Leaderboard

I did not read this, or the cited post. I think you deserve a gold star for reading that long post. Good job!

That's what fans do. They think they know more than a 20 year, successful coach knows. LOL. There is so much we the fans don't know but think we do. Nobody but the inner SLU coaching and player circle truly know what the injuries and after effects of covid-19 did to the team after the pause. Those who think they know better ..... don't. I for one am not for coaching changes. I think Ford is the long term answer SLU needs. Great programs tend to have stability, not continual coaching and other disruptive change for the sake of change. You are just "chasing your tail" if you do that.

I believe firmly that this year we had a full fledged NCAA team that could have gone far. I believe the reason we got nowhere were the 34 days of quarantine imposed by St. Louis and SLU rules. After the quarantine our team just became erratic, some days hot some days cold. This year's outcome had little to do with Ford.

I grew up in Maine. If you're looking for a Billiken or SLU Alumni club, good luck. Years ago there was a small one in Boston, which is not far from Nashua, but I don't know about today. Some tips: Never wear a Yankee hat. Eat some full bellied fried clams, yummy. Drop your midwestern r's; eg Car becomes Cah. Never go to a Starbucks if there's a Dunkin Donuts nearby (really SB's coffee doesn't hold a candle to DD's). Buy a snow blower. Learn to ski. Get on LL Bean's catalogue list. If you go to the beach, your first dip in the ocean will feel like you've joined the polar bear club. Hockey rules the winter sports scene and Pro sports rule over college sports. Increase your car insurance coverage. You can afford it because NH is pretty much tax free. Booze is really cheap w/o the state tax. If you're a republican, keep it to yourself. If someone calls you wicked you're good to go. If someone calls you a Dink, run, it's not a term of endearment. You'll love the fall season, although, it lasts only about 3 weeks before Old Man winter comes roaring down from Canada (hence the snow blower purchase). Enjoy your move. It really is a very nice part of the country.

Okoro is from Imo, Nigeria. Imo should definitely be a sister city.

I generally agree with your observations, but I don't think Ford is on the hot seat. 1st. The threshold for changung coaches should be really high right now as the easy transfer rules mean a coaching change results in the immediate loss of the entire roster. Coach Ford has lead us out of darkness to respectability in spite if some really bad luck with S2 and Covid. If you look at the attitude of his players, its really impressive. How good will we be this year. There is a lot of coolaid flowing on the board right now. But the truth is, we have a number of big question marks. Perkins is the only proven double digit scorer that we have. How productive will Okoro be? He looks like an NBA, draft pick, but has very modest div 1 numbers. Its looking like Perkins will get a lot of time at the 4 spot, but he really doesnt like defending forwards. Nesbitt brings in some big high school numbers, but what kind of outside shooter will he be with the longer 3 point line? How long before he is comfortable with the speed of div 1, and our offense and defense. We have a lot of strong candidates for the other scoring guard position, but nine have consistently put together offense and defense. Yuri owns the point position, but will he recapture the enegy of his freshman year and will his free thow percentages improve. Ford has his work cut out for him. There is a lot of potential, but a lot of ground to cover.

Of all the issues the team had this year, I’m not sure I’d have JGood and Jacobs being our backup point guards at the top of the list. Yuri plays more than 30 minutes a game. Having JGood and Jacobs covering the remaining minutes was the least of our worries this year.

We can play whatever game we want as long as that game makes SPUMAC look bad.

In Grawer's heyday, the starting lineup was Jim Roder (DeSmet), Monroe Douglas (McKinney) , Roland Gray (McKinney) , Anthony Bonner (Vashon) and Redditt Hudson (U City). The bench included Anthony Jones (Vason) and Ramon Trice (Vashon). I think Ted Mimlitz (SLUH) was also part of that team. 1985 or 86 maybe?

All over the country, even in the top programs, there are 12th and 13th players who simply don't measure up to the rest of the roster. Signing 13 players with comparable talent and high ceilings sounds good in theory but it doesn't play out in reality.

-I thought it was a rule that SVU had to be the preseason favorite

I have absolutely ZERO faith that Richmond or the Bonnies will put together a good OOC, and it will end up hurting the conference.

All i want in 2022 is Larry Hughes, Jr.

Be sure to visit my uncle's brewery in Suncook, about a half an hour north of Nashua: https://www.oddballbrewingnh.com/

Yea I appreciate all the Isabell comps, but Williams is clearly J.R. Smith (Dion Waiters?) in a smaller frame.

Oh hell yea. For the record, we should hang up the now annual "most talented SLU team ever??" quote until a team lives up to said hype and outproduces our ACTUAL most talented team ever -- the 2012-13 squad. We would have made our first S16 if we didn't get shafted by being sent out West to play an under-seeded Oregon home game in Round 2 (their 73% 3-point percentrage is seared into my brain). Also, of course, if our head coach hadn't f'ing died mid-season. This team was the sh1t. Beating Brad Stevens 3 times in one season is also a favorite stat of mine. We won 15 of 16 games heading into the dance too, with the one loss being at X, in OT. FFFF.

We recorded the majority of this episode on Sunday night, we had heard the rumblings about the big news coming down the pipe at 10:30, we debated recording a Nesbitt segment just in case but we were nervous we'd jinx it. We decided to go ahead and record just before the National Championship and release this morning. You'll notice a segment, post Nesbitt commitment talk where we discuss Nesbitt being in the portal. Funny part is between recording sessions I upgraded to a new macbook air so if you watch on youtube you can see the difference in quality of my video when we transition from Rashad Williams to Jordan Nesbitt.

i dont think it is unbelievable that baylor won, however it is incredible they won and dominated with such ease. didnt see that coming. if anyone was going to blow the other out, i would have bet it would be gonzaga, but after what baylor did to houston, i was expecting a good game. the worst part is booby knight's legend season continues.

You are an idiot. Are you really that dumb or is this an act?

Yeah, that's one I should have definitely included.

Well, Few wasn't chosen tonight.

So you’re saying Jordan Nesbitt

It's going to be Epic!

They needed to get that one loss out of the way. Get the feeling, don’t let it happen again. Many are called; Few are chosen.

Sikeston/Miner/Stlouis?????

Baylor beating these guys like a drum. Pretty insane the physicality mixed with the skill. That +4.5 and +165 was a STEAL.

Not sure about the Zags players but the inmates at the Justice Center sure did.

they're starving me

Baylor the advantage of the early Saturday game and an easy dispatch of Houston; Gonzaga goes to OT against UCLA on the late game. Flat as three day old cola.

This is hard to read, for obvious reasons.

Yeah dk, west coast but even an 8:20 edt start gets you the west coast after work.

Now I don't know what Ford tells players when he recruits them to SLU. I hope he says he recruits the very best players he can then lets the competition in practice determine who plays. Good players want to play, but the best want to compete against the best to see who plays. Disagree with both of you. - Yes, you recruit the very best players. Recruiting over players??? If you are straight with kids from day 1, they know Ford is going to bring the best players he can. Competition decides who plays. Not recruiting the best you can get is the recipe for mediocrity. - Equivolent of Jimmy Bell? Love Jimmy but don't think you recruit players you know are a project, unless that is the only way you can get a 6'10" kid into your program. Here's hoping Bell ends up being a star, but IMO you bring in the best you can. I suggested Sekou Gassama might be worth a look. A athletic big that might have a fairly high ceiling that has been slowed by a junior year HS injury. Now a kid like that might be worth a look if Ford agrees he possibly has a high ceiling.

Swamp east MO grad here - never equate Sikeston with Cape Girardeau - fighting words for sure.

So, I like the idea of Williams, he’s a player we haven’t had for a minute - high production, low efficiency. We desperately needed someone to put up shots with Goodwin and French leaving. However, Williams has borderline terrible advanced stats (cbref link here). I’m hoping he can do more with less now that he’ll finally be on a decent team, but that feels very much TBD. He feels way more like a “let’s see what he can do for us off the bench” type than a sure fire starter. Maybe his gunner attitude will rub off on Gibson?

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.

did you watch any memphis games? didnt look that complicated.

How about a power forward transfer? SLU still needs height and and length in that position. I know we’re looking at a few PF transfers and the signing would not hurt feelings on the team. I hope.

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.

Can I just state here how entertaining it is for me to read Tiger Board on a day like today? It just fills me with joy watching them grasp at straws. It’s the best.

Yuri, Goodwin, Nesbitt, Perkins, Okoro Thats my guess... Just a guess though

He'd be a junior next season. Numbers are up from last season, when he averaged 13.1 PPG and 6.6 RPG. Slashline is .573/.265/.734, all down a bit from last season but shooting 57% on that volume is eye opening. Not a great three point shooter but good enough to keep defenses honest, with that size. From Scott Burgess: "Super impressed with Mineral Area sophomore PF Malevy Leons. Mobile 4 can really shoot it with a free & easy stroke. Bouncy around the rim on both ends finishing slams & swatting shots." From before the season: "Leons is highly skilled, athletic and plays primarily on perimeter. He can create mismatches all over the court and shoot over anybody. He uses his length well and has a high IQ. Now standing at 6'10, Leons is looking to improve on a stellar freshman season. He is working on adding strength as he gets ready for the 4 year level. He currently has offers from schools in the Missouri Valley, C-USA, Big Sky, MAC, Horizon and Sun Belt. Multiple HM schools are keeping in touch with Leons but haven't offered yet. Right now, he plans to wait until the Spring before making a decision. He hopes to be able to take several visits to schools to get a better feel for programs." I don't buy the "plays primarily on the perimeter" line, given that he shoots 3.4 3-pointers per game and scores 19 points a game. He's getting to the rim and apparently is great in transition. Coaches are following him on Twitter from NKU, East Carolina, St. John's, Georgia Southern, SEMO, Southern Miss, Utah Valley, Montana State, Jacksonville State, Chicago State, McNeese State, Evansville, Holy Cross, Towson, Creighton, Eastern Michigan, Youngstown State, UMass-Lowell, Murray State, UC-Riverside, Florida Atlantic, Nebraska, Morehead State, Stetson, Loyola-Chicago, Sam Houston State, Tulsa, South Carolina State, New Orleans, UIC, Tennessee-Martin, Fresno State, SIUC, South Dakota State, Cleveland State, Bethune-Cookman, Coastal Carolina, Oregon State, and Iona. So yeah, the whole gamut.

I cannot disagree with your post but for 1 year with the extra scholarship why not do it for one year if Russell is a good team member and a student. The extra scholarship means 1 more player on the bench and someone will be unhappy and if Russell is good with that role then reward him with a year of free tuition.

JGood and Jacobs were our backup PGs as well. How did that go for us?

There sure is a lot of inconsistency on this Board. Either the 34 day mid-season COVID-19 shut down hurt or did not? I have yet to read a post from anyone who says that we returned to our pre-shut down form afterwards. Instead, I read posts about (insert any key player's name here) shooting percentage decreased, steals decreased, assists per game decreased and just did not look the same. Objectively, the entire team seemed to struggle, good shooters suddenly "lost" their shot, turnovers increased, rebounding dominance lessened and we lost some key games - several of which blowout losses in which we flat out looked bad. Stamina issues and tired legs appeared prevalent. During this stretch, we played some guys more (Hargrove), we went with newcomers (Linssen) over proven veterans (French), we tried to shorten the bench, we went back to the proven veterans, we looked like we turned the corner but then not. In short, nothing fully worked. We looked horrible against a bad LaSalle team, an average Dayton team and lost to a depleted and average VCU team. The same "experts" who crowned Jim Crews "National Coach of the Year" ingnored the real effects of COVID and `1 guy apparently told us that players should resume to 100% after 2 games. It did not happen, and this promising NCAA Tournament year evaporated right in front of our eyes, just like last year, anger and disappointment mounted and someone had to be blamed. Surely it could not be something out of our control, such as COVID 19, which took away last year's postseason and I suggest this year's as well. And look no further than our own conference rival, Dayton, which was to be an NCAA #1 seed last year - and instead did not play an NCAA Tourney game last year or this year. Assume their coach is on the "hot seat" as well. No, 40,000 Frenchmen cannot be wrong, and likewise, this Board and its conventional wisdom that this year's team was the most talented team in Billiken history, that this year's roster is proof that Coach Ford is a great recruiter and that this season's lack of success is proof that Coach Ford is a bad "x's and o's" coach, a bad "in game" coach, cannot win an NCAA Tournament game - and even further - Coach Ford won't win an NCAA Tournament game. Some are the same clowns (A Bomb) spreading such nonsense two years ago. Instead of responding back with facts or arguments, just more repeated "back hand" shots at Coach Ford and a "bad post" to me no matter what I write - a badge of honor. Also, there are other posters who never supported Coach Ford in the first place and are now intent on taking "back hand" shots at him and the program whenever the team loses a game, struggles... while acting like the biggest and best Billiken fan. Fake. Has Coach Ford made some mistakes? Of course. Should Coach Ford be questioned and second-guessed? Of course. But again, put me in the small minority who questions this Board's conventional wisdom. And at the risk of providing any type of response, and being taken out of context to questions such as "which of your children do you like best?", how "great" of a recruiter are you if you recruit a wing who is not a very good shooter and even worse at the free-throw line? How "great" of a recruiter are you If you recruit a 6' 7" forward who cannot shoot beyond 5 foot or make a free-throw? How "great" of a recruiter are you if your PG these past two years doesn't score, isn't very good at free throws and doesn't draw a defender? How "great" of a recruiter are you if none of your 3 "bigs" can stretch defenses? How "great" of a recruiter are you if your wings cannot create their own shot off the dribble? How realistic is it to expect a college coaching staff to "develop" players at the upper D1 level -- meaning to become "a shooter", to become a "scorer", to become a guy "with good handles", to learn how to dribble like a guard? Despite the wisdom of a respected poster on this Board who tried to remind us that players generally are who they are when they arrive on campus - with a few exceptions, and yet improvement of who they are is probable, this Board's conventional wisdom is that our players are all "elite" , presumably because they chose us over our competition, and that the major deficiencies in their games are the result of proper "player development" by the coaching staff and poor "x's and o's" by the coaching staff. I say false. Has anyone thought about how difficult it is to assemble a team with so many "unique" players? if "match ups" are so important and critical (and they are) against opposing teams, has anyone thought about "matchups" among our own players. For instance if we have too many players that bring skill A but not enough players that bring skill B, isn't this a recruiting issue as opposed to a "player development" and an "x's and o's" deficiency? I say that a coaching staff can only do so much. Coaches can improve a player's footwork, spacing, technique, knowledge of the game and put them In a position to succeed. Also, a coaching staff can put them through a good off-season strength and conditioning programs to increase their size ( or decrease in the case of Bell), strength, shooting range (outside shooting is greatly dependent upon leg strength), quickness, agility and jumping ability; however, there are limits as to what a player can do and not do. Polishing up a player is far different than creating a player. Just because our team has a need for a certain player to possess a certain skill does not mean that the coaching staff failed if the player does not develop this skill. To say otherwise is false. And further, who determines which player must have a complete game from day 1 and which player does not? Why is it okay for our Freshman PG to only pass and not score, play defense or rebound and yet our freshman wing not be allowed to only be a three point shooter? Why, as a Freshman, does he need to create his own shot, shoot off the dribble and shut down the other team's wing? I too can point to national championship teams who had role players as a three-point specialist. Maybe because the team lacks someone else to stretch the defense because our "bigs" cannot? and because our wings can score but cannot shoot? Because our PG has some skills but not others? And why are we missing such players with such skills? More lack of player development? Or "x''s and o's" ? bad recruiting? And let's not bring up S2 again.