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Huh? We sweep the rest of non-conference and win the regular season (I’m assuming you are thinking 15-3 or something in the a-10) we are a 5-7 seed and likely in the top 25. That’s not what I would call close to an autobid. 25-6 is the magic number for an at-large.

Billikens by 35.

My 6 year old son, who may be slightly Billiken obsessed and holds Javon Bess in the same regard as Michael Jordan, got a picture with Javon last season. We got it blown up and printed out. Yesterday afternoon I sent Michael Wilson a message asking if I could get the picture to them and have Javon sign it for my son. Not only did he immediately respond in the affirmative, but he says to drop by today at 10. I show up and Michael says Javon is downstairs and can just sign it now. Needless to say this will be a Dad present... sorry Santa. I've won Christmas. I freaking love this team and the staff. #TeamBlue Forever!

Danny Mac had an interesting interview with our town's Taylor Twellman. Bottom line is he would be shocked if STL doesn't get an MLS franchise. He has spoken with 11 to 12 MLS owners, and they all want STL. One reason is that KC has no rivals, and Chicago has no rivals. He said Chicago is a franchise that needs to be fixed, and getting a rival will help. He offered that the Columbus 'debacle' could mess up the timing. If the stadium deal doesn't get done, then the sale of the Columbus franchise likely gets derailed. The MLS wants this to get resolved first. Austin was never on an expansion list, but due to the relocation clause inserted into the sale from the Hunt family, it has forced itself to be tops on the list. He also said that the MLS likely will relook at the Detroit Ford's Field situation, now that the Atlanta United is outdrawing the Falcons. He offered that Phoenix has plans for a $300 million air conditioned stadium, which will raise their status. He said the Taylors and Kavanaugh need to force the issue. As Nashville and Cincy did, present the MLS with the plan, and then the ball is in their court to react. Twellman said the STL project is moving faster than the MLS thought it would move and maybe faster than they want it to move. Bottom line, Twellman believes STL gets a franchise.

We beat Butler essentially without Wiley, 9 minutes, 0 points.

btw, i hope we have a lot of Liberty's by season end. F the power conferences with a 9th place ACC team getting at large bids while 20+ conferences are likely one bid conferences. as i have said for years, the real answer is let everyone in. geographically seed the regionals and then reseed when it gets to 64 teams. why does a computer and a bunch of old men in a back room get to decide who spits millions of dollars?

ESPN's Joe Lunardi just put out his first bracketology forecast. SOUTH Jacksonville #6 Nebraska v #11 SLU Win we get either UNC or Libscomb in Rd 2. If it's in JAX , count me in. 4 hours from Charleston.

I need some recruiting updates. I’m riding a Billiken high

Nice, but vanilla interview by Martin and Charlie on 590. NO, they did not discuss his ankle nor SIUC. Asked Javon about his defense and he said yes he has always focused on it and enjoyed it. No, it doesn't effect his Offensive game, as he lets the game come to him. He doesn't look for points. Loved the crowd Saturday. Said it brought a lot of energy to the team. The crowd noise did effect their on court communications...he said that the Shot Clock violation where French had the ball, he was screaming, shoot it, shoot it, but French didn't hear him. When asked about the Team Storming the Fans, he said yeah, it is something they started to do when they win. Asked about getting up early to shoot in the gym, he said he has done that since HS. Also asked about attending MSU rather than the home state Buckeyes. He said he wasn't heavily recruited until his Sr year, and by then OSU had commitments at his position. He said that Bailey was his chief recruiter coming to SLU. He liked Ford and the closeness of the team. He still follows OSU football. He said he played, and liked football better in HS, and played both until Sr. year. He is in the Organizational Leadership Masters Program and probably will coach once he stops playing. Thinks this team does have the ability to get to the NCAA. The focus now is to get better every day. Finally, he said Thatch says he called the banked three, but Javon didn't hear it.

I'm not saying that this won't be a tough game, but I think we may match up with them well. They thrive on shooting the three. We defend the three very well. They have a guy that we need to shut down to have a better chance. We have one of the best in the country at shutting someone down, and a second guy that can give the first guy a break. I'm not sure that they will have an answer for French and Gordon down low. Our biggest concern has to be getting into foul trouble. If we are guarding the three point line like we need to, our bigs will be on an island as far as defending inside. If they get early fouls, that throws our matchup advantage out the window.

That's right now, when the lower conference teams actually get a chance to play to power conference teams. I'm guessing that the problem with the NET is that it will overvalue mediocre power conference teams playing against other mediocre power conference teams during the entire second half of the season.

I wouldn't mind seeing more Jacobs and Hankton......

The French Alteration.

Interesting discussion but so far the NET model has been discussed primarily from the point of view of a system created to promote an appearance of a valid process (the magical word which may or may not have been used yet in regards to NET is "algo") while maintaining a fairly subjective decision in the hands of the NCAA to be applied at the end of the season which makes it "unfair". I know this is a confusing sentence but it is exactly what I think NET really is. In other words, it is a system with no more validity than the prior system they used based on RPI's (sorry I do not know the initials so I probably wrote the wrong ones, you know what I mean). There is a another point of view that could be used in this discussion and that is looking at NET as just a "model" and to talk in general terms about why models work to some degree and break down past a certain and non predictable level. Models are approximations of reality, not reality itself. The NET model has big issues and cracks in it, but so does everything else available. Just look at the differences between Sagarin's, Pomeroy's, TeamRanking's, and the Wiz's model rankings. No system is a flawless mirror of reality, they all have strengths and weaknesses, they all approximate reality to a variable degree. Ultimately, the bridge between a model and reality HAS to contain a degree of subjectivity in it. NCAA will do what it will do because they are in charge (and can do it) and because they want to maintain the March Madness tour just the way it is, as a major popular attraction and a major source of profits for all involved. They can pretend to surround the decisions with a cloak of impartiality, but the truth is that a lot of these decisions are and will continue being subjective in nature and taken to preserve the status quo. My conclusion: the NCAA is what it is and plans to continue being exactly what it has always been. NET is just the current attempt to make the process look impartial.

Oddly, the way the committee works these days if you told me we could be 25-6 but have wins over FL St. Houston, Butler and Seton Hall but also have losses to Fordham, GW, etc. I would take that over losses to all the good teams but never stubbing our toes against the bad teams. The committee values big wins heavily and its part of the eye test and implicit bias that the big schools enjoy because they get so many opportunities for big wins.

That would be more fun but we sort of already have a "let everyone in" format because of conference tournaments. Except for new additions to D-I going through their probation period and the bottom half of the Ivy League, technically every single school has a shot to get in the field of 68. They just need to win 3 or 4 consecutive conference tournament games. (Compare that to college football, a sport in which you can beat everyone on your schedule for two consecutive years and not be considered for the "playoff" at the end.) FWIW, I agree that the NET sucks (although I'm curious to see what it looks like after a full season) and that too much of how the Tournament is formed and seeded is done to protect power conference teams, and that the whole process needs major changes.

Give Fred and Demarius some time.

I'm sticking this in here cuz I can. Two Billiken legends talking hoops between games Saturday. Legendary Larry was later named Fan of The Game at the half of the women's game. SLU women held on to beat SIUe 63-56 in what I thought was a surprisingly close game.

Short bench hurt us more than we knew last year.

And UCONN is playing too

For me too. I remember the crowd roaring as the teams left the court at the half and looking at 50-25 on the scoreboard and being just stunned.

-I went to see Mehlville play Hancock on Friday, these comments are based on one game, only viewing to date of these kids and I concentrated on Bradford -Bradford - first thing I noticed was Bradford is a very big kid, program listed him as 7'0, he is not a bean pole by any stretch, he has filled out, he had what I will call 3 very weak fouls called on him by the same official the first of which was 48 seconds into the game (also early in the game the same ref called him for traveling which was iffy and 3 seconds and I can't say if this was a good call or not), he had 3 fouls in the first half and did not sit until he got the 3rd, I think he ended with 8 or 10 points all scored around the rim including a couple very nice dunks and one real nice move with his left hand to finish a break, he did not go after rebounds real hard but again he had the first foul early in the game so not sure if he was protecting himself, missed his only two free throws, Hancock had very little size but their smaller players made it known they were there as they were in contact on him a lot, he did not get fed in the post much as he was double teamed quite a bit, he moved pretty good for a high school 7 footer (or close) with some weight, two things I really liked were when he got a rebound he controlled it and when he got the ball he did not bring it down to let the smaller players have a chance, I guess this was a rivalry game and he impressed by trying to calm his mates, overall a good showing but I would have liked to see him play without what I think was a target on him by one official, I get why we are recruiting him -I can't give as much detail on Branson or Daughtery as was watching Bradford was my focus, I overheard someone sitting nearby say that Bradford lives with Branson so not sure if there is thought of a package deal with them or if what I heard is the case, Branson was the main cog of the team on that night and Daughtery would have had a highlight reel tomahawk except the ball went off the rim and in the air out of bounds over the bench, it flew a long way -I saw one guy in an SIU shirt who appeared to try to be making himself seen so could have been an assistant coach, looked for our guys and could not find them, there were 4 or 5 St Mary's kids there but not sure if one was Yuri or not, also Mehville had addidas uniforms but i did not notice one kid wearing their shoes, all Nike shoes that I could distinguish

Would of had better stats coming to Compton with Gordon.

Less moderation more just dumb

Kudos to ford's scheduling. We sweep the rest of the nonconference and win the regular season we will be close to an autobid. But the A10 is no friend this year. The conference appears to be way down. Might not even be a top 10 conference.

This team knows how to not lose. Remember we only lost 1 game due to benching Tremaine and Dion out the entire 2nd half