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Yes

Every fan of a mid major program has to answer that question for themselves. Mid major success stories are often long and boring. In our case, we started in the basement after Crews. We are now a top four team in the conference. The trendline shows that we'll be a top two team in the very near future. Every local 3 star player in the 2022 class is seriously considering us. We've successfully landed impact transfer players since Coach Ford has been here. This is the blueprint for sustainable success at the mid major level. Eventually long-term program success piques the interest of four star recruits. Every mid-major fan base thinks their particular situation should be the exception to this tedious process.

I'm sure Tate has already been in touch with him lol.

“Please enjoy my presentation: ‘How To Use A Lot Of Words Without Really Saying Anything’”

Sometimes there's news of local kids wanting to transfer way before they hit the portal

I believe he changed his name to Damari Bayer.

Landing a top 50 recruit isn’t what winning the recruiting battle always looks like. Recruit players that want to be here. Winning with them will push the program forward and it will come. We’re in a better spot than we were 4 years ago. We’re losing two of the best Billikens to ever lace them up and I’m happy to see where we go next.

The Pittsburgh of the steel mills and the eternal soot is gone, what is there now is a nice, livable city. I had a daughter at Carnegie Mellon and visited Pittsburgh repeatedly for 4 years, I liked it.

NOW THATS THE TYPE OF THINKING WE NEED

This is just me reading between the lines and drawing my own conclusions, so there’s a more than reasonable chance that I’ll end up being totally wrong, but this sounds a lot like Penny telling Nesbitt he was gonna be a 1-and-done. Nesbitt comes to campus early to get a head start. Penny’s not expecting that, and Nesbitt only plays 12 minutes. Now Nesbitt is thinking, “6 months ago, you told me I was good enough to be a 1-and-done, which is the main reason I chose Memphis, and now you can only find 12 minutes for me on an NIT team? WTF?” It’s sounds to me like a classic case of a kid having unrealistic expectations and a coach feeding those unrealistic expectations in order to get a commitment. And now the kid ends up getting screwed over. It’s sad.

Here is my take on Williams.... First, let's look at some numbers.... 2021....these are all per gm...13.6pts....0.9 assts....0.8stls....1.5 TOs...1.5 reb Now let's look at some slashes....numbers and grades Remember the important numbers are the 3s as over 3/4 of his shots are 3s 2021.....34.5/33.9/78.7....F-/ C+ / A....28 gm...28min/gm 2020...34.3/ 32.3/ 85.5...F- /C- / A+...15 gm...38 min/gm 2019...40.5 / 40.8 / 76.7....F- / A / B+...31 gm...23 min/gm Now let's look at the 4 most significant games of 2021 for Oakland and Williams part in them... Mich 25th AP poll (at the time)....20/13/100....2-10/ 1-8 / 4-4....24 min...9 pts Purdue...1 min...no stats OK St...46/ 50 /40....10-22/ 10-20 / 2-5....37 min...32pts Mich St 4th AP poll...43/47/ 80....12-28/8-17/ 4-5....36 min....36 pts So what does all this mean? If you take away the OK St game and Mich St. games his 2 best games his 3P% drops to 31.7 or C+ to D. Which means for 26 games he was a below average shooter taking a lot of shots. If we look at the 3 yearly slash lines you see a dramatic drop off in 3P% after his freshman year. Why would that be? I think it is because the 3pt line was pushed back between his freshman and soph years. A lot of players saw there % drop...some have recovered... some have not. If we leave the 2 good games in ... his stats improve from C- to C+ ...Soph to Jr year...If I plug in a forecast for the coming year...it shows he improves to 35.1%...but that is a far cry from 40 % plus and it is an IF he improves...As I said above, some players can't make the extra distance adjustment. It is promising, he has had some games in the 40 and 50 percents. If he can develop a consistent shot this year, he could be a major contributor. Will he do it? That's why we play the games.

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).

Why is Loyola possibly taking a step back good for us? Don’t think we recruit against each other all that often. Anytime a Mid is successful is a good thing.

I thought bringing back Bryan Mullins would have made the most sense.

Prepare to be disappointed then. Once in a blue moon you'll run across the Jordan Goodwin that is ride or die for his city. The rest of the local guys we get, for the foreseeable future, will be three star recruits. We'll have to go on our first tournament run with those guys. This is the same story that's played out at every mid major success story in America. Why did you think the story here would be any different?

Mark Few's tenure has long been interesting to me because every time he needed a result in a certain way, he has seemed to have gotten it. Early in his tenure at Gonzaga, he made a couple of Sweet 16's as a Cinderella double digit seed. Then skip ahead five years and he gets another Sweet 16 defeating a 14 and 16 seed. Then skip ahead three years and he gets another Sweet 16 defeating a 13 and 12. So that's 15 years, four Sweet 16's. 2 as Cinderella, 2 only defeating Cinderella. 12 of 15 first round wins. Consistent, steady, dominate league and league tourney. Finding ways to get results when needed. It was year 16 that the current Gonzaga level of NCAA Tourney results began, Elite 8, Runner Up, Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final Four Four.

The Mark Fews and Bob McKIllops of the world are few and far between, B'roy. Coaches are human. Dangle more $$'s, more perks, brighter lights, etc most are gonna jump. My question is, is his magic talisman, Sr. Jean, gonna become a bible toting Baptist and join him? Also, Loyola offering him $2.2 mil for 10 years with incentives was pretty surprising. Makes me wonder if we'd ever belly up to the bar to keep Travis if he got us into a couple of sweet 16's or elite eights or Final Four la la land.

The odds of Loyola becoming the next Gonzaga is 1/934,327. There hasn't been a non P6 school to sustain this level of success for this long besides Gonzaga. 21 years under Few with an NCAA tourney. They have never missed a tourney. Only 3 years without at least 1 win, 8 years with just 1 win. 6 sweet 16's, 2 elite 8's, and 2 final 4's including this year with one of those being a final 2. Including this year 6 straight sweet 16's. I'd guess the next best example is Xavier. Porter had a great year then 2 good but non NCAA tourney years, then another very good year. Of their top 7 players, 5 were Sr's. They weren't going to be back next year and possibly not the next. I'm not sold on him being good at OU. There's a difference between playing 3 top 50 games a year compared to 15. The question is can he recruit better athletes and then turn them into skilled, disciplined, basketball players. We'll see. I'm a Porter and an OU fan so I hope so.

Mr. Williams shot 9.9 three pointers per game and hit 33.9%. It is unlikely he will average that many attempts with the Bills. Perkins shot 4.8 (connecting on 37.6%), Jimerson 4.5 (39.4%), and Goodwin 3.3 (31.4%). As a team last season we shot 18.8 three's a game with a 34.8% success rate. Sure that number of shots can go up, and should go up, but Mr. Williams needs to be more efficient with fewer shots.

Turning down Cubs tickets? Maybe he isn’t a fan of Old Style. Should have offered Bears tickets.

Looking at his videos, I don’t think the 3 Pt line moving back was an issue. This kid can stroke it. The problem was that Oakland sucked and he probably forced way to many shots to try and stay in games. Poor shot selection lowered his %. We won’t need hero ball from him here.

Silver lining. Our last coach came after being bounced out of a school in Oklahoma. Maybe our next coach will be too in 7 years...

Writers for recruiting sites aren’t always the most objective sources. The have an incentive to always paint things in the best light for the program.

I thought Pittsburgh was a fun town

Mhg: this is going to sound horrible and defeatist but here goes —— you are focusing on a second and third round game that we have rarely made it to. I want to get there but in order to do so, we have to trash the A10 year in and year out to get there. If we don’t do A, how do we do B? Horse. Cart. If we dominate the A10 maybe we can get out of this East Coast Bus League. And I think we can do that with one big maybe two. My issue remains —— why isn’t Jimmy Bell Jr. that second, dominating big? Short of Osunniyi, he’s the biggest big in the A10. Linssen is a change of pace. Plus Okoro. Jimmy Bell’s development, or lack thereof going forward, is one of next season’s keys.

Robinson would be the Bill Guthridge type of pick. He's 63 already and you have to assume wouldn't be there very long before retiring. UNC is in a very different spot right now than when Dean Smith retired & Guthridge took over. Smith left Guthridge a team that was coming off a Final 4 appearance and was completely loaded with 5 future NBA players (Jamison, Carter, Haywood, N'Diaye, and Williams) plus a guy who finished his career with the most assists in school history (Ed Cota). Roy Williams is leaving some talent behind, but considerably less than that and more could potentially transfer. Robinson has been at UNC for Roy's entire tenure, but he had no previous ties to UNC. I really don't think they'll go with Robinson unless they decide they want to minimize any upset with the current program & kick the can of finding a long term coach down the road (for example, maybe they want to see UNC alum Wes Miller get some more seasoning at UNC-G before handing the reigns over to him or see if Stackhouse can get things going at Vandy). Davis seems like the most logical in house option. He's been there for 10 years and is a UNC alum. He's "only" 50, so he could have a decently long career there before retiring. I doubt they go with Frederick because he'd presumably need to jump both Davis & Robinson and isn't really a "name" guy, but who knows. They could also look outside the current program, but stay "inside" the UNC "family". As previously mentioned Wes Miller seems like the most logical choice if they do that. He's only 38, but has done a really good job at UNC-G. Whereas a guy like Stackhouse doesn't really have much success to show at Vandy.

The VCU fan board expects him to go. They also were floating a rumor that he was going to transfer, but very few believe he will do that. I have seen him on a few draft boards, as a second rounder this year. He is being listed as a scoring first point guard rather than a facilitator. Weight and muscle are listed as issues. His reach and quickness are mentioned on the plus side. Stated that he had trouble playing zone, but 'won't be a negative' playing man. I have seen him as high as 10th PG on the NBA list. He played PG for the Rams his freshman year, but gave way to Baldwin this past season. He might be a second round pick this draft, or a second round pick next draft. If he thinks he can be a second rounder this year he should go. Most second rounders this past draft got two way contracts, for just under half a million. He undoubtedly is talking with agents to assess his status. It will be interesting to see if he jumps.

The voice of the Billikens Bob Ramsey joins Zac and Peter to break down the challenging season that was the 20-21 Billiken Basketball season. We look at the preseason hype, the early season success, the Covid pause and the late season woes. View the full article

Even without a coaching change, it's hard for a mid-major program to sustain this kind of success. Have to strike while the iron is hot if you are ever going to cash in.........and honestly the door will always be open at a program like Loyola.....