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Madeline, My 10 month old will be participating in the baby race this year. Any other posters have their little ones in the race?

The Billikens, led by Jordan Goodwin, will rain blood on the A-10. If Xavier was still around, we'd zip them up first. I don't know who's first on the hit list, but I can assure you, every gotdamn A-10 team is on it.

So do I. You can never have enough heady, coach on the floor, student of the game, gym rat types on your team.

I want this kid. I want his dad, Mr. Haney, cheering the team on in the stands. I want Mr. Haney selling genuine items from his truck out in front of Chaifetz every game.

More thoughts about the Billikens from Pearl and some Auburn players: https://247sports.com/college/auburn/Article/Auburn-is-expecting-a-tough-basketball-test-on-Saturday-in-Birmingham-140374127/

Without question, Ted Simmons is a HOF'er. That he had to wait until age 70 is absurd, but better late than never, especially while he's still among the living.

That is not my recollection. I thought it was a good game and a decent crowd

He would be the most hated player in the A10 on day one. Make an offer Travis.

8-1 is a great start, and a top 4 finish in the A-10 seems possible and not far-fetched. If the Bills can somehow end up at 10-2 OOC, and 11-5 in conference, it's quite likely that an NCAA bid could come our way. There's a lot of season left to play, but it's possible. Imagine what that would do for our program. First, to finish top 4 it will mean some great victories and some very hyped games at Chaifetz. Fans will sprout up, and the bandwagon will need an extension. Second, it will pave the way for next year. There's a lot of left before we can talk about a 2020-21 roster, but what we know so far is that Jacobs and Collins are taking PT away from our one senior, Weaver. So of the 9 or 10 guys that play, we'll be losing our 9th or 10th man Imagine the hype going into next season if the Bills return their top 8 from a tourney team? Consensus 1st place in the A-10? Possible pre-season top 25? Preseason POY for Goodwin or French? And imagine how Ford will be able to leverage that on the recruiting trail? The present tastes great, but the future smells fantastic. We could be moving into a golden era of Billiken hoops!

“We have just got to match their physicality,” McLemore said. “They have got one rebounding guard, and one rebounding big, and we have got to make sure we match their physicality and keep them off the boards and try to limit their second-chance points.” Mr. Mclemore will definitely know their names after the game!

Never mind the fact that in my dream the game was a combination of basketball and volleyball and took place underneath a hot air balloon. I still think it’s predictive

Guys, I had a dream last night that Bills won by 4. The game's in the bag.

I'm super glad he's in. Well deserved. These kinds of debates about fringe HOF types drive me crazy, however. With a catcher like Simmons, let alone Yadi: of course, put 'em in. For many fans, seeing the tine plaques in Cooperstown turns out to be a bit disappointing anyway, and unless you really know your baseball, many of the names will be fairly obscure. And keep in mind that Dale Murphy, Larry Walker, and many others are still not in the HOF! More generally: What I truly abhor is all the nonsense about keeping great guys OUT of various Halls of Fame: whether it's someone like Simmons; or Torry Holt & Isaac Bruce (who both have great numbers); or even why the Doobie Brothers are one of the great bands of the 70s, but still not in the Rock & Roll HOF. It tends to be from the snobby purists: "O those Doobies were just not cutting edge enough," or whatever. (Meanwhile the Zombies get in -- seriously!?) But arguments for keeping a great guy out -- get a life! Put more in !! (but not those druggies of course...or when? McGwire? Barry Bonds??)

The reason that sports pundits, such as Derrick Goold have stated, is that Simmons was constantly being compared to his main same-generation competition, Johnny Bench, and coming up short in that one on one comparison. If he had played at a different, non-Bench era, perhaps he would have already been in the Hall.

Are we watching the same player? I'm not seeing somebody with great lateral quickness. At the end of the day, though, if Toppin beats you on jumpers and 3s you live with it. Need somebody to keep him from dominating in the post.

It was against Iowa. Drejaj hit a shot at the buzzer to win it.

For that particular statistic yes. Fisk for example played 3 other field positions as well as DH. Rodriguez played 2 other positions and DH.

The best defensive catcher of the last 50 years is Yadi.

There's room for guys who weren't mashers at the catcher position just like there's room at say, shortstop. But once the math changed to 60% hitting/40% fielding, you had to be an all-time defender to overcome the math. Unfortunately for Boone and Sundberg, the two best defensive catchers of the last 50 years - Pudge, Bench - were also dangerous hitters. There's only 19 catchers in the Hall covering a period of 130 years. The competition for getting in is incredibly stiff.

Getting back to the game, any team that shoots 60% from the three usually is victorious

Patiently waiting.....

I'm not sure you get what @Franchise_08 is saying. He's not suggesting that SLU should go after Williams or that SLU can't or won't be able to do better. He's saying that K-State is one of our primary rivals in recruiting local St. Louis talent at the level we are recruiting (not 5 stars). Therefore, if a St. Louis kid goes to K-State and "fails" by transferring / not succeeding, then it is good for us because it might make it more difficult for K-State to recruit St. Louis in the future. Flip side is that a guy like Sneed going to K-State and succeeding isn't good for us. Bringing it forward - K-State beat us out for Kasubke and Bradford. I don't wish ill on any players, but I won't be unhappy if things don't pan out for those guys at K-State.

You know who did a good job on Toppin? Thatch. Obviously, the moments were limited but Fred was really effective. Man, I hope we get a healthy Fred Thatch back soon.

Not sure he is good enough? Based on what exactly? In no particular order: He is in the top 200 all time of any position player in WAR. There are six catchers in the MLB Hall of Fame with a WAR worse than Simmons. There are only 8 other catcher's with a 50 plus career WAR. All are in the Hall of Fame. For players that played most of their career primarily as a catcher: 2nd all time Catcher RBI's. 2nd all time Catcher Doubles. 2nd all time Catcher hits. 3rd all time Catcher games played. 7th all time among HOF Catcher Home Runs out of 14. 7th all time Catcher Batting Average. 4th all time Catcher Walks. 5th all time Catcher Runs Scored. Top 10 in league in WAR 5 times regardless of any player's position. Top 10 in OPS 15 times regardless of any player's position. His defense statistically was much better than some would think. Not great but not bad. At minimum average defensively as a catcher. He's clearly a Hall of Famer based on various criterias used for selection.

Unless things go spectacularly well, a NIT bid would not be bad this year with the young freshmen. I always thought that CBI year during the Majerus years came at the right time.

Willie, the fog of 30 years from the event, and close to 15 years from last reading/writing about it smeared some of the memory details. First, the taped call from Pearl to Thomas was documented by Illinois Bell to be 16 minutes long. The tape Pearl submitted as evidence was 4 minutes long. The master tape was never turned over to anyone, nor heard by anyone outside of Iowa’s basketball recruiting staff. Notre Dame/Digger Phelps was part of the initial litany of player buying complaints, re an offer to LaPhonso Ellis of 80k and a new Bronco. Please note that both Ellis and Thomas denied the existence of any offer of pay to play, Thomas took and passed a polygraph, and the NCAA found zero substance or credible evidence to support Illinois trying to buy players. None whatsoever. Please don’t believe me. Go to the source, the Nov. 7, 1990 Notice of Violations, published by David Brest, the NCAA assistant executive director of enforcement, and waste half an hour reading it with a good coffee. Read it with the foreknowledge that virtually every violation found was detected and documented by an internal investigation, and voluntarily turned over to NCAA. I am a huge Illinois fan, I have known all of the central Illinois high school players that ended up at Illinois, my younger brother served as a student manager, and we have been friends of the Henson family for 40 years, so guilty as charged. However, I always like to look at the available facts before tossing conjectures out. Read the Illinois NOV, and read the Auburn actual pay to play situation, and your beliefs may change.

Second best hitter in one of the 8 positions of a sport who's had over 15k players in the last 120 years. mic drop

FIFY.

It has been but he’s still running this offense better than at any point than last season, and that bodes well.

Thanks to The Wiz and Thicks. No problem. I just assumed that you might have a way to input your existing records/grades of our 29 opponents to provide a grade of our SOS for the year as you have done with the 8 or 9 opponents to provide us with the grade D through 9 games. Guess even if you could, the data would not be so comparable. For us alone, the quality of our 9 opponents will not be as strong as our next 20 opponents. The SOS in prior years is what I was looking for. Auburn and K-State are certainly no anchors - but am glad this team has had the opportunity to get the prior 9 games under their belts prior to playing them. Also glad that we have played Seton Hall, Auburn and K-State prior to conference games. Also glad, we played road game at BC, we played Belmont and we played Tulane on a neutral court.