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He played well at the Edwardsville Live Period event this weekend with Vashon. Vashon's depth is overwhelming and as of now them and Staley are the two best MO HS teams. Staley's two studs are definitely one to keep an eye on. Kayden Fish just got an offer from Xavier after mainly low major interest and Kyan Evans is a dynamic point guard. Jordan Pickett from Belleville East, Iziah Purvey from Webster Groves, and Bradley Longcor III from Quincy were other guys who stood out.

It takes two to tango. It is getting more and more difficult to get premier Q1 opponents like Purdue or Alabama or Duke to come to your place for a home-and-home or even a two-for-one. Look at Auburn. We had to go there and Birmingham to get them to come to us. Purdue will go to Indianapolis --- not so much Davidson, North Carolina. Alabama has played Dayton in Cincinnati. Purdue played Dayton also in Indy a few years back. Dayton got Kansas' number but that was at an MTE in Orlando. No one will go to YouDee arena, ditto Chaifetz. The Bonnies got Clemson in Charleston, SC. Duke will play you at Barclays or MSG. Yes, we all want better competition but sometimes it just doesn't work out that way. Maryland, Providence and Miami won't come here but they will meet us in Uncasville, CT. I don't really want the Evansvilles and Central Arkansases and UA-Pine Bluff's of the world either but I understand the difficulty of scheduling. I'd like to play Mizzou and Illinois every year but that won't happen. I think we have too many Mo Valley teams right now but that's better than Eastern Illinois or IUPUI in my book.

we have to bribe the students every game with gifts and food now to get decent turnouts. plus selfishly, i have been a loyal fan for years and paid thousands of dollars to sit in my seats and now i would just give those seats up and sit in lesser location so students can have my seat and then not show up half the time? nah

It is a really good game for Davidson to get. Kudos to them. You are comparing a neutral site event game versus home buy game. Apples and oranges. Plus our schedule is already gone of the toughest we've had in years. Really odd to gripe about.

Don’t forget that those corporate no shows are still paying for those seats. That revenue is nothing to sneeze at. I wish people sat there also but I would not want to give the money up if I was SLU

I hear you and it's probably all in the marketing, I think my point of view comes from my disdain for the question: "Are you in Blue Crew/SLUnatics?" like it was some club.

Predictions are fine, but last season SLU played 14 Q1/Q2 games. Teams in the Last Four, Indiana played 22, Wyoming played 15, Rutgers played 20 and Notre Dame played 18. I don't want to rely on the NCAA Selection Committee to give us a break. I want SLU to be safely in the tourney at the highest seed possible. Give me Purdue over Evansville. If you want to rely on the Committe, so be it. If we can't win our fair share of Q1/Q2 games, then we don't deserve to be in the NCAA Tourney. It is hard to win Q1/Q2 games that you don't play.

I think it would help the student support, but I think it would make the fetz look tackier. When you do the students behind the bench, theres a drop off so students standing do not interfere with GA behind them. This would look ugly compared to what it looks like now. You see what Penn state is doing more and more with outdated arenas, or ones built brand new and designed for that. Here is Auburns, try and picture what that would look like here. -And while I say it would help student support, I don't trust our students involvement enough to make it worth it.

I’m willing to bet they’d still buy tickets if the first 10 rows of the camera side were all inclusive.

I don't believe moving a student section in Chaifetz will entice better student attendance, unless it is to an all inclusive suite. The one factor I do believe would entice better attendance is a consistent winning program that participates in the NCAA Tournament nearly every year.

FWIW T-Rank has SIUE at #219 overall. 1st in the OVC just slightly better than Morehead State, but still pretty bad overall. To be honest, I liked it a lot more when Murray St & Belmont were in the OVC and SIUE had no realistic shot at ever securing the OVC auto-bid. I don't like the potential scenario of SLU being worlds better than SIUE, but failing to make the postseason and SIUE making headlines by getting into the NCAA tournament as an auto-bid.

You are totally ignoring the fact that SLU has to have a certain number home games for season ticket holders / to generate revenue for the program. That is why they play buy games & is why it matters a lot where "they toss the ball up at the start of the game". Taking your preference for tougher games to the extreme - If SLU wanted to, it could put together the toughest non-conference schedule in the country. They could accept buy games from top level teams and play 12-14 Q1 road games in the NC. However, they can generate more revenue and build the program better with home games. Not to mention it would be silly to not use our state of the art arena.

Kind of an apples and oranges comparison with Indiana, Rutgers, and ND. Using IU as an example, they played 1 Q1 and 2 Q2 games in non-conference play. Their high total is mainly a product of being in the Big 10, where between regular season and tournament play they got 16 Q1 or Q2 games. SLU has put together a great non-conference schedule, arguably the toughest in the conference. By virtue of bigger conferences going to a 20 game schedule, this is about as good as it can get in OOC. To get more Q2 games, the A-10 needs some organic improvement.

at least those corporate no shows generate program income.

Based on current predictive metric rankings, SLU projects to have 14 Q1/2 games. 10 Q3 and 4 Q4. There are still 3 games to be added. Last season, including postseason play, SLU had 7 Q1, 7 Q2, 10 Q3, and 10 Q4. A few of this year’s games are right on the border of a higher quadrant. At the end of the day, they have put a better schedule together than last season by simply having less Q4 games. The most important thing this year will be improving their record against Q1/Q2, where they were only 5-9 last season (1-6 Q1, 4-3 Q2)

Of course the worst team always has a tougher schedule in part because as the worst team they will never play against the worst team. But St Joe does have a tougher schedule than other weak teams.

Something to keep in mind when predicting the final A-10 standings: Davidson really gets screwed as a team that is likely to be in the middle of the pack, but plays a much tougher schedule than the rest of the middle teams. On a lesser scale, Loyola gets a small boost from having a relatively easier schedule than the other top level teams whereas Rhody & UMass get small boosts by having relatively easier schedules than other middle of the pack teams. Money is on St Joes finishing last given their 6th toughest schedule and projected as the worst team.

For anyone who cares, This is our 10th H and H with Dayton since the A10 stabilized in 2013/14 after the multiple departures. This will be our 4th H and H with VCU, (there should have been more) Amazingly this is our 1st H and H with Davidson (they came in 14/15) Of course this is our first H and H with Loyola

-yep, let's go win a league title -I guess the ADept will have some sort of Jordair Jett promotion when SVU comes to town?

No ouch about it, this is exactly what we needed. I'm pumped.

By T-rank (https://barttorvik.com/trankpre.php) projected finish: 1. Dayton - H & A 2. SLU - N/A 3. Loyola - H & A 4. VCU - H & A 5. Richmond - A 6. Davidson - H & A 7. Mason - H 8. Rhody - H 9. UMass - A 10. Fordham - A 11. LaSalle - H 12. Bona - H 13. GW - A 14. Duq - H 15. St Joes - A Hold serve at home / beat all the teams we should on the road. Barring unforeseen circumstances, anything worse than 13-5 is totally unacceptable. O/U is probably 14-4 or 15-3? Loving that we don't have to travel to Olean to face what looks like mediocre / bad Bona team and that we finally get to place Davidson at home. I like that we have the same H&H pairings as Dayton so there isn't a big SOS difference between the projected top 2.