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Ford's recruiting recruiting results have not been acceptable since the the Yuri/Jimerson/Hargrove class in 2019. The bad recruiting results actually started before NIL. That said, Ford's recruiting in retrospect has been overrated all along. We all just bought into the hype because as fans we wanted to believe. He only had one great recruiting class. The class with French and Goodwin. Even that class was marred by taking risk with questionable character transfers that almost destroyed the Ford era before it even really got started. The "best recruiter ever at SLU" has actually recruited less talent to SLU over his time period than Grawer, Spoon and Majerus. Just stack up the names they brought into the program and compare them to those Ford did. It really isn't close.

Is there any possible way to defend what Ford is doing here? Going into this year, I was pro ford. I didn’t think he deserved to be fired after last year, clearly regret that thought process now. Theres no way to spin what has happened this year. We’re 231 in the NET and the laughing stock of the conference. If Fords not fired after this year, then I will never watch another SLU basketball game again.

Chris May and Travis Ford have not pushed the national profile of the Saint Louis Billikens forward under his tenure. That’s all that needs to be said.

I just wanted to stop by this thread on the 2023-2024 season to say that I am not enjoying the 2023-2024 season. Thank you for listening to my TED Talk.

Shot clock violations out of two consecutive timeouts is all you need to know about Travis Ford.

A portion of the endowment is not liquid. SLU’s endowment is used for disbursements for designated funds, but the endowment serves a large purpose as collateral for debt issuances that they use to finance capital projects like new dorms or academic buildings.

I agree - it looks better on merch and it shows up WAY better on the graphics that are used online, for TV highlights, etc. And just anecdotally, kids seem to like it - I've seen way more kids wearing SLU gear in the last few years.

Other than the insane out of bounds call by "TV Ted" we got very favorable foul calling in that game. They whiffed on one or two Loyola fouls, I need two hands to count all the reach ins we committed without repercussion. Please don't start blaming stripes for this. What a joke. Bad teams that made bad mistakes blame refs. Even CTF didn't blame the refs for this debacle.

I’ve watched 2 games this year. Lifelong fan. Over the past 10ish years I rarely missed a possession. My engagement as a fan is at an all time low. I almost feel guilty. Im just so checked out on TF

Travis has a mini conniption fit every trip down the floor. No wonder players lack confidence

When was the the last time a starter level player on an at large bid NCAA tournament team committed to SLU out of high school? The last such player was Gibson Jimerson and it was almost 5 and half years ago when he verbally committed to SLU.

now you are just being unreasonable. the champions center was planned and fund raised and construction started before NIL was ever dreamed would be allowed. i am sure if we could turn back time things would be different. but to blame that on Chris May is reasonable.

I will try to simplify this. First , The Bills did not look ready to play a t the opening buzzer. They were out of sync....Like a first game of the season.....especially the first half of the game. Let's look at the key factors.... Watson had a career night...that 1 game that far exceeds...he came in averaging 9.7 pts /gm...tonight 24pts....His slash coming into tonight was a very weak...39/31/63....Tonight he was 70/ 71/ 56...not even close to a sustainable level. Throw in 6 rebs and 4 steals and you have a career night. BUT..... Even with all that... this game was winnable...How? By The Bills playing just an average Bills game...Let's look at the numbers. 1...TOs...especially the first half...The out of sync Bills had 11 TOs....That is what they average for a full game...Let me repeat that ...The Bills had an entire game of TOs in 1 half....Hard to come back from that.... Again, let's simplify...points off TOs...Bills 14...Loy 21...the difference is 7 pts...difference in game pts ...7...the difference in the game 2..Slash....Projected (which is close to the Bills season slash)...46/39/73...actual slash...42/35/42... we shot the same from FT line as we did from the field...never a good thing...time to break it down. Here is what The Bills needed to do to make the projected average season slash....1 more 2/ 2 more 3s/ and 6 more FTs ... all that equals...2+6+6=14pts. What this means is that even with Watson having a career night AND a dismal TO stat the Bills still could have won by 7 with an average shooting night. Making some FTs alone probably would have saved the day....42% is embarrassing. Bottom line ...If the Bills just shoot average tonight ...they win.... even with a career Dez night plus butter fingers.

Lol "we'll get started on that tomorrow...." Well the game was today Travis.

3 pt defense is comical really

Can’t blow a lead when you don’t have one.

40-33 Biilkens lead at halftime. TO’s are 13-11 with SLU giving up more, but points on TO’s 17-16 is pretty even. SLU winning the rebound battle 14-9, and shooting 62/50/71. Keep going Billikens!

You could fire ford solely based on the defense alone

I was teaching in London one semester, years ago, when my kids were young. We signed our boys up to play with one of the local youth "football" teams (our older son had some talent, but we're talking about when they were still under 10 years old). Fulham was still in one of the lower divisions at the time. My older son's team was selected to play a scrimmage during halftime of one of their games. What a great experience and great memory. He can say that he's actually played on the field at Craven Cottage. The Billiken connection makes the memory even more special.

I can definitely use your tickets. Will message you.

The fans needed Bourbon and Scotch IV’s….

i agree with this. lowering his salary increases the chances he doesnt get fired and will stay even longer than the 3 or 4 more years he is under contract. ! i dont want him here any longer than necessary. i just pray one of the whales comes forward and puts him out of our misery.

Said this last night at the game. Love Gibby, but he (seems to) never hit the three that ties it up, or takes the lead, or cuts in to a one possession game. If we need a big shot at any point, I want it in Hargrove’s hands. Only one on the team that has demonstrated any semblance of being “clutch”.

Texas Hold'em

It isn't 400k. It is 500k++. It comes from about as knowledgable as you can get and not be named Travis or Fred. Like any donor funded initiative, it is that now but could change by 2 pm if someone gets pissed and pulls their support or adds another 100k on top because they had a good year at the dog track. You'll never have evidence of what BVF has, sorry. No NIL collectives are really publishing what they're doing financially. They'll publicize cars, deals with companies, etc, but you won't get the actual payouts to players. There is a lot of bull**** floating around out there about all these deals which is what keeps it interesting.

I don't disagree. I just disagreed with Soderball's interpretation of Roy's post. Economics wise, you are correct that paying the buyout may be the better financial decision. I also agree with your take about Ford offering to lower his salary. What would he make at his next job? Not $2.5M. Probably more like $500K to $750K. It would be better to take decrease now to bring in better players than to lose that much of your money stream over time. I know he would be owed more from this contract, but if he plans to continue coaching long term, it might be a better call.

Travis couldn’t carry Rick or Spoon’s jock when it comes to coaching or teaching the game.

I'll add that the energy Thames and Hughes Jr displayed was a positive. Both showed they belonged on the floor with the game on the line. I do wish Jr would find a mid range jumper. All 7 of his attempts were behind the arc. And of course both need to get better at the FT line.

Also he's going to have to put his house on the market at a time when interest rates are high and B-Roy is retired. But the cost of living near Berea College will be much less. I hope Realtor Troy Robertson gets him a motivated buyer.

He could do it and would still lose. Dude has won a NCAA tournament game in 27 years of coaching. He could have Lebron and still F it up some how. He's a loser, and will always be a loser.

You keep bringing this up and I keep telling you it's not going to happen, but I figured I might as well try to explain why we can't pay high coaching salaries (or NIL) out of the endowment. 1. The endowment is not a single fund. An endowment the size of SLU's is likely thousands of individual donor fund accounts that generate spendable interest in perpetuity. Endowments exist to provide guaranteed sources of funding, not as a rainy day fund. 2. Fundraising campaigns generally fall into 4 categories: 1. student support (scholarships, fellowships, etc.), 2. academic program support, 3. faculty support, and 4. capital projects. Category 1 is generally the largest, and the most important as college becomes increasingly unaffordable. Growth in the endowment fund needs to keep up with tuition increases to ensure that scholarships are as valuable in the future as they are today. 3. Many funds within the endowment are restricted. However, even unrestricted endowment funds represent donations from individual donors and if they see them getting used in ways that could be seen as irresponsible - how many would see buying out a bad coaching contract, for example - it's going to create discontent among the last group of people a university wants to alienate. 4. In most states, there are laws that protect donor intent and ensure prudent use of gifts given to institutions to be available through investment and investment income. In other words, if the school were to use endowment funds/income for buying out a contact or paying an exorbitant salary, it would open itself up to possible (let's be honest, probable) litigation. 4a. In fact, there are legal terms established when funds are accepted into the endowment that say that the funds must be invested according to the school's investment policies, only a certain percentage of annual earnings may be spent, earnings over the allowable spend amount must be reinvested, and funds can't be disbursed if the investment loses money until it is back above water. 5. A lot of funds are not paid out in full to the university at the time they are announced. Someone may make a $10 million gift that pays out over 10-20 years, for example. I'll sum this up with an example that I find helpful from Inside Higher Ed: "Let’s say an institution invests its $50 million endowment, and the spending policy allows the institution to spend 4 percent of annual earnings. If 8 percent was earned (or $4 million) in a particular year, then $2 million can be spent, and $2 million will be added to the $50 million endowment. As a result, there is $52 million to invest the following year, and if the return is equal to the previous year, then there will be $2,080,000 to spend, and the endowment grows to $54 million, and so on. OK. So now you understand that an endowment of $50 million may only add $2 million to the annual budget. You think, “Hey, $2 million is nothing to sneeze at. I can think of a lot we could do with $2 million.” But one must remember that the original $50 million endowment is made from a bunch of smaller endowments. Most of these smaller endowments have restrictions about what the money can be used to fund. Theoretically, the breakdown could look like this: 50 percent is restricted to scholarships, 25 percent to programmatic support, 15 percent to athletics, 8 percent to specific positions and 2 percent to unrestricted general purposes. In this scenario, that would mean there is only about $40,000 that is unrestricted (can be used for any purpose)." tl;dr - We can't use the endowment to buy out Ford's contract. Your line "so get that out of our heads" is accurate. I hope this helps.

Jordan Goodwin and Hasahn French masked a lot of Ford’s deficiencies. Travis owes them millions of dollars, because there’s no way he has a job here still without those two.

I get what you're saying Roy; frankly i don't really care as much if it's just pro sports(which it is) as you do. I do agree that apathy is the best recourse; Ford is gone once the costs to keep him outweigh the costs to fire him. From that perspective I hear you. I think that the calls to not be outraged or enraged or calling out the crummy AD and mediocrity acceptance of the school is grossly misplaced. We disagree on a lot, but i know perfectly well that you know what you're looking at out there on the court. I just think you're wrong on this and being enraged at and calling for Ford to be gone remains effective and fans should continue to do so, vehemently. SLU already invested in a D1 program with this champions center and Chaifetz arena. That ship already sailed. I never thought Ford would actually be here for 8 years. These long-running coaching contracts are just idiotic. Noone was ever coming to get CTF. We took a has-been, knew we were taking a has-been, and signed him up like he was Shaka Smart. Nuts.

After last nights game I walked through Champion’s Center, while very nice, it’s just a building. I wondered how in the world did Chris May not prepare for NIL world over building this place? I get a good program can and should do both. But SLU can’t seem to do more than one thing good at a time. How you don’t prioritize NIL esp if you are the AD and attend all those NCAA meetings is beyond me. If anyone thinks just firing Ford and not May is the answer, then get ready for more of what we have now. The guy might be the greatest person in the world, however he is not a serious or strategic/smart AD. It’s almost like he genuinely believed if I build this champions center, people will be so happy and want to just dump money into the program. Backwards and short sighted, which describes Chris May perfectly. Hard to defend keeping him and firing Ford. Kind of like cutting off a leg bc of diabetes but not addressing the person whose lifestyle choices caused the diabetes and just giving him another candy bar and saying it’s not your fault, still have one leg left, we are so lucky!

Never again is a bit extreme but I won't bother attending or watching SLU basketball next year if Ford is back. With three kids 5 and under and an older one that always has something going on, my free time is extremely limited at the moment. I'd prefer to spend that time on something that lowers my blood pressure not increases it. I'm sure some on here that have unlimited free time and money to burn won't understand that.

Probably due to Drew’s uncle Teddy being on the officiating crew. I knew that was going to be an issue for us right from the jump.

I just want to see some kind of offensive scheme to get guys open. And on D see shooters challenged on 3’s and on drives to the hole. It’s not on the players, although we may not have top 50 talent, but it’s on how they are used. There is no discipline on either side of tha ball. We play helter skelter. While everyone else is playing Chess. He’s a recruiter but not a teacher/coach.

If I train for a marathon and then two weeks out from the race I get the flu for a week and don't get out of bed I will still be in marathon shape on race day. How are none of these guys in shape and why does everyone have some sort of injury? Is Travis Ford Munchausen-by-proxy or does our strength and conditioning coach have no idea what they are doing?

I think he needs 1 more year. Having the O'Laughlin Champions Center was the missing piece that and Parker this is a Final 4 team.

If you support ford, you don’t support slu (someone may have already said this)

Not in garage time, coach. Not in garbage time .

Absolutely pathetic

Hughes with a boneheaded foul

So says Captain Obvious.

Why is Meadows playing at all?

Fire Ford at halftime. Completely not ready to play. Blow it up

Ok sorry misread it. Yeah 6 makes better sense. So not as agregious. Bottom line SPUMAC sucks I hope they lose.

My newest add to the collection is your MLS Champion keeper!

Noland = tool, Forte = tool, North Texas State = toolshed.