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Arizona offered in March 2021, basically two months after he landed in their state at Hillcrest Prep. My guess is they saw a 7-footer drop out of the sky into their backyard and wanted to mark their territory. But Sean Miller was fired a few weeks later and that summer Cisse moved to Putnam all the way across the country, so it went stale. Texas Tech offered that April just 4 days after Miller was fired from Arizona. Sometimes the best time to offer a player is during coaching change season and his existing offers might be vanishing. But again - things change, transfers come and go, power conference schools are recruiting over everyone at all times, and offers go stale. In fact, a lot of the schools on his offer list have had coaching changes in 2021 or 2022, including SMU, where he had previously committed. So when he reopened a few weeks ago, there weren't as many established players left in his recruitment as there might otherwise be for a prospect of his level. Really savvy job by our staff on this one.

Drink of choice during games this season:

People have this notion that these guys and their “high ceilings” are being mismanaged by the coaching staff, and then taking their talents elsewhere. The coaches can see how high each player’s ceiling is every day in practice. If they’re not earning minutes during their second season in the program, odds are that ceiling is a lot lower than you think.

This has special meaning for me today posting it from Mr. Worldwide's home town on my way back from El Salvador en route to SLU commencement.

Some folks on this board have been watching basketball for 50+ years. They know that most teams play 8 man rotations. They know that the guys at the end of your bench are easily replaceable. Why are they picking this hill to die on?

Honestly, I'm not opposed to losing prospects such as Andre L and M Strickland.

I'm not going to pump the breaks. I'm in the mood to drink the kool-aid today.

Apropos of nothing, I'd just like to point out that Jake Forrester is a solid name. It has a mythical lumberjack quality to it.

I don't get the fascination with Andre.

The ONLY loss that bothers me is Nesbitt. He was plain and simply electric. Fun to watch. Every time he got the ball. Period. I’ll miss him this season.

Just because you think Ford should do something different his not doing isn’t automatically a weakness.

Who cares about losing Andre and Strickland. They had two years to show what they can do. If it's not good enough, time to move on. No hard feelings. No big deal. That's college bball in 2022.

Imo they both had 2 years. If you can’t earn many minutes other than mop up even with an 8 man rotation it’s probably best you look for a better fit. How many teams actually have 10 players avg more than 10 mpg? Very few. Probably less than half have more than 8 avg over 15 mpg. Why? Because the 9th guy in his 3rd minute is probably not better than the 5th guy in his 32nd minute. I honestly don’t get this desire to play 10+ guys real minutes. Maybe 9 but more often than not I want my top 3-4 guys getting 30+

Momo the Monster! St. Louis legend.....

He’s also played four years of college ball. At this point, his track record in college is more important than his star rating in high school.

10/10 per 40 min in the acc

Here is Cisse's profile from the Putnam Science Academy 2021-22 media guide:

Look at the 2020-21 season, looks to me like Ford went a minimum of 9 deep and even more often 10 deep (with Bell being the 10th) Perkins Goodwin French Jimmer Linnsen Thatch Yuri Jacobs Hargrove Bell Nine players averaged double digit minutes and Bell averaged 8.8 mpg and played in every game, but two. Based on the very recent past, I'm not sure why some people are worried about this. I expect a similar breakdown of minutes this year as we saw in 2020-21. If Perkins doesn't get hurt this past season, Ford is playing 9 deep and if Williams didn't suck so bad, he probably would have gone 10 deep.

It appears that Momo is the big who will ideally transition us to the next year, after Okoro and Forester graduate. I think he will need minutes, to determine what he will be capable of and to retain him. I wonder if Coach Ford might consider starting Momo with Okoro the first 5 min of each half, like he did with Jimmy Bell. That would guarantee him mnutes and the team experience in playing a big lineup for those games when we need it. So the game would open with Momo, Okoro, Perkins, Jimmmerson and Yuri. Thats a tall line up. Not the best defensive line up, but it wouldn't be easy to,q go inside.

Simple solution to getting guys ar the end of the bench more PT....blow more teams out.

There is no pleasing you, Roy.

why were they projects? why did we not improve them in the offseason after one season to at least garner a few more minutes? player development is a huge part of a coach's job imo. the best coaches will develop players.

Yes of course there are. Not in response to you but #1 scoring team Gonzaga. 8th guy got 13 mpg. #3 Arizona 9 th guy got 13 mpg. Not skipping 2 but not looking up South Dakota State. Not even the highest scoring teams play 10 players real minutes in general. We were 48th in the country in scoring in a year that we list our top scorer for the season a few days before the 1st real game. Darn Coach Ford WTF

if you truly have the athletes use them. particularly if you have plans for them. why let them get disgruntled. yes, you want your top players on the court as much as possible, but if they do get temporarily fatigued, their quality of play will suffer until they get a chance to have a quick rest. i'm not saying take them out the rest of the half or for a long stretch. second, there is no doubt playing fast is a far better watch for the fans. a team scoring lots of points and giving the fans lots of action will put butts in the seats. i do agree that the vast majority of teams in college basketball dont do this and st bona is proof that a short bench works as well. but if we continue to bring in fantastic athletes and then bury them on the bench we are going to see big turnovers every year. hey maybe that will work out great. no one really gets what is trending with the stupid rules that are now in effect. myself, i dont like an ever changing roster. no chance to develop those fan relationships that make college basketball fun (assuming the players are producing good players). the days of "next year...." will be over. as we wont know year to year what next year will resemble. but i have said recently a lot, i've now given up on that dream. i will accept that the billikens are never going to be the likes of the playing fast teams like texas tech or west virginia. ford is what he is. it could be a hell of a lot worse. crewsplatt and ekkertime are still embedded in my brain and i would prefer to take ford with whatever weaknesses i see than ever experience those bad days again. you all have to admit, ford has done well with this roster fill dilemna it appears. not many coaches can do that.

not to nitpick, but few players racked up a ton of minutes when McCullar and especially Shannon were out for long periods. I get your point still. A lot of teams do play that deep, but a lot is like 30 or 40 of 364 teams. WVU is another example, they went 10 deep over 10 minutes or more.

Games are not that long and you want your best players on the floor as much as possible, the bottom your roster is not often your best chance of winning, very rare anyone plays 10 or even nine

Shame for Davidson, bc seems like a perfect fit for them.

I'm thinking in this new CBB world with the transfer portal and immediate eligibility that Travis might need to be rethinking his love of the 8 man rotation system. I think he might need to start using 10-12 players on a regular basis or face losing prospects with potential such as Andre L and M Strickland.

With the Bills getting two commitments yesterday, the current A10 rosters looks as such (top returning player in paranthesis): Davidson: 11 pending decisions on Loyer and Brajkovic. (Loyer/Mennenga) Dayton: 12. (Holmes) Duquesne: 13 with 9 newcomers in one transfer, three JUCOs and five freshmen. (Easley) Fordham: 11 with 1 transfer and three verbals. (Quisenberry) Mason: 11 with two transfers and two verbals. (Oduro) Geedubya: 8 with one transfer and one verbal (Bishop) La Salle: 8 with two transfers. (Nickleberry) Loyola: 14 with 4 transfers and three LOIs (Norris) Umass: 10 with 4 transfers (Fernandes) Rhodey: 10 with two transfers and three verbals (Martin) Richmond: 14 with two transfers, one verbal, and the Burton decision. (Gustavson) St. Joes: 13 with two transfers and two verbals. (Reynolds) Saint Louis: 14 with Perkins a non counted scholarship, Courtney counted as on scholarship, two transfers, three signees and one preferred walk-on. (Perkins) St. Bonaventure: 9 with 5 transfers. (None) VCU: 13 with 3 transfers and two verbals. (Baldwin) Latest Bracketology has Dayton as a six seed and us as an 8 seed. VCU and Loyola are in the "Next Four Out" category. My 'Way Too Early' handicapping the latest returns, I'd go (1) Saint Louis, (1) Dayton, (3) VCU, (4) Loyola, (5) Mason, (6) Rhode Island, (7) Davidson, (8) Richmond, (9) Fordham, (10) Umass, (11) Geedubya, (12) St. Joes, (13) La Salle, (14) Bonaventure, and (15) Duquesne.

I give finding Forrester 4 stars. The movie not so much.

It would be great if Okoro would become a better passer out of the post. That said, he was the best traditional big man in the A10 last season.

With one scholarship remaining and a clear need for a D. Jones type back up PG, I would think there are quite a few PGs who have one year of eligibility remaining who would like to be a part of a top 20-25 , NCAA qualifying team for their last year. While it's only on paper, I think today's 2 commitments solidify that preseason expectation.

Let's see: Goodwin, French, Yuri, Jimerson, Nesbitt, Gordon, Is that enough for you?

Fun to look at numbers: Forrester last season: 16.4 mpg, 52% FG, 62% FT, 3.9 rpg, 0.3 apg, 0.8 bpg Linssen last season: 14.4 mpg, 54% FG, 77% FT, 3.7 rpg, 0.6 apg, 0.6 bpg. The only significant delta is FT%. Both had injury/illness issues.

This^ It's easy to be excited about a 7'0" freshman but having a proven secondary center eliminates any concern of his rawness or maturity, readiness. Having both is a fuoking godsend. Year of the Billiken.

I'm not sure he's a drop off, he's a drop off offensively, but better defensively than Linssen. I was going to say Forrester's biggest thing that stood out to me is that he doesn't foul much. This had me excited until the Cisse announcement.

This is the source I saw that listed him as a Top 100, 4 star https://pittsburghsportsnow.com/2017/02/12/pitt-offers-4-star-forward-jake-forrester/ That was as a junior, so his ranking must have dropped a bit his senior year. And as BBF pointed out, ESPN listed him as a 4 star. Regardless of which ranking or label, it's fair to classify him as a highly rated big coming out of high school.

Ya I don't see him in the same light as Strickland, Traore, etc. I think he could be a problem in the a10 from the jump. But that could be the blue Kool aid flowing heavy today.

Yeah I mean I don't think it's any secret that I don't like Ford as a coach. Good, likable, charismatic guy. Had some unlucky breaks here at SLU. But I'm not sold on him as the right guy for the job more so based on what he did at OK St and even UMass. But even I'm coming around to him this spring. He has built a really good roster. I hope the results follow. I'm excited.

For the sake of accuracy: https://247sports.com/player/jake-forrester-45572468/

I'm on my knees corrected on my front court concerns.

No kidding! On paper this is exactly what was needed. An experienced big who can step in in case of emergency and a developmental big who I’m betting can be a rim protector this year. This was a very productive day!!

Mouhamadou...I'm sure Guy Phillips will have no issues with getting that correct. He has potential to be a monster on defense with that size. Front court is now set. Let's get a backup PG!

I think what wasn’t taken into account with Yuri and turnovers is we literally had no one that could or would score consistently without Yuri setting them up. People also think you can just take away the plays that didn’t work. That’s not the way it happens. If you take away him attacking the lane you take away the successful plays also. I think Perk and Pick will change that this year. Imo it may decrease Yuri’s assists a bit but should also decrease his turnovers. I could see 7/3 ish

There's no way Okoro plays 35 mpg. Okoro played more because he got better later in the season, but also because Linnsen got injured in the Auburn game and missed a month. When he came back, his production was down the rest of the season. I don't think he was every fully recovered.

Nobody here is complaining about undeserving of preseason predictions here. But since we're talking about expectations ahead of the season, the above thread seems relevant. There are two very distinct points of view that can lead to the "Billikens have under performed under Ford's tenure". The first is the "SLU Hater" POV. This includes conference mates that don't like it when we get preseason love from national personalities. This one is pretty easy to understand and you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to reach the root cause of it. Then there's the "Rabid Billiken Fan" POV. My theory on this one is very much under the banner of die hards being hypercritical. We see all the warts because we analyze every dribble, pass and shot. It's why people outside of fanbases, including national media members, can point out how valuable a player is to a team all while that fanbase will complain about all the mistakes that player has made in his career.

Minor detail that doesn't really matter, but Bacot isn't coming back for his extra COVID year. This coming season will be his normal senior year. He could theoretically come back for another year after this season. UNC's main guys (Bacot, Davis, Love) are exactly the type of marginal NBA prospects / excellent college athletes that are benefitting the most from NIL and IMO are examples of NIL working / being good for college basketball (if not necessarily good for mid-major programs). There are of course numerous examples of NIL being shady / underhanded & being bad overall for college basketball, so important to point out the opposite. Without NIL, these guys would have likely turned pro & college basketball would have lost 3 guys who because of their NCAA run have become notable players. I'd put Drew Timme at Gonzaga in this category of athlete as well. Timme entered the draft & is going through the process still. He may go late in the 2nd round, but IMO it will be difficult for him to catch on with an NBA team. He very well may pull out of the draft, but I wonder if the ample NIL opportunities for UNC made their decisions to stay in college a no brainer whereas Timme's is more difficult because of less NIL coming his way.

As of the 2020 season, SLU had the 72nd highest Men's Basketball budget per Department of Education records. Here is where the A-10 shakes out, even though some of these schools likely have changed their commitment to spending in recent years. 3 Man Weave combed through the data a few years ago to compile this list. I've seen it on Twitter from time to time and it is a really interesting look at the CBB landscape! https://www.three-man-weave.com/3mw/college-basketball-budgets-2020