RUBillsFan

Best part about this line is that it wasn’t at all under fluky last week of the season circumstances that @thetorch described. The Lakers are desperately trying to better position themselves for the play-in tournament. LeBron and AD each played over 40 minutes and it was all their normal rotation guys playing. Goodwin is shorter than all but 2 of the 9 guys that played for the Lakers and he grabbed 17 rebounds. A good NBA team doesn’t want Goodwin shooting the ball 23 times in a game ever, but if he’s gobbling up rebounds like Rodman and playing great defense I don’t see why he can’t latch on somewhere.

I wonder if that figure is Avila’s overall value and not just has on the court value? Wasn’t it rumored that Daron Holmes made was like $400k or so. Avila isn’t more valuable or at least that much more valuable than Holmes on the court, but he’s way more marketable off it. Avila has legit ability to earn in the actual “name image likeness” sense and not just pay to play. Example: there’s talk of eyewear companies offering him deals and he can get those regardless of where he plays. It’s actually better for his brand & non-pay for play NIL opportunities if he goes somewhere he will get to play a lot, be a star / fit well in a system, win, and be in a large market. Biased opinion: SLU with Schertz checks all those boxes better than anywhere else can. If he chases extra power 5 pay to play money, he risks not fitting / losing playing time and compromising his maybe much higher non-pay to play earnings potential.

It looks like no one else got this, but kudos on the grade A quality Dad joke.

I get where you are coming from, but that + is doing a LOT of work. Avila is much much better than Ellis & honestly the only things similar about their games are that both are bigs who could stretch the floor & aren't super athletic. Ellis was a career 42.7% from 2 and 33.4% from 3. Avila is at 63.4%/37.2% Ellis averaged 6.3 rebs, 1.5 assists, 1.2 steals, and 0.5 blks per 40 mins. Avila's are 8.1 rebs, 4.4 ast, 1.0 stls, 0.8 blks.

I may have dipped into the History & Record Book player listing for an assist.

Here is an article that ranks the nicknames. https://www.sportingnews.com/us/ncaa-basketball/news/robbie-avila-nicknames-cream-abdul-jabbar/df900acb04b9a2fef4662980#:~:text=Cream Abdul-Jabbar,-This one is&text=This will be the nickname,making those T-shirts first%3F I have some quibbles with the article's rankings. I'd put Larry Blurred/Blurrd above Larry Nerd. Nerd feels too derogatory and not cheeky/fun to me. I agree that Cream the best: It matches his position. Avila is a center & Abdul-Jabbar was a center. Cream works on 2 levels both is complexion and his body type. It is not ISU specific like Larry Blurred/Nerd so it can travel with him better to SLU. That all being said, I'd love some SLU specific nicknames. I was going to save this analysis for if/when he officially commits to SLU, but what the heck. I'm excited about it now. Some of these are admittedly terrible. I'm just spitballin. Wheezy Ed Avilliken - H/T to MMP on Twitter JordPair (of goggles) Jett Specs Sinquefield - think we can get Rex to dump in some NIL if we pump this one up? Willie Read - I actually love this one & it makes me even more sad that Willie's SLU tenure was cut short or it would be a phenomenal one The St. Louis Ram(bis) Anthony BonNerd Jake For(eyes)ter DJ For(eyes)man Horace Grant Gehlen - former walk-on Grant Gehlen I think actually went by Gus, so probably no. Horace (Grant) Dixon - anyone remember Ho Dixon? Soderberg really couldn't recruit. Darrin Clarke Kent - he's not from MN and not a huge disappointment, so probably not Buddy Holly Brehmer - Brehmer was the coach after Bennington / before Bob Polk, probably a no on this one Robbie Guillaume - Robert Guillaume (voice of Rafiki) attended SLU & wore glasses

Of course, all there is right now is optimism. I mean we're talking about a range of outcomes that puts us anywhere from maybe 20th to 70th in the nation depending on who we get, player improvement, etc. Last season I was dreaming about a high side of 130ish and we ended up at 199, so the low end of possibilities may have been a little below that.

I'm hyped, but always want to have realistic expectations. We can't take winning the A10 as a given. Indiana State finished 38 in KenPom ranking this past season. They did not make the field as an at-large. Dayton finished 32 in KenPom. Dayton was cleared viewed as the "best" team in the A10, but finished 3rd in the standings.

Highlights:

Just for the aesthetics that made last season kind of a bummer. They rallied from being 6-16 to even it up at 17-17, but dropping the NCAA game made it 17-18 overall. I think a similar stat was shared previous & I'm admittedly cherry picking dates here. From February 22 - end of season during Tillett's 2 years at SLU the team is 16-2 with the only losses being to Tennessee in the NCAAs last year and Rhode Island in the A10 tournament this year.

I stole it from Ben Fred on twitter.

I can't wait for SLU to proudly display this thing on the concourse at Chaifetz along with their other trophies...oh wait. I know today isn't the day to throw shade, but I can't help it. Having the trophy cases hidden away is totally stupid.

Is it too soon for Tillet to give Schertz sh*t for NOT winning the NIT?

Julia Martinez. Nose for the ball.

Based on info at Sports Reference and my doing some math: Most games in a season for the women's team prior to this one was last season (2022-23) when they played 35 games and went 17-18. They also played 34 games in both 2015-16 (26-8 overall) and 2016-17 (25-9 overall). https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/saint-louis/women/ Most games in a season for the men's team is 37 in 1988-89 when Grawer led them to the NIT finals and a 27-10 overall record. They played 36 in both 2009-10 (Majerus CBI finals year 23-13 overall) and 2018-19 (Ford's A10 tourney championship 23-13 overall). https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/saint-louis/men/ Without looking it up I would've guess CBI finals year as the most, but I forgot they lost their 1st game of the A10 tournament that year.