crews recruited this class. Majerus didn't recruit (and probably wouldn't have recruited) Tommie Liddell.

+1

Too bad Tommie was too inflexible and didn't adopt to a HOF coach. Sodie's idea of Tommie running the offense was a bad one. I guess he had to do it because DP was so ineffective. I recall a few games in Sodie's last season, where Tommie had the ball at the top of the key trying to create something off the dribble with the game on the line... it never ended well. That clear out and create in crunch time could work time and again for guys like Perry or Jett, but not TL.

[Quality Is Job 1]

I'll take Majerus's best month here over Tommie freaking Liddell's best years.

Also there is a huge difference in adapting for 2 guys who won't be around in a year versus adapting for 6 guys that have 3 more years after the current one. Crews recruited this class. Majerus didn't recruit (and probably wouldn't have recruited) Tommie Liddell.

That is why I said that the program is more of the head coach than individual players. All the same, sometimes things like that have far-reaching repercussions. There are underlying reasons why some St. Louis-area players don't view SLU as a place to "take their talents," and not all of them are because of SLU's lack of tradition or membership in the A-10.

[JMM28]

That is why I said that the program is more of the head coach than individual players. All the same, sometimes things like that have far-reaching repercussions. There are underlying reasons why some St. Louis-area players don't view SLU as a place to "take their talents," and not all of them are because of SLU's lack of tradition or membership in the A-10.

Because a now dead head coach and a guy who got worse every year he was at SLU didn't get along - other St. Louis area players, that weren't even in junior high yet when this happened, won't come to SLU?

Strange. I suppose if they wanted a place where they can skip practice to get their hair done, show up late all the time, put in little effort, and expect to be THE MAN - they can go elsewhere.

[thetorch]

Liddell was more worried about his hair than basketball. I think Majerus would have recruited him and if he had him for 4 years and convinced him to really play ball Liddell would have been an NBA player. I remember Majerus constant lament that first season, that no one on the team loved basketball and really wanted to live and breathe it. Liddell was definetly one of these guys.

[Quality Is Job 1]

Because a now dead head coach and a guy who got worse every year he was at SLU didn't get along - other St. Louis area players, that weren't even in junior high yet when this happened, won't come to SLU?

Strange. I suppose if they wanted a place where they can skip practice to get their hair done, show up late all the time, put in little effort, and expect to be THE MAN - they can go elsewhere.

No, because SLU has sometimes (or usually) added a rigid "system" coach who rarely hires and cultivates young assistant coaches who area players can identify with to the facts that the program has very little winning tradition and lesser visibility in a second-tier conference, the school continues to be a tough sell to many players (and their coaches) who have both the talent to elevate the program to consistent Top 50 or Top 25 reputation and the ability to cut the school's academic mustard.