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Ford on 101ESPN - "Not looking good" for a game this week - Taking advice on who/if they should play - Advice leaning towards "don't need to play a game" - If it comes down to 3-4 teams, "we all look alike". "We are the team nobody wants to play. That should say a lot" - Smallmon asks Ford for his pitch to the committee....."7-1 and go on a 23 day pause with no practices. 11 players test positive. ....Every year someone gets in because their best player is hurt. We had 11 players sick...just take out 1 of the bad losses (Q3) and we're for sure in....Hopefully they take this in consideration being a different year....Won 7 of our last 10 games....Multiple quad 1 wins....St Bonaventure was the #1 seed. We beat them. Beat LSU. Beat NC State. We've proven ourselves...Graphic going around "the Twitters" showing the average of all rankings. We lead the bubble teams and it's not even close" - Karraker talking about "bad luck" in Ford's career. Ford says you always need luck and things to go your way but generally non committal to the topic - Goodwin/French - "They've meant a lot. A whole lot. They took a chance and believed in the vision/dream we had here. They have all the records and a lot of wins. Last 2 seasons have been different. - Talks about Goodwin needing to be great at one or two things to make the NBA. - Likes the balance of our team. "What you're about to see changes recruiting, rosters, etc where transfers don't have to sit out. Going to be completely difficult to build a roster. Especially in today's society guys want to play so it will be easier to leave. Going to be the same for everybody" - Ford asked if he'll have a watch party...."Ask me on Saturday...Not a big fan unless you know you're in. We'll have a better idea by Saturday or morning. A lot needs to go right for us starting today. I'll make that decision late Saturday. If I don't feel like we have a great chance - probably not...If we don't make the Tournament, most likely in the NIT. We have been practicing hoping we have another game" - Smallmon/Karraker - "So many things have gone against them that are out of control. That has to be taken into consideration. Played 1 game between December 23rd and February 3rd. They did pretty well under some tough circumstances"

IMO more Billiken basketball is never a bad thing. I hope they get a game this week and I hope if they don't make the NCAAs, they'll play in the NIT. I'm not sure if you're saying this is a "senior dominated" team or not, but I'd argue that it is definitely not. French & Goodwin 4 year seniors are 2 of the most important players. Perkins is another one of the most important players, but he's a JUCO so this is his 2nd DI season. Jacobs is the only junior. The rest of the guys who get minutes are all soph or freshman (Jimerson) eligibility-wise. We're 121st in the nation in experience per KenPom. This is not the 2013-14 team where all of our starters were seniors. Also NIT games are still on national TV, right? More exposure is a good thing regardless of the tournament initials.

i dont. i want to see goodwin and french get a chance to make up for the time they lost last year getting screwed out of the conference tourney. plus goodwin got screwed out of those games his freshmen year due to situation give em the games for their career legacy stats.

If SLU is going to play in the NIT, I would want the younger guys to get most of the PT for development purposes. That said, if you're going to play...play to win.

It’s actually still fairly common vernacular in basketball. There are 5 players on the floor. Easier to just label them 1-5 than to assign labels like “center” or “power forward” which may not accurately describe their role. I can promise you that coaches still use the # system to refer to the various roles on the court. It could be as simple as “we switch everything 1-4” or “3 always takes the ball out after a made basket by the other team”

Where do you expect him to cut to and move to when the rest of the offense is stagnant other than what 757billiken outlined? He can run around wherever he wants but he'll just run into another player standing around. Jimerson was deadly with the pump fake and 15 foot jumper early in the season. I think his legs were gone. He would be a big loss if he transfers despite people thinking he hypothetically has a bad attitude just because he doesn't show the same energy as Hargrove. He may be the biggest loss on the team since he has the least replaceable skill set

Frank Cusumano, keeping the Billiken Fire on 590 KFNS this morning, said there are 3 key games today from the SLU perspective: 1. NC State vs. Syracuse in the ACC Tourney- We root for the NC State Wolfpack. Frank said an NC State would damage Syracuse's NCAA chances, also help SLU's NET since SLU beat NC State. 2. Xavier vs. Butler in the Big East- We root for Butler. Frank rightly says we need to get Xavier out of there. Xavier (NET 58) should not be in the discussion, but is. Addendum: The Big East will remain problematic. Seton Hall plays St. John's tomorrow in a virtual NCAA Elimination Game. We need both out of there ASAP. One is going to win, and we need that one to lose Friday. My belief is the Big East is going to get at least 1 more NCAA team to make 4; we need to keep the Big East at 3. 3. Boise State vs. Nevada tonight in the Mountain West. We root for Coach Steve Alford's Nevada (Reno) Wolf Pack. I'll add today's Louisville vs. Duke game in the ACC. We need Duke out of there, just because it's Duke. But also, Duke suddenly has a NET of 51; Louisville is 52. I think Duke's NCAA slim hopes die if Duke loses today. Edit: Boise State vs. Nevada in the Mountain West is Thursday at 4:30 p.m. Central on CBSSN.

Even the word HOPELESS has HOPE in it!

I see a lot of speculation on the board and the media and the bracketologists about who is in and who is out. As you all know, I love data and stats and numbers. Unfortunately for Bills fans, this is not about numbers. The NCAA selection committee uses the NET as its main model for selecting teams. But in the overall formula the NCAA has discretion (about 15% ) to choose teams they think are deserving. That works out to to about 10 teams...so roughly #45 to #55. Again this is not exacting. If Duke is #58 ...they are probably in the discussion. If Grambling is at 44 , they are probably not. Remember this is subjective....so it could be 12 teams fighting for 7 spots or just 3 teams fighting for 1 spot. The Committee itself doesn't know until they actually start taking ballots. That is what they do in the days leading up to Selection Sunday.... Voting 100s of times to try and whittle it down. So is the whole thing a sham...No...If you are #35, you are probably in and there is no discussion. If you are 45 and you are 9-1 in the last 10 games and you finished 2nd in your tourney and lost to your League champ...you are probably in. Bottom line...It is all speculation when you are in the final few...It is great for media as it draws eyes to whoever is writing. Will an extra game matter? Probably not...You can't get a team high enough to play you that would move the needle enough. And when you play teams that are equal to you the numbers tend to stay the same. What about all the other teams around you losing...see the above forecast in this thread...not likely. So it's time to get out your rabbit's foot and pray to the Billiken god or if you are a quantum physics person...think and it shall be.

No, to quote Coach Ford, we moved French to the 4 and put Bell in at the 5. This is exactly why I’m saying if Perkins plays the 4 it leaves room for 3 other perimeter players. I feel like this is basic basketball terminology and it’s confusing me why you are against it.

Bell was a 5, has was a 4. Some of y'all really argue about the weirdest sh!t.

also, if merit wasnt enough.... (1) single covid case among 68 teams.... those odds are much greater than 50/50

who won it last year? my point is most people dont know. and i bet even if someone does WITHOUT LOOKING IT UP they probably dont remember who they played. i.e. not important. once the ncaa expanded the ncaa tourney in the 80's the day of the NIT was over.

I agree, I want as much billiken basketball as i can get. I do not have many other rooting interests, so if it is one more game or the NIT I want it.

Screw it. Call the Memphis Grizzlies.

I think the best place for Clay might be at SIUE teaming up with Ray'sean Taylor from Collinsville.

I don't know that he is transferring. I just feel like he has options outside of the St. Louis area and may decide to move back closer to home. There are so many teams around his home in Virginia. It doesn't have to be a top team either. Teams like Virginia Tech or NC State could use his skill set. As far as movement, I cannot disagree with our lack of movement on offense, but it isn't Gibson. He's constantly running the baseline and moving to get open. He does exactly what I see other shooters like him do. I have to assume that this is what the coaches are telling him to do. Sometimes his movement is to draw his defender away from the play. Sometimes it is to get open. The movement that we need is movement with and near the ball. That's the movement that opens up the exterior shooters. I wish I had the time to re-watch a few of our conference games and screen shot all the times he's standing wide open out at the three point line. Unfortunately, I don't.

If you want to be a glutton for punishment then have at it.

we're getting IN... committee will overlook the lasalle and dayton loss after the pause. we are in

We had a 1.5% chance of getting the double bye. The odds of us making the tournament are much better than that.

BYU and the Zags play like the Bills did in non-conference. In the A10, these guys would have to face a lot more slashers and interior grinders. I am not sure how either team would do. Haarms is a great rim protector.e BYU would be able to survive, but i don’t think they would beat us, the Bonnies, or VCU. The zags look soft inside on defense. I doubt they could go undefeated in the A10, and I really do not like their chances for the championship now. They will just have to stay hot from outside, and pray for soft foul calls.

Not sure where to post this since neither team would have any interest in or incentive to playing SLU this weekend but this BYU v Zags game has been really fun to watch. BYU’s players move so well without the ball and they do a great job attacking the rim and then kicking it out for a 3 when they don’t have a decent shot. SLU would be a hard team to beat if they did those 2 things well. Completely forgot that Haarms kid transferred to BYU. Always disliked him and his cockatiel haircut...

It’s easy to say you want to play someone when you know you’re out of games.

Anyways.... let's snag a transfer.

Ok ... Fine, I promised not to say, but the speculation is getting ridiculous. TF is opening up a home based business in his house. A barber shop/Axe throwing business called Close Shave. His current home is not zoned properly for the business. This needs to stay quiet until the big grand opening. So please don't tell anyone.

it's my position that the "decline" of gibson starts with the billikens very noticeable slow down on offense. when they were running the floor more prior to the virus hitting the billikens, gibson was open on the wings and corner simply because the billikens were ad a 3 on 2 or 4 on 3 fast break opportunity more often and the defense in that scenario has to guard the ball and the lane. that went away when the billikens slowed things down.

Good post Steve. It’s a good read for posters like myself that did not know the history of Billikens.com. I appreciate all that you and others do for this site.

its taken me a few days, but i truly believe we are getting in. The committee will give us a Covid pass. Its going to happen.

Coach's Show with Rammer: St. Bonaventure outplayed us. Give them credit. They were the #1 seed for a reason. He liked the effort for the other games last week. Played UMass twice in a week, with two wins. On the Monday extra game, Tre Mitchell is their X Factor. He is a tough matchup at 6'9". They played an aggressive style that we had to adapt to. We did well in the first half, but not as well in the second on their press. We didn't play great in the second half. A good win for us. Thatch and Hargrove played well in that game. TJ was very active, running the court being active. Thatch was getting back into form right before the pause. It took him a while to get back into it after the pause. Coach wasn't concerned about getting the 4th seed. A lot of people were talking about it, but all he wanted to do was beat UMass. Some people thought an extra game (with a W) would have been better than the double bye. Wasn't concerned about playing UMass back to back, until he was told that some conferences went to back to back games, and the first game Loser won the second game more than the Winner. Teams who lost make adjustments, where as the winners sometimes don't make as many adjustments. He believes that we played better for the entire 40 minutes than the previous game. Mitchell kept them in the game almost by himself. "I said some stupid stuff after the game. - We played at Robbins and they played at Siegel." We are still trying to figure out what happened. They had momentum, we didn't. Uncharacteristic for us, being outrebounded as bad as they did. We had 7 shots inside the circle in the first 10 minutes that weren't blocked and we missed. Jimerson hitting three 3's. What has he been going through. "Gibson had that look, he was locked in (against St. B). He played one of his better games, and I'm not talking about his shooting. His defense, how hard he was playing, his effort on offense, loose balls, etc. UMass didn't leave him. They left him no opportunities. Trying to add a game now is just like what we did with NC State. Had a game at Michigan that fell through at the very last minute. We had a team that needed a game, but they didn't have any more Non-conference games left. We are still looking. Our worst two losses, (Q3) were the first two games out of Covid. Some teams played okay coming out of Covid, but others didn't. [There were many games brought up by listeners. Coach said, we have talked to every team that 'you' have brought up.] The coaches will be watching tourney's and seeing who gets bounced early. There are teams that we could play that would not help us. He doesn't want to do that. Reputable people telling Coach that the lack of games will be held against us. Coach said we would accept a bid to the NIT if we don't make the NCAA. Show will be aired on KMOX tonight, or do what I did and watch it on Facebook.

Just a little history on this OP: He is a Valpo fan, Valpo is changing their Crusader mascot due to pressure concerning the, alleged, less than ideal connotation that goes along with the term "crusader". He showed up when SLU first played valpo years ago and for some reason still pops in from time to time. It's weird to say the least.

So per this new revisionist explanation, playing a full schedule of nonconference cupcakes and in a watered down Valley, with 1 good team, that you lost to twice by double digits, once by 27 points, trumps a clearly better team that was unable to play 9 games due to a Covid outbreak and protocols and was in Covid quarantine 33 days between games. The goal posts appear to be moving.

I agree with you that fans often make the mistake of assuming just because players get a year older doesn’t mean they will automatically get better. However, I disagree that we haven’t seen improvement historically. In fact it’s a lot easier to think of guys who did get better than players who didn’t. Demarius Jacobs was certainly a better player this year than last. His improvement was even more noticeable from freshman to sophomore year. His ballhandling has already improved. Fred Thatch missed an entire season and came back to be a better player than he was before his illness. His ballhandling has also noticeably improved. Hargrove went from being a 27% 3-point shooter to being a 43% 3-point shooter. Hard to consider that anything but improvement. Goodwin improved every element of his game from last year. His 3-point shooting improved each of his 4 seasons. Perkins improved his 3pt and FT shooting figures this year. He tripled his assists per game number. I consider that improvement. Yuri Collins improved his ft shooting and assists and lowered his turnovers. Yes, he still needs to shoot the ball better from 3. But his overall game certainly improved. As you noted, Javon Bess significantly improved as a shooter. On The House That Rick Built podcast he credited the coaching staff for giving him the tools and plan to improve that shooting and working with him in some of those 6am workouts you mention to improve. Davell Roby went from a mediocre player under dead to a good player under Ford. He improved in all areas.

Updated through games of 3/7/21, NET: VCU 35, Georgia Tech 38, Boise State 43, SLU 44, Drake 47, Utah State 48, Syracuse 49, Colorado State 50, Louisville 51, Memphis 52, Ole Miss 53, SMU 56, Xavier 57, Seton Hall 58, Duke 60, Wichita State 65, NC State 66, Michigan State 67, St. John’s 68. For comparison, MIzzou, considered IN, a lock, is 45, one slot below SLU. Also Maryland 34 lost at home and was swept by Penn State (10-13, 7-12). Maryland and Michigan State are both sub-.500, 9-11, in the Big Ten. Comment: Per the NET, SLU should be IN. But the bracketologists mostly have SLU in the First Four OUT. Why have the NET if it is going to be ignored, or at minimum, discounted? If the bracketologists are correct, then there sure appears to be slotting by conference, despite the NCAA claiming that does not happen. I have never believed it does not happen in reality. There is no way Drake is better than SLU. Drake played absolutely no one in the non-conference. SLU played and beat LSU, NC State and lost a competitive game at Minnesota (at a time when Minnesota was playing well). There used to be an unwritten, de facto rule that a team (Power 5) had to be at least .500 in conference play to receive an NCAA At Large bid. That one dropped in a year when the ACC was at the very top, with at least 2 premier teams, and a sub-.500 ACC Wake Forest team was allowed IN. This year it appears Maryland and Michigan State, both sub-.500 in the Big Ten, will get NCAA At Larges, with Michigan State barely even on the spectrum per the NET. Plus, the experts have Michigan State getting a "bye," avoiding the Last 4 Opening Round.