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"I know the guys who are already there. And they are pretty talented like me. So I feel like once I get there we're going to gel together because I already know them," Nesbitt said. "And I think we can come in and work hard every day and win a national championship. And that's what I want to do in my hometown." Towel shortage. Going to need more towels.

I don’t get why people are so offended by this. What’s wrong with speculation? Who is it hurting? Especially when he said it’s good news. What’s the big deal? If anything, it gets people talking in the offseason when they otherwise wouldn’t. He’s saying he has a scoop, but is allowing the kid to make their own announcement. I don’t see what the problem is.

Frank C. “As promised Huge Billiken news....Bills have decided to put Phill Russel on scholarship. Billikens.com....

Nesbitt is our backup point guard. That gives Thatch and Jimerson more minutes at the 2/3 when he slides over. Starting caliber power forwards are red hot commodities in the portal so I totally understand if we can't get that piece. A power forward in the A10 is a luxury, not a necessity. The Okoro and Nesbitt transfers don't happen if the coaching staff does not play the recruiting long game. Slow and steady wins the race.

If this prison revolt cuts into Sports Plus I’m going to head down there and calm the situation down myself. Im already up past my bedtime.

I don't know what Nesbitt's situation was at Memphis specifically. When Nesbitt transferred there midseason, it's clear that Penny wasn't quite ready for him. He even told the press at the time that even though he thinks Nesbitt is an incredible talent, he doesn't know how much he'll play this season, but supports the move so he can practice, get on campus, take classes, etc. Even if he thought he was a one-and-done, that didn't apply to a single spring semester. It would've been next year. Penny promised a lot of guys a lot of things and his roster was oversubscribed. But Nesbitt, Jeffries, Baugh, and Ellis are all transferring so he has a couple spots open now. Nolley, Williams, Cisse, and Quinones all could test the draft waters. Penny was counting on having multiple guys go pro so that spaces would naturally open up for incoming players. With all of his potential pro prospects looking like second rounders at best (IMO) and suddenly a logjam in younger classes and certain positions, it looks to me like a bunch of guys are suddenly not interested in fighting for spots. The interesting thing is that with four transferring in a relatively short time frame, there are now spots available. Regardless of where things stand with Memphis' roster right now, it clearly was not a healthy situation to have that many talented players within a year or two of each other all at once, when all of them expect to play in the NBA someday. And clearly they didn't want to hang around and see what happened. I'm not going to pile on Nesbitt before knowing any details of his specific situation. As far as I'm concerned, it's not that different from the rest of them unless we find out otherwise.

So, on Rashad Williams, I have gone back and forth on this addition. Ultimately, I am excited. We add someone who has a lot of experience having to move to get open. Having to shoot while being harassed and guarded heavily. This year, we had phenomenal shooting when teams did not guard us, but we disappeared (well somewhat) when we got into conference and the average A10 defense. Williams can help us. He may not have a perfect average, but he will not go into a shell against SBU style defense. Also, with the attention our other players bring, he could have a monster year. For example, are teams gonna have a third 3pt defender, when the first two cover GJ and JP? Or, on the other end, is GJ going to be able to fly under the radar and destroy some teams?

This is absolutely a fair question. We recruited experience and instant offense this season from the transfer portal instead of youth to develop. I'm guessing this is the case at a lot of schools, given the glut of transfers this season. But I really don't want Jimerson and Strickland to go anywhere.

wow, this is a surprise. i admit i dont follow the ladies as close as the men, however, it always seemed to me she was at worst the 3rd option and got tons of time. sorry to see her leave as i really liked her. i am not liking all this transfer stuff both men's and women's.

Nice! So is everyone back on the Ford bandwagon now?

We play a 4 out. Nesbitt, Thatch, or Perkins can guard any 4 in the A10. Yuri Nesbitt Perkins Thatch/Hargrove/Jimmerson Okoro

It's the player and his family's responsibility to figure out if they're the 12/13th player on the roster. This isn't 1978 where all you had to rely on was the coach's word. There's plenty of information available. Even an MBM can figure out who the end of the bench players are.

I like this "Big" lineup, when needed. Nesbitt @ point, 3 3-point shooters and lots of strength inside. Matchup problems for smaller A-10 teams. Bell 6'10 Okoro 6'9 Perkins 6'6 Nesbitt 6'6 Jimerson 6'5

In my opinion TJ Hargrove has the highest ceiling of any of the SLU players on last year's team. But he's raw. Need to add a little more basketball player to the athlete.

They were the #1 ranked defense in the country so it's not like they were running around with their heads cut off...

I hope you are correct about Nesbitt serving as the backup point guard. That is an area of concern. From what I've seen from Williams and looking at his stats, he's not going to create for others. I love the fact that we now have a bunch of scoring options, but we need another reliable ballhandler/facilitator.

TJ's gonna play... I think he's going to be one of our most important players these next two-three seasons.

I agree with your point. If you recruit kids with the promise of playing time and then recruit over them, it will lead to difficulties in the program. The example of Strickland is a little bit difficult because (i) we were always already recruiting Nesbitt, so it's not like the staff changed it's mind after getting Strickland, and (ii) Perkins coming back could not have been anticipated. In other words, we haven't brought in anyone new at Strickland's position other than Nesbitt, who Strickland likely knew about and who was always a priority. I think the fact that the staff didn't make a harder push for Kern (who you and I both know is more than talented enough to play at this level), does speak to your point of them being careful about possibly recruiting over guys already in the program like Strickland and Hargrove.

You guys worry too much about players' feelings about PT. The top programs are filled with talented players all the way to the end of the bench. If SLU is going to get there we need depth too. The attitude we need to cultivate is that I'm going to work as hard as I can because I want to play and win. If I'm not playing that much, I work harder and my chance will come. Winners have confidence in their abilities to beat out others. To quote Eddie Reese 14 time NCAA Champion Swim Coach, "80% of athletes like to win, 20% hate to lose." It's those 20% you want. So you can go to a good team that wins and you may not play as much as you want or you can go to East Bum F#%& Polytechnic and play all ya want but lose. Fill all scholarships with the best you can that fit what you need and coach em up. It'll all shake out in the end.

The Nesbitt-Perkins-Williams combo has explosive potential. As in, we could be scoring 100+ multiple times next season or it could be volatile in that one or more guys isn't getting fed enough and things go south. When you look at it on paper: Outgoing: French, Goodwin, Jacobs Incoming: Okoro, Nesbitt, Williams Doesn't look like we're losing much, if at all. It just comes down to Ford getting them to play together.

Other than watching some YouTube videos, I haven’t seen him play, so I can’t truly comment on him being a one-and-done. I thought some people here had suggested that he could be in the NBA in 2-3 years. Anyway, an additional issue I’ve considered is that while Penny’s sales pitch may have interested Jordan, I think that there’s a real chance that SLCA was pushing him to go somewhere other than SLU. That school is trying to gain a national basketball reputation, and they probably felt that they’re better off nationally getting a player to go to Memphis to play for Penny. He may have felt pressured to go somewhere SLCA wanted, and with Penny’s sales pitch added in, he went to Memphis. Remember, there was a time in late summer last year where there were several indications that Nesbitt was going to commit to SLU, so unless those were entirely baseless, the idea of playing in his hometown likely had some appeal to him. Put him in Memphis and away from the people pushing him away from SLU, maybe he thinks about it again and decides what is actually best for him.

Give daddy a stretch 4-5.

Even being a one and done talent doesn’t always equate to getting serious minutes after being thrown into a brand new team in the middle of the conference season. He wouldn’t have known plays, schemes, or rotations. While I think there is more to the reason he left, I don’t look into him not playing much.

Well, they did have a 40 man roster.

Nice of the city inmates to take a 30 minute revolt break from 10:30-11 to allow Frank to break the Nesbitt news. Hats off, guys.

We're getting Fletcher and Madsen, plus Goodwin and French are coming back along with Hightower.

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

Him being from Texas, I'll always remember him as The Lone Star.

Rashad Williams edit was pretty good I thought. I actually think it is awesome / hilarious that Nesbitt first announced his commitment on an over the air news station during which he appeared to be riding in a car while conducting his interview with Frank and then puts out this MS Paint quality edit on his Twitter. It hopefully means that Nesbitt isn't too full of himself and cares more about basketball than this flashy social media stuff.

Brett Jolly was a 3 star if that's worth anything.

I don’t want to start a new thread, but can we change the title of this one to the more official Welcome, Jordan Nesbitt? And where’s the Pitbull gif? Let’s give the man his due.

I can't wait til we play someone and throw the all-STL lineup(s) at them - any combination of Fred, Yuri, TJ, Okoro, Nesbitt, and JP... Would be sweet and I can definitely see some sportscenter top plays coming from any of them

Except he joined in Jan. So depending on when he arrived it takes a while for even a talented incoming Frosh to learn the offense and defense and really just to get acclimated to the D1 game. Memphis was a tourney level team he's trying to break into so there are talented players there also. He's a top 50 level recruit not a 1 and done so I can see him not earning minutes at that point. Memphis has a tourney visit on the line.

Is Madsen more a SG or PG? 19.mpg nearly 7 ppg as a freshman is pretty good. Coach's son oh yeah love to hear announcers harp on that fact. If we get another good guard we may need to run a 4 out 1 in offense to get them all on the court.

we do? okoro has 2 years. linnsen has another year. bell has 3 more years. lorentssen has 4 years. seems like we have the numbers at the bigs. unless you are suggesting we recruit over some of the players, which i am never in favor of. now point guard. there we could use maybe a player as we have a walkon backup and supposedly nesbitt has point guard skills. so that appears is possibly a drop off in talent after yuri. definitely seem to be full up with wings imo.

Maybe the Swede grows into that 4-5, with a full off season he might be that guy

Two

But I don’t think even Penny really believed he was truly a 1-and-done talent. He said that to get a commitment. I mean did anybody here think he was a 1 and done when he was getting crystal balls for SLU 6 months ago? I don’t remember anyone on either the Illinois or Memphis fan boards making a case for that either. Penny said whatever he needed to say to close the deal, which was a lie, which is probably the main reason Nesbitt is leaving Memphis.

Everyone knows Ford gets talent. Recruiting hope springs eternal. It's the losses in games that matter that make people step to the ledge. I don't think he'll ever really get it done (a NCAA tourney game win). But I hope like hell I'm wrong.

Does anyone know why he only played 3 games?

Welcome home Jordan. After reading The One post I was sure this was going to happen. We need a stretch 4 and a strong post protecter big.

Just remembered we play Memphis next season

Give Hargrove a chance to start

This is interesting. It’s getting a top 50 player in the class of 2021 but he just played a few games in college instead of a high school season as a senior. I don’t know if a situation like this will ever happen again.

He is kind of this strange combination of Weaver and Isabell, when he was at Drexel, in the best way possible. I think he is going to be a very good player here, and excel as an instant offense player.

Lol. You beat me to it! Let’s F—king Go!

French is coming back to play Point Guard.....a promise from Ford. Collins is off to the NBA (Lakers want him).

Fake Chapley having his day in the sun.

Carter’s speculation is fun. Certainly more interesting than moving to the MVC, restarting football and hockey coming back.