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Bell is hardly unathletic. Coaches have raved to me about his athleticism, especially hands and feet. But he needs better conditioning and some time to grow into what his body will be in a couple years. I agree he is slow off the floor but he can improve his explosiveness over time. His strength off the floor is phenomenal. Overall I just shake my head about the impatience for a first year big. Give it some time; he's got some pretty impressive attributes.

Committed to SLU per his Instagram

Pitbull?

And even with a dearth of three of point shooters and horrible free throw shooting, this is the highest scoring Bills team in 25 years. This team and coach has done a remarkable job of playing to its strengths.

I know, I am a bum. It’s just hard for me to get excited about someone so unknown. Don’t worry, by the time he gets on campus I will have anointed him the next Keith Van Horn.

Two straight 20 win seasons is an accomplishment that should not be overlooked. Here's to hoping we're celebrating that tonight.

Just heard Rammer on the radio talking about Andre. He said he’s been told that he is like Jimerson with 3 more inches and a more athletic version of Cody Ellis.

http://archcity.media/2020/02/26/billikens-host-saint-josephs-wednesday-before-two-game-road-trip/

Disrespecting the opponent is not good karma.

ah yes i am inga from sweden

SLU was getting some love before the debacle at UMass (several mentions)...add that to getting smoked by Duquense twice and it's tough to fault the bracket people this time.

Coach Hendrickson is doing another great job. His son is now a Billiken as well.

When we signed Bell, if you saw the video and read his bio, I figured he would barely see the floor this year, so he clearly exceeded my expectations for his first year. He does have excellent hands, plays solid defense and has a nice touch. I think he will continue to improve his scoring in the low post and develop a nice mid range game and as an upperclassman, even knock down some threes. I don't think he projects as a great rebounder and do to his lack of hops, he's not going to be a shot blocker. After Has graduates, I hope we have another big on the roster who can block shots and rebound at a high level.

Not that immediately comes to mind, but I'm 100% sure there are decisions he's made that haven't turned out well and that even he would like to have back. In fact on interviews I've heard him say and I'm paraphrasing " In hindsight I should have " I'm not a big criticize the coach guy. I was probably worse 20 years ago though. Anytime we criticize a decision or a strategy it's usually after we see it didn't work. We then come up with something that might have worked and tout it like it was a guarantee.

Im still mad about the end of the UMass game when we didn’t foul down 2 with 40 seconds left

I have seen Bell shoot from distance when watching his high school games online. There's a reason he's trending toward 70% from the free throw line. He's got a nice stroke. When Bell's the primary post option in a couple more years and gets a lot more touches, you'll see more of his offensive game.

he shot some 3's in his highlight video, shot looked ok, that said he may never have the green light for the bills. at some pt i expect to see the 10-15 ft shot part of his game

Here's the thing imo. You have to trust the coaches aren't clueless and know more than we do. We watch 30 +/- games a year. The coaches see them 5 times that amount and all have more basketball expertise than we do. That doesn't mean mistakes aren't made but in general they know and see far more than we do. I'll use myself as an example. I see Perkins shooting horribly in 10-12 games and want him to shoot less. If you just make decisions based upon the little you see in games, I was right. However, in reality I was wrong. Perkins needed to keep shooting, it's the only way he was going to adjust to D1 and find his groove quickly, He's a natural scorer from all levels, the coaches knew this and despite some poor game results didn't push him to change. Had we done what I wanted done, I don't believe Perkins is scoring like he is now and we are a lesser team for it. Coaches right. Skip wrong

Haha yea that was me just pulling out what i wanted to hear. And yea if we go 8-17 tonight i understand that’s a small sample size and that doesn’t really prove my point. Show me over the course of atleast 8-10 games and you have some data.

I guess you just read what you wanted to hear lol. I can't say we won't see slightly more 3's going forward. I wrote that because if during the last 3 games we shoot even the smallest increase of 3's, someone (possibly you) will come back and say "see we did need to shoot more 3's"

That’s fair point and well made. Personally i hope we get more perkins and jacobs/weaver lineups. I think it’s important to have 2 of those guys on the court at MOST (not all) times during the game. I do hope next year we see that and have confidence we will. Good discussion and thanks for the discourse.

It's our personnel. We can basically only shoot catch and shoot 3's other most other teams have people that can create. One of the reasons we get the open looks from catch and shoot is because we are more balanced scoring and teams can't just take it away. The more that changes the more teams concentrate on taking it away. Plus your game minutes from your three 3 point shooters is 26, 24, 16. We can probably call Perkins 30 going forward so 70 min a game. We average less than 2 players on the floor at a time that can shoot. Next year with Jimerson back I think you'll see more of what you want. .

My major problem with Travis is the apparent lack of any offensive system. I don't think we have the spacing we see from other teams. We don't seem to have grasped how to set screens. We rarely use the pick and roll off a screen. I guess I got spoiled by Rick's schemes that had a real flow to them. We seem to be more helter skelter in our half court sets. A couple of games ago French got the message on the double teams to fire the ball back outside. He really made some nice fairly long passes to an open man that we converted into points. Still I just don't see us as a well coached team in the half court offense. It just seems Travis is counting on our team's athleticism and creativity to find their open shots. I'm open to dissenting comments on my observations.

So you're conceding that we don't actually get a ton of 3's? Here's the problem with this team becoming more 3 dependent. We have 3 players that can shoot it well enough that you want them shooting a bunch. One plays 16 mpg and is 5"10" tall, another one has one of the slowest releases I've ever seen and can't create his own, and the 3rd's three is more of a set shot so he also needs space. We literally have 3 players shooting over 33% and none of them can really create their own shot from there. You might say Tay could but if he was playing more and shooting more defenses would concentrate more on taking that away. Besides those 3 players and Jimerson we are 30/122 on the year. Why do fans always have to know more than the coaches who have all the info fans have plus watch the team practice every day. I'm sorry but regardless of how loudly you say it and how many analytics someone shows on what the NBA does anything more than a slight uptick in 3 point attempts is not what this team needs offensively.

Vouyoukas developed a fair 3-point shot during his senior year (as Baniak had before him), but it wasn't part of his arsenal for the first three seasons. How do you know that Bell can't or won't be able to hit the 3 before he graduates?

I'm not ignoring anything. You're calling something a fact that isn't. We rank 327th of all D1 teams in 3 pointers attempted , 328th in 3 pointers made and 159th in 3 pt % . Our oponents have shot 152 more 3's than we have. Those my friend are facts. If it's a fact that 327th is a ton of shots what word would be a fact for 227th? You seem to think if you just run a set it will happen. I mean hell, just practice it and do it. How the f..k hard can it be? Sorry but it just doesn't work that way. If it did we'd score a lot more than we do. Do you not think our coaching staff doesn't know that the 3 point shot is generally more efficient than the mid range shot?

I’d actually like to see French’s minutes cut at least a little bit next year...not as a punishment, but as a reward. I know he’s a warrior and he’d play every minute of every game if he could, but how nice would it be for French’s sake if Jimmy Bell could be relied upon to carry the load inside so Has can play 32 minutes instead of 37 or 38. Those minutes add up over a long season. I have as much faith as anybody that Jimmy will improve significantly by the start of next year (I also think Diarra is going to contribute) and Has will be all the better for it. Again, this isn’t a slight on French at all, quite the opposite. He works so hard, he deserves more of a breather than he’s gotten.

Just posted this evening, an article RE: Javonte Perkins' POTW honor. http://archcity.media/2020/02/24/billikens-x-factor-javonte-perkins-named-a10-player-of-the-week/ Continued improving the inclusion of pics/tweets.