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Boomer move

Square moving downtown and expanding, Build a Bear moving downtown, a Fortune 250 company moving its HQ from White Plains to STL, MLS announcement.....lots of positive news in St. Louis lately!

Appreciate your passion, but if you’re shouting about the hire of a tennis coach at SLU on a summer night, you might want to find some new hobbies.

#22 David Burns

Build A Bear moving downtown is a win for downtown. Downtown needs more wins. If I could take the Metrolink to work every day I would. 40,000-50,0000 rides/work day on the Metrolink. The odds of me getting shot or robbed are extremely low.

We have the potential to be better than last year by the end of the year once these guys figure out how to play with each other. The problem is the 5 teams that finished ahead of us, who return everybody, will also be better than last year. I expect VCU and Dayton to be much better. VCU is bringing in their usual strong recruiting class, including the highest rated guard in the conference. Dayton's transfers reportedly beat last year's squad on a regular basis in practice. Richmond, who gave us fits last year, gets double digit scorer Nick Sherod back from injury. They got off to a rough start last year but they were playing good ball by the end of the year. There's a lot our guys have to learn over the next 6 months. Give 'em time.

Javon Bess is in town for 30 days before he goes to camp with the Pelicans and I had an opportunity to talk to him for a while at practice. He is in great spirits and very excited to have a potential opportunity. He is working out hard and looks to be in great shape. He plays open gym with the guys and he said that Perkins was playing outstanding basketball and can score from almost anywhere on the court. As soon as school starts Perkins can join the team at practice. It is difficult to know how all the distinct new players will mesh but I have been watching early practice for about 40 years and this is the most athletic and potentially best scoring team I have ever seen from top to bottom. With all the leapers we have it will be hugely entertaining! Go Bills!

David Burns, then the rest.

I think most Preseason coach speak comes from expectations. If expectations are high you knock them down a few pegs. If expectations are low you build their confidence.

Pretty fair write-up from Deadspin, but I mostly enjoyed this passage: St. Louis’s MLS team has what appears to be a pretty solid stadium deal that shouldn’t rob the city’s taxpayers blind in its construction. Compared to FC Cincinnati’s terrible stadium deal, the plans for St. Louis’s new venue are downright generous. After asking for $80 million and then $60 million from the city to build the downtown stadium—both of which were rejected, the first through political maneuvering and the latter in a public vote by a 53-47 margin—the ownership group came back with a deal that would require no public funding whatsoever. Additionally, the stadium would be owned by the city, and its maintenance costs would be covered by a tax on tickets and items sold within the stadium. Remember that the next time billionaires cry poor and try to guilt a city into giving them free money. Of course, as we have seen time and time again, proposals are not reality, but it does seem like St. Louis will get the benefits of an MLS team without the financial drawbacks that have plagued other cities. If the stadium’s construction goes off as planned, the 22,500-seat venue could become a blueprint for how to join MLS without screwing over your city and your soon-to-be fanbase.

After some hesitation, Coach says that Jimmy Bell is the one newcomer that has stood out (came in at 318 left friday morning at 280). Says Bell has great hands, great feet and uses his big body. Will have an impact right away. Bell has to get in "great" shape, but has all the skills. Probably the biggest surprise. Better than Coach thought. Jimerson is the best shooter "by far" in the program since Coach has been here. Physically strong, big time scorer (got a little bit of "stuff...grit" to his game. not just a shooter). Everyone says Jimerson is like Klay Thompson with how quickly he can get his shot off. Going to be hard to keep off the floor. Bess apparently told Tate that Javonte is best player in the program right now. Best talent top to bottom on roster since Ford has been here. Thatch appears to have taken that next step based on summer performance. "Really...REALLY stood out this summer." Yuri made great strides this summer. Struggled first couple of weeks this summer adjusting to D-1 caliber players. Figured it out. Last couple of weeks was excellent. He is going to play a significant amount of minutes. Will be major part of team this season. Apparently, "The Athletic" is going to do some type of story on the team. Frank asks if you can really play Fred, Yuri, Jordan and Has together given the lack of shooting? Coach said yes, but obviously going to mix in others to offset lack of shooting. Weaver is more than Coach thought. Fast as lightening. Great energy. Players love him. Good shooter. Going to add a lot to the team. Much better shooting team. Thatch has really improved his shooting. Worked on pressing and fast break basketball every single day this summer. Going to play differently this year.

https://www.stltoday.com/sports/soccer/mls-to-announce-st-louis-as-expansion-team-winner-sources/article_22a84fbd-8440-56d3-b0f4-2a7870fc397a.html

Maybe we just agree to disagree. You may be right. And I am not predicting us to be A10 Champs or for us to be rated highly before the season. Also not predicting us to be good at the start of the season. And I am not saying our competition will not be better. But I am saying the top tier of the A10 folded last year and that we will be far stronger at the end of this year than last year. Looking forward to a great year.

Unfortunately, I don't believe Bunge is actually a Fortune 500 company, since it is incoporated outside the U.S. It is on Fortune's less commonly referenced "Global 500" list.

Oops, I should have put that in the original post. Based on Bunge's 2018 revenue of $45.7 billion which is behind only Centene at $60 billion.

I read that their current location has room for expansion so it would make sense to have everyone there. 100% agree that it's the quality of people/jobs moving, not the quantity. If you are measuring "big" in terms of annual revenue I believe that is correct. Think Bunge had $45B in revenue last year. Centene in the 50s?

Yes, the HQ will be in Chesterfield, too. The new CEO said the move is part of a long-term plan to "shrink before growing" so there will be some downsizing, too. I'm not sure what the net number will be or if those lost jobs will mostly be from the White Plains or Chesterfield location, though. There are only about 180 employees in White Plains and 525 in Chesterfield, and Bunge said a few years ago they wanted to expand Chesterfield to full capacity of about 750, so they're still going to be short of that, especially after layoffs.

Not sure but I know my son when he lived out of town he got all the local sports teams through MLB and NFL networks. I know this is not exactly what you are asking but there is always more than one way to skin a cat.

Wow that’s surprising! I was really hoping they were able to pry away the coach from DeVry University, Cappella or U of Phoenix.

The audio is impressive. I have never heard him this genuinely excited about a team. He didn’t sound this impressed last year. As far as the Klay Thompson reference, just remember that Jalen Johnson was a ‘baby Tayshaun Prince’.

SLU offered Kobe Elvis

Last season we played 13 non-conference games and we're at 11 currently. We need to get to 18 home games for season ticket holders; we'll get 9 from the conference and I'm counting 7 above (FGCU, Valpo, EWU, SHU, HPU, Belmont, SIUC). I'm guessing we won't see two more regular season games, so maybe one more buy game and one exhibition game. Top to bottom, this is an excellent schedule. We don't have any bottom-fifth NET-killing dregs in there, and even if we end up with one, that's not going to move the needle too much. We've got a team coming off a Final Four, another recent Final Four squad, a team that could compete for a Big East title, an ACC team, a perennial small conference pest, a Valley rival, a rare buy game opponent with a brand name, and a couple teams that will compete for their conference's lone Tournament spot. I would argue that a team at SLU's level (A10, American, Mountain West) has the hardest scheduling job in college basketball for a number of reasons (necessity of 18 home games, refusal of power-conference teams to play home-and-home series, difficulty of not being a neutral site draw, etc.). Major respect to Ford and his staff for getting this together. This is no small feat.

Valpo added to schedule per Stu: <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I’m told that SLU has solidified a nonconference home basketball game against Valparaiso.</p>&mdash; stu durando (@studurando) <a href="https://twitter.com/studurando/status/1161675741882388482?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 14, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Updated non-conference schedule: Florida Gulf Coast - 11/5 Valpo - (possibly between Christmas and New Years?) Eastern Washington - 11/13 Seton Hall - 11/17 High Point - 11/20 Belmont - 11/23 Boston College - 11/27 SIUC - 12/1 Tulane - 12/8 Auburn - 12/14 K State - 12/21

Had all summer to hire a coach and William Woods is where you get your D1 tennis coach from in August? Where on Craigslist can one find the now hiring D1 coaches link? Asking for a friend! Wow. People put more effort and thought into ordering a pizza!

Just to be fair, if your definition of St. Louis is the area, not just the city then you can move Build a Bear out of the positive and into the negative column since it is a net negative for the region. When taxpayers fund, through tax credits, a intra-region move it is just a cost w/o a benefit. Other than that, yes, a good few days for the region. And likely a negative for the STL County B-a-B employees who will have to add parking cost (or risking their lives on Metrolink) and having to pay STL City earnings tax, unless they currently live in the City.