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Stu mentioned he was suffering from knee pain unrelated to his surgery. (Subscribe to Stu on SLU. It's worth your $$.)

Game, Set and Match to Big Bill Fan. This could be the Post of the Year. Well Done!

This is an excellent article by the PD. Brady says why he left Pitino and came to play for Schertz. I also liked his statement on his defense and rebounding during the scrimmage.

Coach and Robbie starts at 1:08. Nothing new discussed. Coach and Robbie back and forth ripping each other. Fun. Ends 1:23.

Sept 28, Sports on a Sunday Morning, Coach with Tom Ackerman: Coach was pleased with the Madness event. Treated it like an intrasquad scrimmage. Still working through lineup combos....who plays well with whom. Healthy except for Hudson. He may be back in the next 7 to 10 days. Amari is a little nicked up, but nothing serious. Amari is our Swiss Army knife. When he is locked in and focused he is hard to handle. Plays with the most physicality on offense of any player on our team. Trey and Robbie didn't have good nights. Neither made a three. But we have a lot of players and a lot of ways to play. The day before these two were terrific. Can't read too much into one scrimmage. Trey has a little bit of Swope in him. Dunlap hit 5 of 8 from the arc. Can really stroke the ball. Great passer and elite shooter. Played 17 mpg at St Johns and has a chance to have a great player for us. Brown is the leader of the team. Last year's team didn't have that one guy who brought that competitive fire every single day. He isn't an analytic player but every time he is out there he touches winning. He ranks towards the top in all SLU practice stats. Had 16 points and 10 boards in the scrimmage. You need a guy like him to win at VCU and Dayton. Otieno committed to winning. Does a lot of invisible things unnoticed by the fans. A rim runner who opens the floor up for others. His speed is great. Another guy who brings physicality that we lacked last year. Can play with or without Robbie. Can guard on the perimeter. Sharma, Dunlap and Green are in the category of elite shooters. Sharma has a quick trigger. High IQ. Makes the right decision with the ball. Solid defensively. All three can make 100 3's this season. The collective ability of this team to shoot, to drive the ball and to play-make exceeds last year's team. Thames has had a really good summer and fall. Hard to quantify the analytics. His Plus-Minus is the highest on the team. When he gets tired he pulls himself out. He can play in bursts. As good an athlete as there is in the league. In his first four games last season before his issues surfaced he was fantastic. We can pressure full court and play fast. SEMO will be picked to win the OVC. PFW will be picked to win the Horizon. A10 has plenty of parity this year.

That was a fun time last night. Yes, this team has the most depth I have ever seen. (How many times have we said that? ) The player that put the biggest smile on my face was Thames. He's back and he's going to make a difference. His 3 will get better, but his finishing and play in the paint was exciting.

We can all guess lineups until Coach reveals his. Coach has stated that there isn't much separation among top players to date, and he is looking for separation in the next 6 weeks. Yes, a nice problem. Don't sell Brown short. Right now the only issue holding him back would be his knee. His meniscus repair might slow him down, or might not. Schertz said Brown is one of the best on-ball defenders he has ever coached. He was second in O Rebounds during the summer to Otieno. He is a career 35% three point shooter on 237 attempts. He can also, according to Schertz, gets 'downhill' like Thames, McCottry and Jones. Schertz has also said he could see playing an offensive squad and a defensive squad, depending on time and score. Certainly players could be on both but that would open up some interesting combinations.

The discussion on the Blue Ribbon preseason picks is buried in some thread. So I will park this photo here. Pretty fun shot of Robbie.

42 days before the season starts, Bruce Pearl announces he is done. His son is taking over. Auburn players now have a 30 day open portal to transfer. If you want to transfer, which schools still have open scholarships? And which schools have NIL / revenue sharing money that will top what Auburn was giving them? I would call this horrible timing for the school and players.

Interesting mention of the St Joe's game in the Syracuse "Inside the Loud House". https://insidetheloudhouse.com/syracuse-basketball-the-orange-will-no-longer-play-saint-joseph-s-in-las-vegas While the affair between Syracuse basketball and Saint Joseph's wasn't part of the actual Players Era Festival, this non-conference game was affiliated with, and being run by, the event organizers, I'm told. At this point, the only confirmed news is that the Orange and the Hawks will not be squaring off in Las Vegas. An earlier version of the St. Joe's schedule had them playing at UNLV on Nov 20 followed by this Syracuse game on Nov 22. https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/team/schedule/_/id/2603/saint-joseph-hawks It seems like the Hawks weren't part of the $1 million tourney but just playing teams that were in the tourney.

Wow. That is brutal for St. Joe

This is significant news. Dion was described by Coach as maybe the best on ball defender he has coached. He is a career 35% three point shooter and per Coach can get downhill as well as McCottry, Jones and Thames. He was 2nd in ORB in summer practice. We need Brown healthy.

I am interested in finding out how/if Schertz is changing his revenue payouts for freshmen. After last season, Schertz stated he would pay his returning players first, transfers second, and incoming freshmen third. Each freshmen pretty much got a set amount. Now, with the bar looking to rise with incoming 2026 freshmen, will Schertz adjust his payment program? How much of a bump will Jermel Thomas receive compared to the four freshmen on this squad? (Of course, we'll never know.)