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The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that an early March poll of 80,000 adults indicates that at least 83% plan on getting the vaccine. 28.9% of the U.S. population has already received at least one shot. That's nearly 100 million people. 2.8 million doses a day were distributed last week, and that number is rising. Also, the vaccination is still effective in preventing most. if not all of the new strains. Maybe not 95% effective, but still effective. Despite the wishes of many politicians, Covid will not negatively effect next year's college basketball season. I boldly predict zero Covid pauses next year.

We're always going to have good guards transfer because that's where most of the talent on a good team is. There are ton of mid-major programs that could use a Demarius Jacobs. Not just from a talent perspective, but character wise. Demarius battled back from a tough freshman year to become a valuable contributor to this team. I want all players that demonstrate that level of character to do well, whether they finish as Billikens or not.

I will continually update. This will include declared transfers and the fate of seniors able to return to the roster should they decide as such. Updated 8/15/2021 including top 100 transfer ratings with 135 names current in the portal/state of flux for the A10. Updates in bold. That averages out to about 9.7 moves per team. Moving the declared returning seniors to the INCOMING section below. ESPN Top 100 Transfers noted after #: OUTGOING: Davidson: Kellen Grady (Kentucky- # 9), Carter Collins (Murray State), Bates Jones (Duke), and David Czerapowicz (transfer). Dayton: Rodney Chatman (transfer), Jalen Crutcher (PRO), Ibi Watson (senior), Jordy Tshimanga (senior), Dwayne Cohill (Youngstown State) and Lukas Frazier (transfer). Moulaye Sissoko is rumored to be transferring but no formal announcement as of yet. Duquesne: Marcus Weathers (SMU - #91), Michael Hughes (PRO), Ryan Murphy (senior), Tavian Dunn-Martin (Florida Gulf Coast), Sincere Carry (Kent State), Amari Kelly (North Carolina - WIlmington), Chad Baker (San Diego State), Jeff Roesing (Rider) and Lamar Norman Jr. (Western Michigan). Fordham: Chuba Ohams (transfer), Joel Soriano (St. John's - 100+), Ivan Raut (transfer), Lazar Skoric (transfer), Cameron Cohn (Santa Monica College), Yame Butler (transfer), Ty Perry (Buffalo), Chris Austin (Portland), Julian Dozier, Jr. (transfer), Onyinyechi Eyisi (Cal State Northridge) and Mason Williams (transfer). George Mason: AJ Wilson (South Carolina), Bahaide Haidara (St. Francis - Brooklyn), Greg Calixte (Bryant), Jordan Miller (Miami - #82), Javon Green (South Florida), Tyler Kolek (Marquette - #93), Ian Boyd (transfer), Lysander Rhenstrom (Navy), Tyler Brelsford (Bryant) , Mehki McCray (transfer) and Josh Oduro (transfer). George Washington: Jamieson Battle (Minnesota - #66), Jameer Nelson Jr. (Delaware), Maceo Jack (Buffalo), Javier Langarica (transfer), Ace Stallings (transfer), Sloan Seymour (New Hampshire), Chase Paar (Towson), Matthew Moyer (PRO) and Lincoln Ball (American). La Salle: Jared Kimbrough (Hartford), Scott Spencer (Tulane), David Beatty (North Carolina A&T), Ayinde Hikim (Umass-Lowell) and Brandon Stone (Robert Morris). Umass: Tre Mitchell (Texas - # 4), Carl Pierre (Rice), Ronnie DeGray III (Missouri) and Mark Gasperini (senior). Rhode Island: Fatts Russell (Maryland - #36), DeVale (DJ) Johnson (transfer), Jermaine Harris (New Mexico State) and Jeremy Sheppard (senior). Richmond: Blake Francis (PRO), Andre Weir (Florida Gulf Coast) and Nick Sherrod (senior). St. Joseph's: Ryan Daly (senior), Anthony Longpre (senior), Ethan Griffith (transfer), Jordan Hall (Rescinded his transfer notice to Texas A&M and will return to St. Joes.) and Myles Douglas (Morgan State). Saint Louis: Jordan Goodwin (PRO), Hasahn French (PRO - Greece), Phil Russell (Southeast MO State), Jimmy Bell Jr (Moberly CC) and Demarius Jacobs (Ball State). St. Bonaventure: Jalen Shaw (transfer), Alejandro Vasquez (Hofstra), Justin Winston (Robert Morris), Quentin Metcalf (Pratt Community College), Jermaine Taggart (transfer), Eddie Creel (Lindenwood), Alpha Okoli (transfer), Josh Bell (transfer) and Anthony Roberts (Stony Brook). Virginia Commonwealth: Brendan Medley-Bacon (McNeese State), Tre Clark (Tallahassee CC) and Corey Douglas (senior) INCOMING/RETURNING: Davidson: Michael Katsock (Walk On) and Foster Loyer (Michigan). Dayton: Toumani Camara (Georgia - #54), Kobe Elvis (DePaul) and Richard Amaefule (East Tennessee State). Duquesne: Tre Williams (Indiana State), Pedro Castro (Houston Baptist), RJ Gunn (Lenoir-Rhyne), Kevin Easley, Jr. (TCU) and Leon Ayers III (Mercer). Fordham: Patrick Kelly (Penn State), Antonio Daye Jr (Florida International), DJ Gordon (Penn State), Kam'Ron Cunningham (Mississippi Valley State) and Darius Quisenberry (Youngstown State). George Mason: D'Shawn Schwatrz (Colorado), DeVon Cooper (Morehead State) and Davonte Gaines (Tennessee). George Washington: Ira Lee (Arizona), Joe Bamisile (VA Tech), Bryan Knapp (Cornell), Brendan Adams (Uconn), Qwanzi Sameuls (Florida Gulf Coast) and Tyler Warner (walk-on). La Salle: Mamadou Doucore (Rutgers) and Josh Nickelberry (Louisville). Umass: Michael Steadman (Montana), Trent Buttrick (Penn State), Rich Kelly (Boston College) and CJ Kelly (Albany). Richmond: Jacob Gilyard (returning senior), Grant Golden (returning senior), Nick Sherrod (returning senior) and Nathan Cayo (returning senior). Rhode Island: Ishamel El-Amin (Ball Sate) St. Joseph's: Ejike Obinna (Vanderbilt) and Charles Coleman (East Carolina). St. Bonaventure: Quadry Adams (Wake Forest) and Abdul Karim Coulibaly (Pittsburgh). Saint Louis: Javonte Perkins (returning senior), Rashad Williams (Oakland), DeAndre Jones (Central Arkansas) and Jordan Nesbitt (Memphis). VCU: Levi Stockard III (returning senior), Marcus Tsoshonis (Washington), and Jimmy Nichols Jr. (Providence).

I'd love to see him end up at Loyola

Jacobs and Hargrove are much better three point shooters than they were as freshmen. Unless the media tells us what happens in their summer workouts, it's all speculation.

Legit possibility....but I wouldn't say favorite just yet.

Think he was misused most of his SLU career. Statistically the most efficient offensive player we had. Played great as the ball handler in the pick and roll his sophomore year. Instead it seemed like our offensive game plan had him stand in the corner and wait. Bummer that our most versatile offensive player aside from Javonte wasn’t give more of a role. Hope he gets a role he can thrive in so where else.

Markhi the same player with a higher cieling. Free him. Dj underachieved every year here/ struggled with injuries but he seemed like a great teammate and hopefully he can continue his career successfully elsewhere. You trolls are funny lol.

We were watching different games then what in the world

Most perimeter players with holes in their offensive game should go mid-major out of high school. Bigs are still big. Smalls get exposed very quickly. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

It also seems to be a lot of “yeah but that doesn’t count.” When a player improves people are saying the player did it on his own. When a player doesn’t improve people are blaming the coach. That’s a tough spot to be in. As for French and FT’s I don’t think any coach would have fixed that. Psychologist....Maybe Coach...no chance

I agree wholeheartedly with nearly everything said; Coach Ford has been able to recruit two players who would become All-Americans in his time as a head coach. 99.9% of college basketball coaches will never recruit one such player. However, he has only won one NCAA tournament game in his 20 year coaching career. I think the above two facts encapsulate what he is; an exceptional recruiter whose teams never quite live up to the lofty expectations that are heaped on talented teams. Like Roy, I think he is absolutely the best man for this job right now. As an alum and season-ticket I would rather get excited about the talent he is amassing, watch exciting athletes play the game and accept that there will be some bewildering losses than go back to Sodie ball when we had a bunch of kids who played their hearts out but just didn't belong at this level. I am not saying Ford is the best we can ever hope for. I do, however, feel strongly that if we cut him loose right now none of us would be happy with his replacement.

like ford has helped anyone with their shot since becoming the billiken head coach. development is not coach ford's strong suit.

Great job Pistol. a few other miscellaneous stats in red.

Ford must mismanaged nothing. Only 7 or 8 guys are going to get significant minutes. DJ was in the 8 man rotation, but after covid he clearly slipped for whatever reason. Also, he is probably "reading the tea leaves". SLU likely will pick up a transfer or two that will directly impact his playing time. Strickland and Hargrove are coming on strong. They may not directly compete with DJ, but with college basketball moving to multiple wing players, who can handle the ball, maybe. Most players want to start .... likely that change irked DJ as well.

We are guard heavy so I don’t see a big issue. If Goodwin comes back I would worry about another transfer for PT sake. I really wanna see Hargrove and Strickland tear it up

Don't feed the troll.

I think most of these posts are missing the point. Ford mis-managed DJ, who probably should have gotten some of Jimmerson and Yuri's minutes. Yuri was allowed to make mistakes and learn from them. DJ made mistakes and was yanked. DJ brought defense, rebounding, shooting, and ballhanding. Jimmerson brought.... shooting. Look, I love all of our guys, but DJ should be pissed, and smart high-majors will look at the tape and realize he was one of SLU's best five players when healthy.

I for one am sad to see him go. Always thought he might be our most skilled player. Injuries and inconsistency seemed to be his calling card, however. I think he can find a home at a high mid where he'll be a solid contributor. Kind of reminds me of the Jalen Johnson transfer 2 years back. Will not be surprised to see him be a starter somewhere else. Good luck, DJ. Thanks for your efforts and good luck at your new school. I knew we wouldn't escape the portal unscathed. I hope he's the end of it, though.

Free markhi!

Well, we just got one more spot... I can't wait to see who Ford brings in to get this board and me extremely excited

Sad he's gone and was always high on him but always wanted to see a little more fire out of him......

Pretty sure we offered Hebb out of high school.

Watson has had one of the most disappointing careers so far. Should have been so much more.

If we weren't so deep at the wing I'd find Watson tempting. Such a weird case because he tried to completely change his style in college. He was a slasher with an inconsistent jump shot in high school who excelled because he's got length and athleticism. In college he's relegated himself to a spot up shooter and been inconsistent. With our current roster he's not worth taking over a Hargrove or Strickland

100%. Shooting is the hardest thing to improve through simple coaching. Who is the player the Rick turned into a great shooter? Who is the player that Spoon or Grawer turned into a great shooter? Guys are usually good shooters or they are not. If a player only improves their shot from hours of extra work, how do we know that Ford wasn't the one who was motivating Goodwin to put that work in? As far as overall development, the guy I would point to right now is Hargrove. He didn't know how to play offense or defense when he arrived. The basketball knowledge he brought with him from high school plus $3.50 could buy you a Happy Meal. I think he's going to have a breakout year next season. There's no way anyone can look at that situation and not credit Ford and the coaching staff.

I hear only Pickett and Brown will be the only ones returning.

Ford took us from the cellar to top 4 in the conference. His entire tenure has been incrementally "more and better results." The trendline has us as a top 2 team in the very near future. That's what most success stories look like -- long and boring.

plan A - get the best GD players in the world and roll the balls out. plan B - find some hard working high character guys with the best basketball mind in the world to coach them. the truth is most coaches fall somewhere in between. and the trick is that it is tough to find the right mix.

The subject of NCAA athlete compensation is being argued at the Supreme Court right now (the NCAA challenged the Alson ruling). So far, it is not going well for the NCAA. Justices from all points of the spectrum are just tearing the NCAA's arguments to shreds. It's something to behold. CSPAN (or Twitter, if you follow college sports people) for those interested.

I would like to see the Bills get another 3 point shooter for next year.

The greatest tactician in the history of Billiken Basketball lead us to the lowest scoring game in the post shot clock era. Travis is not in the same league with Majerus but he can't make shots for the players either.......

Foul trouble. Timme or Suggs on the bench is the only way I see them losing. I love the way they share the ball.

FWIW - Frank just said Verge is going to test the NBA waters first, if he doesn't like what he is hearing, then SLU is in great shape.

The way I look at it is this: SLU likely won’t attract a coach that will recruit big time talent AND be a master tactician, simply because there are only so many of those guys. Travis isn’t perfect, but he brings in talented players who will have SLU in the conversation for a tournament appearance annually. What happens in the NCAA tournament is partially controllable, but there is a degree of luck with matchups. A couple seasons and Travis could go from one win in the dance to 5, just as easily as he could stay at 1. I trust Travis to give us a team with a high floor, at the exchange of maybe not fully reaching the high ceiling.

Yeah a lot of this is baseless complaining just for the sake of complaining

I'm leaning towards roy on this one .... with hopefully eating my words come this season. The COVID summer pause makes tons of sense and I'm adding it into my understanding of all things Billikens. Was Ford with Bess those mornings in the gym? I don't know but kudos to him if he was. The improvement from Goodwin this year, which I have is credited to hsi father, seems like it should have happened sooner, like his sophomore year. But that's picking nits. My damning evidence is the free throw percentages put up by both Goodwin and French for their four years here. Goodwin went 69/51/54/64 from the line his four years. So he achieved his best his freshman year. Someone once told me players got better with age in the program. For all his improvement this year, Goodwin was still 5 points shy on his best year which was his first year. Ouch. Goodwin's FG% went up over four years going 37/40/47/43. His 3FG% went 23/26/28/31. Incremental to say the least. Of course, what he lacked in skills were drastically overcome by his heart. A true warrior. French went 36/35/33/32 at the line which is an obvious downward trend. These numbers are under a guy who was like 90% from the line in his playing days. While Goodwin percentages moved around, Hasahn was extremely consistent from the floor at 54/49/52/53. The issue there is outside of the five-foot hook shot, Hasahn's game never took the next to a 10 or 15-foot level. Why did Osunniyi throttle us in the A10 semifinal game? Because all he had to do was stand in the restricted arc and swat French and Collins and Goodwin and Thatch and Linssen when they ventured into the paint. To me, this is another development failure French's mid-range game. Now here comes next year. We have a lot of guys who have certain portions of their games that are, at best, projects and in need of work. The COVID summer is one of the best uplifting things I have heard since the season ended. What's the plan for Jimmy Bell, Jr.? Are we sending him to 'Big Man Camp?' I can't see Ford, Tate or Stuen being able to impart big man wisdom to him as it is now. What about Gibson Jimerson? The Lee kid at Davidson impressed me because not only could he shoot, but he created off the bounce. Will Jimerson be able to do this? Will Terrence Hargrove Jr. be developed enough to start and wow us all with his monster atleticism? I sure hope so. He's a junior, time to shine! And of course Collins. If Yuri can't go the distance to the hoop and score, he'd better be able to make a few threes and mid-rangers to keep the defense honest. And I hope someday to see the real Demarius Jacobs --- night in and night out. As roy said, the talent is there. Development is key. Edit: add --- Ford is the best coach for the program. Now and in the foreseeable future.

I am not sure that’s fair... but how many guys spend their summer shooting with their D1 head coach? Gyms, spring/summer leagues were affected last year for all due to covid And Yuri needs to work on finishing in the lane and among the trees as well Hard to get a fair read on Coach Ford. He inherited nothing, then devastated for 2 years by S2 and then 2 MORE years by COVID

I would say the shooting of Bess certainly improved. And Goodwin improved from his freshman year where he shot 23% from 3, to his senior year 31%.

Highmark was on the Press Box after Goodwin. He had a few good comments. He reminded (me) that Ford, or any of the staff, could help the players in the summer. So they spent little to no time working with Goodwin on his shot. Yes, he needs to improve it to make the next step, but Highmark feels that a summer with Ford can accomplish that. He had almost the same comment on Collins. Yes, he needs to be a threat from the outside to prevent his defender from sagging way back into the paint. But again, there was no instruction time last summer. Hopefully he can raise his offensive potential with a full summer with the staff. Both Frank and Highmark discussed that this 'extra year' is killing this year's group of HS Seniors, at least those not in the top tier. They aren't getting any looks.

In heaven, Woody Hayes just poured John Wooden a glass of something. Go Bruins.

Bruins Win! Big Ten, all 9 of you, Go Home!

I think McKissic would start too because he's a better perimeter shooter than Thatch and better at creating his own shot and distributing than Thatch, Jimerson or Jacobs. And he's an all-conference caliber defender. Going to a Mizzou team that's losing 90% of its scoring would be such a waste.

The plan was to get TyTy and Pettiford with Mckissic as a back up plan. The writing was on the wall when he tried to commit last week and was told to hold on.

i thought both of the defenders fouled her. terrible no call.

KState is a high major school that is beating out high mid-majors for players. Throw a parade.

As the biggest Billiken “gear head” on the planet I’ve been BEGGING for them to change things up with their merch licensing for at least a decade. Their view on merchandise completely stinks, they put 0 effort into having the most unique mascot branded on clothing and accessories. Both West Pine Bills and THTRB/Midtown madness have been trying to get Homefield and SLU together for vintage gear over the last 2 + years now.