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Every team misses on half their roster. It’s a numbers game.

The results they've each achieved at SLU are pretty comparable: .550 conference W/L percentage. One NCAA tournament appearance each. Ford has 2 NIT appearances. Majerus had 1 CBI appearance. Majerus had two finishes in the bottom half of the conference, Ford has had one. Majerus had Situation 1. Ford had Situation 2. Ford has built recruiting roots in the region more - with some success. Majerus pursued foreign players more - with some success.

It's only amazing because you're not as familiar with the transfer outcomes of other teams' rosters. Check out where Dayton's guys end up. It looks a lot like ours.

Coach McKillop recruits to a different playing style but using your standard, he has guys riding his bench who don't fit his playing style either. Have you ever heard of Chris Ford or Emory Lanier? Ford and Lanier are athletic slashers who were on Davidson's roster last year. They barely played. Athletes at the end of your bench serve a valuable purpose in practice if nothing else. They help you practice against the speed and length you'll face against more athletically gifted teams.

Just now getting around to this…Simon Becher was in town this past weekend in case anyone missed it. Here is his assist on one of the Whitecaps FC 2 goals in a 2-1 win over stlCiTY2. Flick on header after making a run: https://twitter.com/mlsnextpro/status/1523118232462266368?s=21&t=qdIevoAeCZEHl85rZxDGTQ And here he is with AJ after the game: https://twitter.com/slumenssoccer/status/1523414665052946432?s=21&t=qdIevoAeCZEHl85rZxDGTQ

The discussion of RM over TF has to be one of the dumbest discussions ever on Billikens.com Is there a person alive that wouldn't take a healthy RM over TF? So what? He's dead.

I have a problem with this one..

I dunno. Hologram Rick Majerus would probably out-coach Travis Ford.

find a post i made saying rickma was not a good coach. i have constantly said he was a basketball genius. i just never agreed with his creaming the roster approach to building his team or some of the stories of his off the court treatment of people.

What about Rick Barnes?

Well in all fairness you have to give RM credit for the two dance trips that Crews was along for the ride.

Billiken runners Toby Gillen and Emily Nichols join the podcast to tell us about their successful A10 Track season including their 1st and 2nd place finishes at the A10 Championships in Richmond this past weekend! Is the A10 going to 16 teams? Who is a good candidate? What's important for SLU fans, geographic proximity or success level? Mael Crespin visits SLU, will choose between SLU and Washington State. Baseball sweeps a delayed 2 game set in the City of Brotherly Love Softball slides down the stretch, swept by George Mason. Tennis competes at the A10 Championship Pete loves Chess. View the full article

I understand your point and agree. The one thing Crews accomplished was keeping the players together without a significant transfer. Not an easy feat in today's basketball landscape, especially with a coaching change.

If Strickland were on one of Sodie's teams he would have gotten meaningful minutes and we would have been raving about his freakish athleticism. I agree, he was worth the giving a scholarship to. Dad played in the NBA and he had athleticism that you can't teach. Ford has assembled a roster with better players, so the kid the kid couldn't get meaningful minutes. Time to move on, like the more than a 1,000 transfers from around the country. No big deal. As long as it is the bottom of your roster transferring and not the top of your roster, then no worries. For the most part, Ford has done very well in this area during his tenure (survived the Yuri scare).

Fixed it for you

I would not disagree with anyone that wants to call RM a basketball genius. TF's coaching is not comparable to Majerus'.

I'll stick with the coach that's alive. Thanks!

This is a long period of time. I’d bet if you knew other rosters like you know ours you’d likely find more or less the same to be true. It’s easier to hit when you’re mostly recruiting 4 and 5 star guys but when you’re at 2-4, sometimes you have a spot and see someone who has something so you take a chance. Markhi is a prime example. Extreme athleticism, can he turn into a real player? He left but was it worth the gamble? I say yes.

Bottom line if the players all want to be in the playing group of 7-8 then simple math tells you that 5-6 will not. Naturally it may appear that they are misses but if you hit on all 13 as you say then you would have to play 13 players and you might lose all of them due to unhappiness.

Glaze, Manning, Bell, and Gillmann all had seasons averaging at least 12 mpg; Moore, Reynolds, Yarbrough, Gordon, Nesbitt 20 mpg. Of there 18 combined seasons there were only 4 with under 11 mpg.

A big nothing burger. Their hands are tied and they know it.

The teams above us don't want our bench players. They also don't want the guys who are talented but erratic. They want our stars. If you want one of our players to move up, you're rooting for one of our top 3 players to leave.

If your definition of Ricma's rosters is disjointed, give me more of that...please!

but taj, nesbit didnt get the right look imo. now we know he was somewhat a bad teamate and gave ford the reason to more or less not give him highlight time, but still nesbit is better than hampton. gordon was a known headcase. he did it to himself. hell we were hearing the stories of him beating up freshmen teamates his junior year of high school. ford was wrong to even mess with that poison. and i am sure the other gordon teams all believed they could change him as well. not going to happen. as to the look of the roster, our fellow mbm's on the main board think this roster is nba finals ready. i just shake my head. lot of decent individual parts but this is the most disjointed roster since rickma's all star teams. imo ford has a problem. hope i am wrong.

All right. Let me try to clarify what I'm trying to say .... if I can. I am surprised with the amount or number of guys that come and occupy a spot on our roster and are given athletic scholarships to play basketball, and then don't play basketball. And when they leave, they go to crap places. Lesser teams in lesser conferences. or even down to the JUCO level. I actually get that with Bell and Strickland ---- they couldn't showcase here so they are going down an entire school level to play and get noticed and return triumphant. Or something like that. I'm okay with that. I guess overall I am questioning the quality and basketball ability these guys do not have yet they sit on our bench for extended periods of time. The list is nearly incredulous ..... KC Hankton, Madani Diarra, Dustin McGuire, Anthony Mitchell, Ingvi Gudmuindsson, Andre Lorentsson, Markhi Strickland, Grandy Glaze, John Manning, Zeke Moore, Gordon, Nesbitt, Bell, Traore, Tanner Lancona, Miles Reynolds, the trash can kid, Milik Yarbrough, Brett Jolly, Austin Gilman ..... do I need to go on? Don't take any one of these guys and defend them (ala Reynolds to Pacific then Oklahoma). That is not my point so I guess my point is man, we sure do miss on a lot of guys with supposed "talent" that never amount to breaking wind let alone breaking records. That's just amazinbg to me.

Give me Rick Majerus over the Bills current HC any day of the week as he can coach rings around Travis Ford!